a ttViuWa i hM i di i ^^^ i i ! MWWWWWJWWaWWWB JT^^ I! II BOSTON DAYS LILIAN WHITING'S WORKS The World Beautiful. First Series The World Beautiful. Second Series The World Beautiful. Third Series After Her Death. The Story of a Summer From Dreamland Sent, and Other Poems A Study of Elizabeth Barrett Browning The Spiritual Significance Kate Field : A Record The World Beautiful in Books Boston Days BOSTON DAYS THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY By LILIAN WHITING AUTHOR OF "the WORLD BEAUTIFUL," FIRST, SECOND, AKD THIRD SERIES; "KATE FIELD: A RECORD;" "a study op MRS. browning;" "the SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE," ETC. " Tell men what they knew before Paint the prospect from the door BOSTON • LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY • MDCCCCII *^^'^'<>« i^>i.i.>..i, UHK^^, CopyrigTit, 1902, By Little, Brown, and Company. All rights reserved Published December, 1902 i584;]8 UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. f 13.^'V ^•5^ C^t ^ TO CHARLOTTE WHIPPLE (Mes. Edwin Percy Whipple) WHOSE LIFE HAS BEEN ENSHRINED IN BOSTON'S GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS, THIS RECORD OF ITS BEAUTIFUL DAYS IS INSCRIBED WITH THE DEVOTION OF LILIAN WHITING " The fountains of my hidden life Are through thy friendship fair " TO THE READER jHE aim in this volume is simply to present some transcripts of the remarkable life in Boston during the nineteenth century, — the latter years of which came within the personal observa- tion and experience of the writer, and nearly all of which is, or has been until recently, within the memory of people yet living. It is not the design to attempt any history of literature, or specific biographical record, — but only to read backward, like the Chaldeans, some of those " delicate omens traced in air," — to in- terpret some of that mystic handwriting on the wall which, traced in the invisible ink of spiritual record by the great and good v/hose theatre of action was in this city, yet reveals itself as in letters of light, to the vision of sympathy and of reverence. It is the Boston whose ^' hierarchy was based on education, public service, and the importance of the ministry," — on culture, philo- sophic thought, literary art, and the ethics of spirituality, — which is studied in these pages. Boston was planted in prayer, and nurtured by spiritual uplifting. Cotton Mather, an ancestor of the writer of these pages, records TO THE READER in his " Magnalia " : " ' T is possible that our Lord Jesus Ciirist carried some thousands of Reformers into the Retirement of an American Desert on purpose that with an opportunity granted unto many of His Faithful Servants to enjoy the precious Liberty of their Ministry . . . He might then give a specimen of many good things which He would have His churches elsewhere aspire and aim unto, and this being done He knows not whether there be not all done that New England was planted for." Reverently may it be said that it doth not yet appear what greatness may await the Boston of the future, with her present wonderful activity in commercial and industrial development; in extension of her residence regions by means of her splendid system of local transit ; in the growing strength of her institutions, in the power and influence of her citizens ; but in one quality must the Boston of the Past and the Boston of the Future forever be united in identity, — the quality that has made her and will forevermore keep her to be the City of Beautiful Ideals. L. W. The Bru]S'swick, Boston, August, 1902. CONTENTS I. The City of Beautiful Ideals . . . • 3 II. Concord, and Its Famous Authors . . 103 III. The Golden Age of Genius 201 IV. The Dawn of the Twentieth Century . 325 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Phillips Broots Frontispiece From a photograph by Dr. Samuel J. Mixter Boston Common and the State House Page 3 Facsimile of a letter from John G. Whittier to Edwin P. Whipple "63 Facsimile, " The Rainy Day," by Henry W. Longfellow " 83 The Old Manse, Concord "108 The Orchard House "140 Louisa M. Alcott "150 From a crayon by Stacy Tolman, now first reproduced Facsimile of a letter from Henry W. Longfellow to Edwin P. Whipple "203 Edwin P. Whipple "209 From an original painting Facsimile of a letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes to Mrs. Whipple "216 Mrs. Edwin P. Whipple "220 From a crayon drawing Facsimile of a letter to Edwin P. Whipple from Ralph Waldo Emerson and others " 230 Facsimile, " The Chambered Nautilus," by Oliver Wendell Holmes "249 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Julia Ward Howe Page 268 From an early photograph Facsimile, " Power reft of aspiration," by Julia Ward Howe . "273 Facsimile of a letter from Rev. Edward Everett Hale to Edwin P. Whipple Winifred Howells From a painting by Helen M. Knowlton. Trinity Rectory Trinity Church "Identity," a picture by Elihu Vedder for Aldrich's poem Sarah Holland Adams From a photograph. The facsimiles are from manuscripts in the possession of Mrs. Edwin P. Whipple. 280 311 341 424 437 441 I THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS Spirits, with wliom the stars connive, To work their will.'' Every thought is public ; Every nook is wide. The gossips spread each whisper And the gods from side to side. Emerson. »q BOSTON DAYS THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS " Thou slialt make thy house The temple of a nation's vows," OSTON is, essentially, the City of Beautiful Ideals, and the mot that it is a condition and not a locality is not without its claim to literal acceptance. It is a fact so remarkable as to be unparalleled in the history of any nation that so large a number of eminent persons should be born within a period of hardly more than twenty years in or near one city, all of whom should be drawn to it by some law of spiritual magnetism, as the scene to be identified with their work and life. Although Mr. Alcott was born in Connecticut, Mr. Longfellow in Maine, Mrs. Howe in New York, and a few others of the group were born outside Boston, yet, prac- tically, they are all Bostonians in the sense of sym- pathy with the genius loci, and of their directive power as great leaders of thought. Between 1799 and 1823 there appeared a wonderful group that included Alcott, Emerson, Allston, Lydia Maria Child, Hawthorne, Eliza- beth Peabody, Dr. Hedge, George Ripley, George Bancroft, John Lothrop Motley, Eufus Choate, William BOSTON DAYS Lloyd Garrison, Robert C. Winthrop, Longfellow, Whit- tier, Prof. Benjamin Peirce, Margaret Fuller, James Freeman Clarke, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, Thoreau, Lucy Stone, Charles Sumner, James Russell Lowell, Edwin Percy Whipple, Julia Ward Howe, James T. Fields, Mary A. Livermore, Abby Morton Diaz, Edward Everett Hale, Francis Parkman, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Ednah D. Cheney. This group is a constellation of the Nineteenth cen- tury whose illumination has not faded as one by one they have nearly all passed on into the Silent Land. The presence of Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Livermore, Mrs. Diaz, Dr. Hale, Colonel Higginson, and Mrs. Cheney still charms the hour and radiates its inspiration to countless currents of life. In that impressive creation of Mr. St. Gaudens, the statue of "The Puritan," standing with a staff held in one hand and a Bible under his arm, there is typified the spirit in which Boston was founded. The story of the Puritan capital is a veritable ro- mance; it is the story of the fire that came down from Heaven to make itself the living coal on the altar; of life always invested with a certain stateli- ness as befitting a people of "quality and eminent parts." From those days of 1630 when John Win- throp wrote to his wife in England, "We are in Paradise where we enjoy God and Jesus Christ; is not this enough?" when that saintly young divine, John Harvard, with his slender endowment of eight hundred pounds and with the untold richness of his THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 5 endowment of faith and prayer, founded a college in the wilderness ; from those days to these of the Twen- tieth century, the story of Boston has not been less wonderful than that of old when Moses led his people into the Promised Land. The coming of Cotton and Increase Mather and of the Rev. John Cotton was an event of incalculably far-reaching influence. Mr. Cotton was followed by one of his most devoted parishioners, a woman whose strong individuality impressed itself on the life of the colony. This was Mistress Anne Hutchinson, the Mary Livermore of her day. Governor Winthrop characterized her as "a godly woman and of special parts, who had lost her understanding by occasion of her giving herself wholly to reading and writing; whereas, if she had attended to her household affkirs and such things as belong to women, and had not gone out of her way and calling to meddle in such things as are proper for men, whose minds are stronger, she had kept her wits and might have improved them usefully and honorably in the place God set her." Mistress Hutchinson was as indomitable as Lucy Stone or Mrs. Livermore, and she brought to bear a strong and determining influence. She was essen- tially a modern woman, three centuries in advance of her time. She had the same wonderful power to attract, to impress, to influence people and events that is so peculiarly the gift of Mrs. Livermore. Anne Hutchinson was a born mystic, a Transcenden- talist, and a holder of a belief not unlike that now BOSTON DAYS spriDging up under many phases and names, and everywhere recognized as the highest interpretation of spirituality. She believed in the direct intercourse between the individual and the Divine Spirit, which the Puritan clergy held to be a sacrilege and a heresy. They regarded the doctrine of " inner light " as a pecu- liarly objectionable heresy, and when Mistress Hutch- inson '' claimed to have evolved a knowledge of the Divine will from her inner consciousness" they de- nounced it as blasphemy. She was a born social leader, and as the only life of that day was the re- ligious life, — there being no newspapers, no dances, parties, theatres, concerts, or libraries, — nothing but the Sabbath services, followed by the church meet- ings and the Thursday lectures. Mistress Anne called together her women friends (" females," in the quaint phraseology of the day) and preached to them, giv- ing them an enthusiastic version of the Rev. John Cotton's latest sermon, with sundry original additions of her own. She became the fashion, the craze, the fad of her day. But the stern and narrow Puritan spirit rejected her : has not the world always stoned its prophets ? The home of Mistress Hutchinson was on the site of the Old Corner Bookstore, and of her personal power Mrs. Caroline H. Dall wrote : — " Her weekly lectures appear to have fascinated those who listened. She was richly endowed with wisdom and grace. She exhibited great inward resources and a saintly patience. The class of thinkers to which she belonged recognized the profoundest spiritual truths. THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 7 She had a wonderful memory, and no slight power of abstract statement and generalization. At her meetings there was perfect freedom of remark and question, — a fascination in itself, for the dictum of the churches ad- mitted neither. In her parlors objections might be offered. The neighboring towns rang with her praises ; the women who were so fortunate as to hear her reported her sayings. Even John Winthrop said, ' She hath a ready wit and a bold spirit.' " The Eighteenth century was a very important and determining period in Boston life. Benjamin Franklin was born in January of 1706, on Milk Street, his father's home being on the site once occupied by the office of the " Boston Post." Cotton Mather, who had become a minister of the Second Church in 1684, died in 1728, but his influence permeated the entire century, and it is, indeed, in the air to-day. In this great divine were united the names and the characteristics of the Mathers and the Cottons. His father was Dr. Increase Mather, pastor of the North Church, and, later. President of Harvard. His mother was Maria Cotton, a daughter of the Rev. John Cotton. Cotton Mather was born in Boston in 1663, and, in the quaint phraseology of his biography, " when he was half a year short of nineteen he proceeded master of arts, and received his degree at the hand of his father, who was then president." His tomb at Copp's Hill is the most noted one in the grounds, and the heavy slab of stone covering the vault where lie the bodies of the Rev. Drs. Increase, Cotton, and Samuel Mather bears simple inscriptions of names and BOSTON DAYS dates. During this century Peter Faneuil gave to the city the hall now bearing his name ; the first newspaper was founded ; and the settlement presented the appear- ance of an active trading town. The cows were still pastured on the Common ; but the social life held its rigid traditions of etiquette, and the ladies went their rounds in a chaise with one horse, attended by a colored servant, and in the early evening, after tea, for all Boston dined at midday, they walked on the Mall ; and "those not disposed to the evening lecture" adjourned to one another's houses. Great regard was paid to what they termed "gentility." Their ideas of enter- tainment are typified by a record in Judge Sewall's diary, which runs : — "I went to-day to look at my vault. It was an awful but pleasing treat. Having said ' the Lord knows who shall be brought hither next,' I came away." Social rivalries were not unknown in these times. That sturdy patriot, Samuel Adams, said of John Hancock, whose display of wealth he indignantly de- nounced ; " John Hancock appears in public in the state and pageantry of an Oriental prince. He rides in an elegant chariot attended by four servants in livery." The Boston of Revolutionary days is so familiar in all history that it may here be passed with little reference. During those years the story of Boston was identical with the story of the nation. It was a vital part of the national progress and has become as familiar as the alphabet. The local patriotism was strong and fervent ; and at the close of the war there set in a new era of THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 9 progress whose trend became distinctively that of intel- lectual and literary culture. Meantime journalism developed rapidly; a railroad was built from Boston to Worcester and another pro- jected southward to run through Dorchester, which brought out vigorous demonstrations of remonstrance. The residents of Dorchester declared that a railroad would be the ruin of business. Lucy Stone, when talk- ing of the opposition to woman suffrage, used often to relate with glee the indignant alarm felt by the people at the prospect of a railroad. "The cattle and the sheep grazing on the plains would be frightened to death," they said, "and the milk would be ruined." This curiously conservative element has always persisted in Boston, from the time of that remonstrance against a steam railway to that vigorous remonstrance in 1894 against granting a charter to RadclifFe College (which, happily, did not prevent its being done) ; and remon- strance meetings of women, protesting against political duties, consume, apparently, more time and energy than all the political duties they could undertake in a lifetime. The Nineteenth century opened as we have seen, with the appearance of a remarkable galaxy of men and women. William Lloyd Garrison, who was destined to play so potent a part in national progress, became conscious in his earliest youth of the work to which he was divinely commissioned, — that of freeing his country from that " sum of all villanies," human slavery. The wealth, in- 10 BOSTON DAYS fluence, and social prestige of his native city were arrayed against him. Little did he consider it, for is not one with God a majority? In an obscnre room up many flights of stairs this youth of nineteen set up the type of his paper, " The Liberator." He called meetings and proclaimed his message. The story of those days when Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Lydia Maria Child and the little band of brave reformers who gathered around them, held their meetings in Boston, — entering by back doors, leaving by circuitous routes, and literally taking their lives in their hands, — is a subject for the tragic muse. Among the remarkable group who were destined to contribute so largely to the formative influences of their century, the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop was a distin- guished figure, and one who illustrated a marked type of New England life. There have been two distinctive and contrasting types of life here, each of which has contributed to the fruition of latter-day culture. The one, that of material poverty, transfigured by qualities of intellect and spirit ; the other, that of inherited wealth and its attendant refinement of external environment. The majority of men whose names are the glory of New England have belonged to the former. Dr. Edward Everett Hale says that his boyhood belonged to the time when a gentleman could do anything, and there was no task he might not ennoble. Emerson cut wood during his college life to assist his progress. Plain living and high thinking were a badge of culture. Again, there were those who were born in the purple, THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 11 sons of inherited wealth, and among these were Wendell Phillips and Robert C. Winthrop. Independent of any necessity of earning a living, Mr. Winthrop had all his time to devote to the culture of his scholarly tastes. He belonged to a family whose name was one of the illustrious group of Bradford, Endicott, Winslow, and Winthrop. His ancestry includes many eminent names. Robert Charles Winthrop was born in Boston on May 12, 1800, and graduated from Harvard in the famous class of '29. The achievements of his life were purely those of statesmanship, which differs very widely from politics ; and as a statesman it is perhaps criti- cally true that he barely missed greatness, or, at least, the greatness that impresses itself as permanent fame. Perhaps his culture was a trifle too symmetrical to force itself in any one direction sufficiently to act immediately upon afiairs. All the latter years of his life he was easily the first citizen of Massachusetts. Wealth, honors, troops of friends, surrounded him. Yet Clay, Webster, and Sumner have fame more purely national. Mr. Winthrop w^as all his life a conservative, — with faultless taste, with intellectual power, with eloquence and elegance of address, with great charm of manner ; but the one grain of magnetism — or of madness per- haps — that is required for greatness was lacking in his symmetrical character. Whatever the impediments, however, in his nature and temperament, to the bringing a decisive influence to bear on the country at large, Mr. Winthrop was an ideal private citizen. His life was marked by scholarly pursuits in classic study, in historic 12 BOSTON DAYS research, and in literary enjoyment and appreciation ; by a fine religious sense, by moral dignity, and by social grace. His home was a centre of exquisite courtesy and gracious hospitality. On Washington's birthday, each year, it was his custom to receive every person, man, woman, or child, who cared to come to his house. It was an occasion so unique as to live forever in the social history of Boston. The manner of Mr. Winthrop suggested the French noblesse. A nobleman of the Fau- bourg St. Germain might have received all Paris as Mr. Winthrop did all who in his own city came to greet him. He had two homes, — a town house in Marlborough Street and a beautiful estate in Brookline. They are both historic homes, in which are gathered associations from the days of John Winthrop, his ancestor, and they abound in books, many of rare editions and exceptional copies, and in art and souvenirs of foreign travel. Mr. Winthrop was a lifelong communicant of Trinity Church, and it was largely due to his influence that Phillips Brooks, in 1869, accepted the call to Boston. Between the rector and his distinguished parishioner there was a devoted friendship ; and on the approach of the ceremonial of the consecration of Dr. Brooks to the Episcopate, he wrote to Mr. Winthrop saying : " Your presence will be the crowning token of the kindness and Christian friendship which you have given me all these years." Although some thirty years the senior of Dr. Brooks, Mr. Winthrop outlived his friend and rector. Nothing more typically represents the Boston of the Nineteenth century than the Athenseum Library. THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 13 Here the portraits of distinguished Bostonians look down from the walls, and their busts adorn long rows of pedestals on three sides of the upper reading room, with its book-lined alcoves. The very atmosphere holds the tradition and remembrance of the great and good, whose special resort it has always been. Henry James has laughed at the enthusiasm of the early Bostonians over the attenuated outlines of Flaxman, who first represented foreign art to this aesthetic circle ; and the visitor of to-day may smile to recall the serious devo- tion with which Margaret Fuller sat before the few casts and the paintings of AUston, to record her " Impressions." Evidently, the lovers of Art made up in enthusiasm for what they lacked in pictorial subjects, for we find Mary Peabody (later Mrs. Horace Mann) writing to her sister Sophia (Mrs. Hawthorne) as follows : — June 19, 1833. I went to Dr. Channing's yesterday afternoon and carried him your drawings, with which he was so en- chanted that I left them for him to look at again. He gathered himself up in a little striped cloak, and all radiant with that soul of his, said with his most divine inflection, '' this is a great and noble undertaking and will do much for us here." And then he rolled his eye- brows upon me in that majestic way of his, which, when it melts into a loveliness, as it sometimes does, soon takes captivity captive. In short, he was quite in an extasy with you. He showed me all the new books he had just received from England, which he thought a great imposi- tion, they being big books. Edward came in, and they 14 BOSTON DAYS greeted affectionately. After a long survey he exclaimed, ''why, Edward, you look gross — take care of the intellect ! " . . . The doctor, in the simplicity of his heart, never thinks of feelings, only of things, as Plato would say. Your affectionate sister, Mary. Dr. Channing was the great preacher of that day, and Boston society was largely of the Unitarian, or the Orthodox Congregational Faith. A little later Theo- dore Parker's great work was to come, and still in the undiscerned future lay the marvellous influence and power of Phillips Brooks. Music was already a factor in social life, and occasionally a Beethoven symphony was rendered. Modern languages were cultivated, and with the '' Conversation Classes " of Margaret Fuller, and the influence of Dr. Hedge and James Freeman Clarke, came a strong impulse toward German litera- ture. Margaret Fuller translated Goethe's " Conver- sations with Eckermann," and Elizabeth Peabody, in her bookstore, imported works of German philosophy. ^'In fact," says Mrs. Howe, recalling those days, " Boston had a reputation for pedantry that it did not desire nor deserve." There was, according to Mrs. Howe's recollections, " a certain reserve which charac- terized the hospitalities and general intercourse of that day. In the Boston of that time," she continued, "the gentlemen of business did not go far from the city in the summer, and there were a number of very beautiful country seats in the neighborhood. Strangers THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 15 comiDg to the city with proper iutroductions were invited to visit families at their country residences, on which occasions they were generally entertained with fruit and wine, the afternoon tea being then undreamed of." Mr. Allston was the celebrated painter in that period. His charm of presence not less than his genius drew around him a beautiful circle in which Elizabeth Peabody and Franklin Dana were among his nearest friends, and of an exhibition of his work, Miss Peabody wrote : — " These pictures of Allston's, in combination, form a great whole, which has a peculiar interest as a ivhole. Almost all communication of one mind with others is partial. You are made aware of different departments at different times. But here, at one glance, you take in the whole of a great mind, and are rendered silent in reverence." The founding of the Lowell Institute, whose lecture courses were initiated by Edward Everett, on the last day of 1839, and whose work has from that date to the present been one to reveal the most important discoveries in physics, the results of the deepest re- search into history, archaeology, or the most advanced thought in art, literature, and philosophy, — was an epoch-making event. From this platform have been heard Dr. Silliman, Asa Gray, Agassiz, Cornelius Conway Felton, Dr. Holmes, Lowell, George William Curtis, Edwin Percy Whipple, Professor Benjamin Peirce, Charles Eliot Norton, Robert C. Winthrop, Edward Everett Hale, William Dean Howells, Prof 16 BOSTON DAYS John Tjiidall, Dr. Brown-Sequard, Proctor the as- tronomer, Charles Francis Adams, Frank B. Sanborn Bayard Taylor, William James, pfere et fils, General Di Cesnola, James Freeman Clarke, Alfred Russel Wallace and, in later years. Professor Lanciani, Henry A. Clapp John Fiske, Dr. Henry Drummond, Protap Chunder Mo zoomdar, Prof. William T. Sedgwick, Percival Lowell Rev. Dr. E. Winchester Donald, Prof. Arlo Bates Felix Adler, Professor Darwin (the son of Charles Darwin), and many others of world-wide fame. Of the early decades Dr. Hale has said : — "Here was a little community, even quaint in some of its customs, sure of Itself, and confident in its future. Generally speaking, the men and women who lived in it were of the old Puritan stock. This means that they lived to the glory of God, with the definite i)ublic spirit which belongs to such life. They had, therefore, absolute confidence that God's kingdom was to come, and they saw no reason why it should not come soon. As a direct result of this belief and of the cosmopolitan habit which comes to people who send their ships all over the world, the leaders of this little community attempted everything on a generous scale. If they made a school for the blind, they made it for all the blind people in Massachusetts. They expected to succeed. They always had succeeded. Why should they not succeed ? If, then, they opened a ^ House of Reformation,' they really supposed that they should reform the boys and girls who were sent to it. . . . There was not an 'ism' but had its shrine, nor a cause but had its prophet. . . . The town was so small that practically everybody knew everybody. ' A town,' as a bright man used to say, ' where you could go anywhere in THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 17 ten minutes.' Lowell could talk with Wendell Phillips, or applaud him when he spoke. He could go into Garri- son's printing-office with a communication. He could discuss metaphysics or ethics with Brownson, and hear a Latter-Day Church preacher on Sunday. He could listen while Miller, the prophet of the day, explained from Rollin's History and the Book of Daniel that the world would come to an end on the twenty-first of March, 1842; — could lounge into the ' Corner Bookstore,' where James T. Fields would show him the new Tennyson, or where the Mutual Admiration Society would leave an epigram or two behind; or hear Everett or Holmes or Parsons or Webster read poem or lecture at the 'Odeon.' He could discuss with a partner in a dance the moral significance of the Fifth Symphony of Bee- thoven in comparison with the lessons of the Second or the Seventh. Another partner in the next quadrille would reconcile for him the conflict of free will and fore- knowledge. At Miss Peabody's foreign bookstore he could take out for a week Strauss's ' Leben Jesu,' if he had not the shekels for its purchase, as probably he had not. Or, under the same hospitable roof, he could in the evening hear Hawthorne tell the story of Parson Moody's veil, or discuss the origin of the Myth of Ceres with Margaret Fuller. Or when he danced 'the pastorale' at Judge Jackson's, was he renewing the memories of an Aryan tradition, or did the figure suggest, more likely, the social arrangements of the followers of Hermann ? Mr. Emerson lectured for him; Allston's pictures were hung in galleries for him; Mr. Tudor imported ice for him; Fanny Elssler danced for him; and Braham sang for him. The world worked for him — or labored for him. And he entered into the labors of all sorts and conditions of men. . . . 18 BOSTON DAYS " The truth was that literature was not yet a profession. The men who wrote for the ' North American ' were earn- ing their bread and butter, their sheets, blankets, fuel, broadcloth, shingles, and slates in other enterprises. Emerson was an exception; and perhaps the impression as to his being crazy was helped by the observation that these ' things which perish in the using ' came to him in the uncanny and unusual channel of literary workmanship. Even Emerson printed in the ' North American Review ' lectures which had been delivered elsewhere. He told me in 1874, after he had returned from England, that he had then never received a dollar from the sale of any of his own published works. He said he owned a great many copies of his own books, but that these were all the returns which he had received from his publishers." In the decade of 1840-50 the Lowell Institute courses became an important factor in Boston life. Webster, Everett, Choate, Channing, Sumner, Emer- son, Holmes, and Winthrop lectured on its platform. In 1845 Thomas Starr King removed to Boston, v^^here, as a friend said, " his rare genius, insight, and marvellous power of expression gave him a welcome everywhere." It was in 1847 that John Amory Lowell invited the noted Agassiz to come over from Switzerland to deliver a course of lectures before the Lowell Institute. Har- vard University invited the great naturalist to accept a chair, which he filled with a power that radiated far beyond Cambridge and Boston, leaving its impress on the world. Most fortunate was Professor Agassiz in his marriage to Miss Elizabeth Gary of Milton, a lady of beautiful and gracious presence who entered into his THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 19 scientific life with the enthusiasm of a scholar and gave to him ideal companionship of thought as well as of affection. Together Professor and Mrs. Agassiz made a memorable trip to the Andes, where over a period of several months he made important research. Mrs. Agassiz assisted him in recording the results of his observations. The first meeting of Longfellow and Agassiz is noted in a line of the poet's diary under the date of Jan. 9, 1847- " In the evening," writes Mr. Longfellow, " there was a reunion at Felton's to meet Mr. Agassiz, the Swiss geologist and naturalist, a pleas- ant, voluble man, with a beaming face." Some months later Mr. Longfellow gives another little glimpse of Agassiz and the nearer group of friends in this entry in his diary : — ' " Agassiz, Felton, and Sumner to dinner. Agassiz is very pleasant, affable, simple. We all drove over to South Boston to take tea with Mrs. Howe." There was leisure for friendship in all those years, and when the fiftieth birthday of Agassiz came (May 28, 1857), it was celebrated by a dinner given him at Par- ker's by fourteen of his nearer friends, Mr. Longfellow presiding. Dr. Holmes and Lowell both read poems written for the occasion and that of Longfellow (en- titled " The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz ") will be found in his poetical works. It was about 1859 that the Agassiz Museum at Harvard was founded. A foreign visitor in Boston about this time, writing of the circle of friends met at Mr. Longfellow's, thus refers to the great Swiss naturalist: — 20 BOSTON DAYS " And often, too, comes Agassiz, with his gentle and genial spirit, his childlike devotion to science, and — or he would not be a true son of his adopted country — his eager interest in the politics of the day. . . . Between the Poet and the Naturalist there exists a very warm friendship, and among other poetical tributes, Mr. Long- fellow has achieved the feat — for so it must seem to us, with our rigid English tongues — of addressing to his friend, in the October number of the 'Atlantic Monthly/ a gay and graceful chanson in his native language." On the departure of Professor Agassiz for Brazil (ill 1865) Dr. Holmes, Lowell, Longfellow, and other friends gave him a farewell dinner, at which Dr. Holmes read a humorous poem whose opening lines run : — " How the mountains talk together, Looking out upon the weather. When they heard our friend had planned his Little trip among the Andes ! How they '11 bare their snowy scalps To the climber of the Alps When the cry goes through their passes, ' Here now comes the great Agassiz ! ' " In later years, when the Emperor Dom Pedro of Brazil visited Boston, he was asked to choose the guests at a dinner to be given in his honor, and he named Agassiz, Holmes, Emerson, and Lowell. Dr. Hale has noted that with the arrival of Agassiz in America there was ended the poor habit of studying nature through the eyes of other observers. Agassiz died in 1873, and in the beautiful commemo- rative ode written for him by Lowell the lines occur : " His look, wherever its good-fortune fell. Doubled the feast without a miracle." THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 21 Transcendentalism was a spiritual impulse greatly stimulated by the German study and reading that took such hold on Margaret Fuller, James Freeman Clarke, Frederic Henry Hedge, George Ripley, Elizabeth Peabody and others in the decade of 1830-40. In the latter year " The Dial " was started ; and an autograph letter from Emerson to Elizabeth Peabody, without date, but necessarily written between 1840 and 1843 (as " The Dial " only lived three years), is as follows : " Can Miss Peabody oblige ' The Dial' (just ready for extreme unction) so far as to send the first of these two proofs directly to the printers? On page 480 occurs the phrase, ' a dead leveller,' Is the phrase a considered one ? I don't like the sound of it very well, but it may be right." Channing's influence was a potent one, reaching from the early years of the century; Theodore Parker also began to be felt as a great power about 1840 ; he was almost the Savonarola of his day. Thoreau and Bronson Alcott were unique personalities and a law unto themselves. "The acorn-eating Alcott," wrote Emerson of him to Carlyle, yet no one ever more fully appreciated another than did Emerson his Socratic neighbor. About 1840 the famous "Brook Farm" experiment was inaugurated, and its constitution stated its aim at an effort " to promote more effectually the great objects of human culture," and "to establish the external relations of life on a basis of wisdom and purity." 22 BOSTON DAYS In 1841 Hawthorne wrote from Brook Farm to a friend : — '' I have milked a cow. The herd has rebelled against the usurpation of Miss Fuller's heifer, and whenever they are turned out of the barn she is compelled to take refuge with me. She is not an amiable cow, but has an intelligent face and a reflective cast of character." Lowell, and others of the intellectual cult of that period^ were extremely simple in outward life. It is authentically recorded that Mrs. Hawthorne having bought a broom carried it home in her hand walking across the Common, and that Julia Ward Howe, escorted by Motley, walked home from a ball. Mrs. Edwin P. Whipple tells a pretty story of a visit of herself and her husband to the Hawthornes in the red house at Lenox, when Mr. Hawthorne and Mr. Whipple went out in the garden and picked currants for tea ; Mrs. Haw- thorne made biscuit, and Mrs. Whipple laid the table. But were not currants and biscuit and tea a feast for the gods when the Hawthornes and the Whipples sat down to this nectar and ambrosia ? The poet Longfellow had married the daughter of a wealthy house, — Miss Frances Appleton, who brought to the young poet the prestige of wealth and caste, while his widening horizon gave to her in after years the immortality of a poet's love. Mrs. Longfellow was a woman of great personal charm, of fine culture, and the old " Craigie House " became one of the most noted of literary homes. THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 23 The life of letters and art, of transcendental philo- sophy and speculative thought, and of reform had each its distinctive currents, yet largely meeting and occa- sionally identical each with the other. The Boston literati really belong to the nation, and the interest of their lives is in no sense local. The chronology of literary Boston extends even from the day of Anne Bradstreet to that of the present, with innumerable shadings and breaks and interrela- tions. The antislavery excitement and the civil war came in with a force that can hardly be dreamed of in reading the literary and social history of those times; it requires the presence and voice of some of those who w^ere actors in the drama to convey any adequate idea of the way society was divided against itself in ardent espousal of wrong as well as right. In the light of the present day it seems incredible to assert that Wendell Phillips was fairly ostracized by polite society in Boston for his espousal of antislavery ; that Garrison was dragged by a rope through the streets, — where now his statue, lifesize, sits enthroned, — and that Lydia Maria Child was denied the entrSe to the Athenaeum Library because she had published her book entitled " An Appeal for that Class of Americans called Africans." Equally absurd does it seem to learn that Mrs. Howe took her life in her hands, socially speaking, when she first attended a " Woman's Rights " — lately woman suffrage — convention. She herself relates the incident — which was to have such a controlling effect on general progress — with infinite humor. Reports 24 BOSTON DAYS of the absurdity and audacity of the " woman's rights " clique pervaded the town and challenged Mrs. Howe's keen sense of justice. So she fared forth to investigate for herself, although more than predisposed to believe in the absurdity. She went, she saw, and she was conquered, and convinced as well, by the sweet voice, the radiant presence, and the invincible logic of Lucy Stone, and she went out to take up her new and greater life of conquering larger territory for the reform and status of women. Yet before Lucy Stone initiated the "movement'' for the larger life of women, Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth Peabody were living it, and realiz- ing in outward experience the higher outlook of intel- lectual freedom. Many varieties of progress contribute to social advancement. We find Sophia Peabody writing to her sister Elizabeth a typical record of the quality of life in those days in the following : — " I went to my hammock with Xenophon. Socrates was divinest, after Jesus Christ, I think. He lived up to his thought.^' With such themes as these life concerned itself Mr. Frothingham regards the publication of Emer- son's "Nature" in 1836 as the entering wedge of the transcendental movement. The movement might, in- deed, have well been initiated by that wonderful insight which the Seer of Concord thus expresses : " We are escorted on every hand through life by spiritual agents, and a beneficent purpose lies in wait for us. " Two years THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 25 later Emerson deepened the impression made by his "Nature" by his famous address before the Divinity School of Cambridge, — an address that provoked an attack from Prof. Andrews Norton (the father of Charles Eliot Norton), who saw in it " the latest form of infidelity." In the mean time, Emerson's lectures grew more frequent, and his " Spiritual Laws," " Com- pensation," " Circles," and " Transcendentalism " were delivered before audiences who regarded these dis- courses as vital messages. In the latter lecture Emer- son said: — " The Transcendentalist adopts the whole connection of spiritual doctrine. He believes in miracles, in the per- petual openness of the human mind to new influx of light and power ; he believes in inspiration and ecstasy. He wishes that the spiritual principle should be suffered to demonstrate itself to the end, in all possible applica- tions to the state of man, without the admission of any- thing unspiritual, that is, anything positive, dogmatic, personal." When, in "The Over-soul," Emerson told his hearers that " The soul looketh steadily forward, creating a world before her, leaving worlds behind her," and that " the web of events is the flowing robe in which she is clothed," these revelations of the true nature of life formed the exclusive topic of conversation for many days. All this faith and fervor and mysticism that were in the air demanded a channel of expression beyond that of the pulpit and the platform ; and so " The Dial " came 26 BOSTON DAYS into existence, a quarterly magazine that had less than four years' tenure of life, issuing only some fifteen numbers, and which yet left an indelible impress on the progress of thought. The special priest and priestess of these Eleusinian mysteries — Emerson and Margaret Fuller — were its editors, and their corps of fellow-conspirators, as Prof. Andrews Norton regarded them, — the apostles of '^ the latest form of infidelity," — included Elizabeth Peabody, James Freeman Clarke, George Ripley, William Henry Channing, Theodore Parker, Christopher P. Cranch, and others. Mr. Cranch was an artist and poet ; a man of singular purity and beauty of life and clearness of spiritual vision. One poem of his should be held in living memory, of which the opening stanza runs : — " We are spirits, clad in veils ; Man by man was never seen ; All our deep communion fails . To remove the shadowy screen." The poems of Emerson were from time to time appearing in ^* The Dial," — largely received with the unpenetrating awe vsdth which the average tourist reads an Assyrian inscription, — poems with such lines as these : — " A spell is laid on sod and stone ; Night and Day were tampered with, Every quality and pith Surcharged and sultry with a power That works its will on age and hour." Or again : — THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 27 "The living Heaven thy prayers respect, House at once and architect, Quarrying man's rejected hours, Builds therewith eternal towers ; Sole and self-commanded works. Fears not undermining days, Grows by decays, And, by the famous might that lurks In reaction and recoil, Makes flame to freeze, and ice to boil." Emerson was offering the message that " There is no great and no small To the Soul that knoweth all ; " or he was giving the wise counsel in the ^^Sursum Corda": — " Seek not the spirit if it hide Inexorable to thy zeal; Trembler, do not whine and chide; Art thou not also real ? " Or he enjoined on his followers : — " Eat thou the bread which men refuse. Flee from the goods which from thee flee ; Seek nothing, — Fortune seeketh thee. Nor mount, nor dive ; all good things keep The midway of the eternal deep." Everywhere he taught the supremacy of the soul; that facts and events were ^^ fluid" to this supreme potency. He pictured the flowing events of life^ — the circumstance and condition as the mere transient scenery through which the soul is making her pilgrimage. " The soul is ceaselessly joyful/' he affirmed, and herein 28 BOSTON DAYS is one of the greatest of insights, which, if truly realized and merged into experience, makes the realization an absolute epoch in life. Emerson, whom Dr. Holmes aptly called " the Buddha of the West," continued his lectures ; and of one of these lectures we find Lowell humorously saying : — " Emerson's oration was more disjointed even than usual. It began nowhere and ended everywhere; and yet, as always with that divine man, it left you feeling that something beautiful had passed that way, something more beautiful than anything else, like the rising and set- ting of stars. . . . He boggled, he lost his place, he had to put on his glasses ; but it was as if a creature from some fairer world had lost his way in our fogs, and it was our fault and not his. It was chaotic, but it was all such stuff as stars are made of, and you could not help feeling that if you waited awhile all that was nebulous would be hurled into planets, and would assume the mathematical gravity of system." The social life was ideally full and rich in constant intercourse, and a little note from Emerson to Sophia Peabody is again indicative of its trend : — . . . "Our common friend, Mr. Alcott, the prince of conversers, lives little more than a mile from our house, and we will call in his aid, as we often do, to make amends for our deficiency, when you come. Will you say to your sister Elizabeth that I received her kind letter relating to certain high matters, which I have not yet been in the vein to answer, — indeed, I dreamed that she knows all my answer to that question, — has it already in her rich suggestion, and only waits for mine to see how they will tally." THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 29 Elizabeth Peabodj, who is visiting Mr. Emerson, thus writes to her sister Sophia : — Concord, Mass, June 23, 1839. Here I am on the Mount of Transfiguration, but very much in the condition of the disciples when they were prostrate in the dust. ... I went to Allston's on Tues- day evening. He was in delightful spirits, but soft as a summer evening. ... I carried to him a volume of "Twice Told Tales" to exchange for mine. He said he thirsted for imaginative writing, and all the family have read the book with great delight. I am really provoked that I did not bring " The Token "with me, so as to have "The Mermaid" and "The Haunted Mind" to read to people. I was hardly seated here, after tea yesterday, before Mr. Emerson asked me what I had to say of Hawthorne, and told me that Mr. Bancroft said he was the most efficient and best of the Custom House officers. Mr. Emerson seemed all congenial about him, but has not yet read his writings. He is in a delightful state of mind ; not yet rested from last winter's undue labors, but keenly industrious. He has uttered no heresies about Mr. AUston, but only beautiful things, — dwelling, how- ever, on his highest merits least. He says Jones Very forbids all correcting of his verses ; but nevertheless he [Emerson] selects and combines with sovereign will, " and shall," he says, " make out quite a little gem of a volume." " But," says he, " Hawthorne says Very is always vain. I find I cannot forget that dictum which you repeated ; but it is continually confirmed by himself, amidst all his sublimities." And then he repeated some of Very's speeches and told how he dealt with him. Mr. Emerson is very luminous, and wiser than ever. Oh, he is beauti- ful, and good, and great ! 30 BOSTON DAYS We find Hawthorne writing to Sophia Peabody, his fiancee : — 6 o'clock, P.M. " What a wonderful vision that is, — the dream angel. I do esteem it almost a miracle that your pencil should unconsciously have produced it ; it is as much an appari- tion of an ethereal being as if the heavenly face and form had been shadowed forth in the air, instead of upon paper. It seems to me that it is our guardian angel, who kneels at the footstool of God, and is pointing to us upon earth, and asking earthly and heavenly blessings for us, — entreating that we may not much longer be divided, that we may sit by our own fireside." " Thought is the wages For which I sell days." The period known as Transcendentalism in New England has been alike the subject of mystery, ridicule, admiration, and serious study. Perhaps it has never been more perfectly defined than by Mrs. Caroline H. Dall, who says that it is an arc, one end of which was held by Anne Hutchinson and the other by Margaret Fuller. The arc might, however, be still more widely extended in its true spiritual inclusiveness if one contemplates it in the light of that deeper realization expressed by the poet, that, — "... Through the ages, one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the progress of the suns." Life is but another name for spiritual evolu- tion. Every process and achievement are but steps THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 31 in the vast and sublime work of the liberation of the spirit. The special period in Boston, however, designated by Transcendentalism lies easily between the two decades of 1830-50, during which time Margaret Fuller held her " Conversation Classes," Mr. Ripley and his associates luxuriated at Brook Farm, and Mr. Alcott amazed the educational world by the original methods in his school whose curious processes were recorded by Elizabeth Peabody. Dr. Bartol was eleven years the junior of George Ripley, but he was associated with him as one of the original members of the Transcendental Club, whose initial meeting was held (in September of 1836) in Mr. Ripley's house. There were present Emerson, Alcott, Dr. Channing, Dr. Hedge, James Freeman Clarke, Orestes A. Brownson, and Convers Francis, a brother of Lydia Maria Child. A year later Margaret Fuller, Theodore Parker, and Elizabeth Peabody were added to the numbers. Theology, revelation, and in- spiration were the chief themes that fascinated their meditations. " The conversation turned on a few central ideas," said one of the habitues, — " Law, Truth, Indi- viduality, and the Personality of God." The problems of civilization engaged the attention of Mr. Ripley and Dr. Channing very closely, and elicited '' great power of thought and richness and eloquence " in their discus- sion, — an eloquence which Theodore Parker declared " would equal any of the beautiful dialogues of Plato." George Ripley — born in Greenfield, Mass., in 1802 — 32 BOSTON DAYS was one of the remarkable men of the preceding century. Graduating from Harvard at the age of twenty-one, he soon became the pastor of an Unitarian society in Boston. At this time Dr. Channing was preaching in Federal Street, F. W. P. Greenwood at King's Chapel, Francis Parkman the elder, in Hanover Street, John Pierrepont in Hollis Street, and Charles Lowell, the father ol the poet, was the pastor of the old West Church in Lynde Street. It was as the original founder of the community known as Brook Farm that Mr. Ripley has been chiefly temembered, although this episode in his career is not entitled to pre-eminence over his work as a literary man and a preacher. Social reform was in the air in 1840 as prominently as is now the labor question, — each movement having for its basis a desire for the improvement of humanity. In the air, too, was one magic name, — a name to con- jure with, for Margaret Fuller was not so much merely or even mostly the literary woman, as she was a great force in life. It has been asserted that she was not only the greatest woman of letters in America, but the only one who ever produced work of any consequence. This extravagant statement has led not unnaturally to contradiction equally extravagant by those who seem to possess no true recognition of her real greatness. A close student of profound, original power, of a wide and exquisite culture, a fully trained and philosophic mind, and a gift that can perhaps best be described as divina- tion, — in these Margaret Fuller was supreme. In her THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS SS writings there is the quality of greatness, there is a depth of spiritual insight, there is a high order of thought, for which, indeed, too high appreciation can hardly be claimed. Yet on the other hand she lacked form, lacked artistic expression, the records she has left are meagre in quantity, and indeed the true view of Margaret Fuller is perhaps that she was one of the greatest and the most exalted spirits ever sent into this world, whose brief life here, in a constant conflict with conditions, did not give her time or opportunity for the development of her essential self. All her aims and hopes transcended the sphere of ordinary life. Her literary work, too, is the work of a woman whose life up to the age of thirty was almost entirely occupied in teaching and who died at forty. Her greatest literary achievement, " History of Italy," was lost in the ship- wreck which swallowed up her life and that of her husband and child. Margaret Fuller was born in Cambridge on May 23, 1810, and died in the shipwreck off Fire Island, New York, July 19, 1850. She was a precocious child, reading Latin at six, and familiar from her nursery days with the great literature of the world. Her life as a teacher was full of arduous care. She supported her invalid mother, sent two of her brothers through college, and domestic life and cares weighed heavily on her, yet all this time her student life surpassed an acquire- ment of that of almost any modem girl at college with no care or claim upon her save that of study alone. She was thirty- five years of age when she went 3 34 BOSTON DAYS abroad. A year later she became the wife of the Marquis d'Ossoli. In 1847 her son Augelo Eugene was born, and three years later her life on earth, with all its historic and tragic story, was over. Thus it will be seen how little of that literary leisure, that calm margin of creative thought, fell to her lot. The only wonder is that she left any literary work at all, and, as she her- self said, the pen in her hand was a non-conductor. Margaret Fuller was indeed a muse, a sibyl, an impro- visatrice, rather than a literary woman in the restricted sense of producing literature. She was a great force, an elemental power in life. She was the diviner of mental states and the inspirer of nobler aims. ^' All the good I have ever done," she once said, " has been by calling on every nature for its highest." In this, the calling on every nature for its highest, lay the secret, too, of the potent influence of Phillips Brooks. That was his gift. He recognized the ideal in every man, and to that he appealed. James Freeman Clarke has said of Margaret ; — " She was indeed the friend. This was her vocation. She bore at her girdle a golden key to unlock all caskets of confidence. Into whatever home she entered she brought a benediction of truth, justice, tolerance, and honor, and to every one who sought her to confer or seek counsel she spoke the needed word of benignant wisdom." Her published works are comprised in five volumes : " Summer on the Lakes," " Woman in the Mneteenth Century," a volume of literary reviews entitled " Art, Literature, and the Drama," and two volumes of miscel- THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 35 laneous papers, " Life Without and Within/' and " At Home and Abroad." But it is indeed more than a question as to whether she can be truly recognized as a writer alone until the reader comes into a certain sym- pathetic comprehension of her very remarkable per- sonality, which was truly an embodiment of the rarest genius. In the stimulating atmosphere of Cambridge, Margaret Fuller grew into womanhood. Her father, himself a university man, encouraged her precocious intellect. She was taught the Latin and English gram- mar at the same time, and reading Latin at six was absorbed in Shakspeare at the age of eight, and about the same time Cervantes, Coleridge, and Moli^re fasci- nated her. Before she was twenty she was giving daily lessons in three languages, steeping herself in German philosophy, in ethics, in history. The comparatively small amount of literary work that she has left makes this form of expression a merely incidental one in her life. In one quality it is possible that absolute literary pre- eminence may be affirmed of her, that of profundity. She drew from the deepest wells of thought, and this stamped her work with an impressiveness that contrasts vividly with that which is the mere product of native facility conjoined with literary tastes and scholarly acquirement. She had the power by some subtle alchemy to transmute any truth into a thought crystal worthy to be held as a law. Her ideals, her tempera- ment, and her circumstances kept up a continued con- flict among themselves. Good health, too, which is a very rational factor in life, was unknown to her ; but 36 BOSTON DAYS her sincerity, her magnanimity, her truth, her exaltation of spirit, her true humility, — in short, her nobility of soul never faltered. Her life was greater than her work. Mrs. Browning, meeting her in Florence, said in a letter to Miss Mitford,— "A very interesting person is Madame d'Ossoli, far better than her writings, — thoughtful, spiritual in her habitual mood of mind ; not only exalted but exaltee in her opinions, and yet calm in manner." Again, Mrs. Browning said of Madame d'Ossoli after her death : — " She was a most interesting woman to me, though I did not sympathize with a large portion of her opinions. Her written works are just naught. She said herself they were sketches thrown out in haste, and that the sole produc- tion of hers which was likely to represent her at all would be the ' History of the Italian Revolution.' In fact, her reputation such as it was in America seemed to stand mainly on her conversation and oral lectures. If I wished any one to do her justice I should say, as I have indeed said, ' never read what she has written.' The letters, however, are individual and full, I should fancy, of that magnetic i^ersonal influence which was so strong with her. I felt drawn in toward her during our short intercourse ; I loved her, and the circumstances of her death shock me to the very roots of my heart." Madame d'Ossoli passed her last evening in Italy with the Brownings before sailing on that voyage whose end lay in the unseen realm. THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 37 The friendships of Margaret Fuller were the most potent experiences in her life and these were very largely the channels of her spiritual activity. James Freeman Clarke says of her genius for friendship : — " The insight which Margaret displayed in finding her friends, the magnetism by which she drew them toward herself, the catholic range of her intimacies, the influence which she exercised to develop the latent germ in every character, the constancy with which she clung to each when she had once given and received confidence, the delicate justice which kept every intimacy separate, and the process of transfiguration which took place when she met any one on this mountain of Friendship, giving a dazzling lustre to the details of common life, — all these should be at least touched upon and illustrated to give any adequate view of her in these relations. ..." She saw when any one belonged to her and never rested until she came into possession of her property. . . . Margaret's constancy to any genuine relation once estab- lished was surprising. If her friends' aim changed so as to take them out of her sphere, she was saddened by it and did not let them go without a struggle, but whenever they continued ' true to the original standard,' as she phrased it, her affectionate interest would follow them unimpaired through all the changes of life. ^ Great and even fatal errors (so far as this life is concerned) could not destroy my friendship for one in whom I am sure of the kernel of nobleness.' She never formed a friendship until she had seen and known this germ of good, and afterward judged conduct by it. To this germ of good, the highest law of each individual, she held them true. But never did she act like those who so often judge of a friend from some report of his conduct as if they had never known him, 38 BOSTON DAYS and allow the inference from the single act to alter the opinion formed by an induction from years of intercourse. From all such weakness Margaret stood wholly free. . . . She was the centre of a group very different from each other, and whose only affinity consisted in their all being polarized by the strong attraction of her mind. . . . How she glorified life to all ! How she displayed always the same marvellous gift of conversation which afterwards dazzled all who knew her ! Those who know Margaret only by her published writings know her least ; her notes and letters contain more of her mind, but it was only in conversation that she was perfectly free and at home. . . . All her friends will unite in the testimony that whatever they may have known of wit and eloquence in others they have never seen one who, like her, by the conversation of an hour or two could not merely entertain and inform but make an epoch in one's life. We all dated back to this or that conversation with Margaret, in which we took a complete survey of great subjects, came to some clear view of a difficult question, saw our way open before us to a higher plane of life, and were led to some definite resolution or purpose which has had a bearing on all our subsequent career. For Margaret's conversation turned at such times to life, — its destiny, its duty, its prospect. With comprehensive glance she would survey the past and sum up in a few brief words its results ; she would then turn to the future and by a natural order sweep through its chances and alternatives, — passing ever into a more earnest tone, into a more serious view, — and then bring all to bear on the present till its duties grew plain and its opportunities attractive. . . . Events in life apparently trivial often seemed to her full of mystic significance." Margaret Fuller was in her twenty-fifth year when she first met and knew Emerson. A year or so earlier THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 39 Dr. Hedge had told him of her genius and scholarship and had loaned him her manuscript translation of Goethe's " Tasso." Emerson notes that he also became the more interested in her through the warm praises of Harriet Martineau, who passed the winter of 1835-36 in Boston and was for some time his guest. The strong courage and earnest sincerity of Miss Marti- neau made a deep impression on Margaret Fuller, who afterwards said of their first meeting, — '^I wished to give myself wholly up to receive an impression of Miss Martineau. I shall never forget what she said. It has bound me to her. In that hour, most unexpectedly to me, we passed the barrier that separates acquaintance from friendship, and I saw how greatly her heart was to be valued." At the time of her first meeting with Emerson he described himself as " an eager scholar of ethics and one who had tasted the sweets of solitude and stoicism," and he adds that " I found something profane in the hours of amusing gossip into which she drew me, and when I returned to my library had much to think of the crackling of thorns under a pot. Margaret, who had stufifed me out as a philosopher in her own fancy, was too intent on establishing a good footing between us to omit any art of winning. She studied my tastes, challenged frankness by frankness, and was curious to know my opinions and experiences." Emerson records that he had heard, and perhaps he partly shared, the rumor that Margaret was critical and disdainful of all but the intellectual, ^' but," he adds, " it was a super- 40 BOSTON DAYS ficial judgment." " When she came to Concord," he continues, "she was already rich in friends, rich in experiences, rich in culture. She was well read in French, Italian, and German literature. She had learned Latin and a little Greek, but her English read- ing was incomplete ; and while she knew Molifere and Rousseau and any quantity of French letters, memoirs, and novels, and was a dear student of Dante and Petrarch, and knew German books more cordially than any other person, she was little read in Shakspeare, and I believe I had the pleasure of making her ac- quainted with Chaucer, with Ben Jonson, with Her- bert, Chapman, Ford, Beaumont and Fletcher, with Bacon and Sir Thomas Browne. I was seven years her senior, and had the habit of idle reading in old English books, and though not much versed, yet quite enough to give me the right to lead her. She fancied that sympathy and taste had led her to an exclusive culture of southern European books." One of the mystic personalities who have left an impress on this time was Jones Very, a man spiritually akin to F^nelon and Madame Guy on. He appears as a curious figure against the background of religious tradi- tion. A graduate of Harvard and a tutor there for two years, he is a figure in the history of the college ; as a poet he was a Transcendentalist for Transcendentalists ; and his own unique personality was one remarked even in his own unconventional days. He was a man of absolute sincerity of life. His own attitude is typified in the lines from his sonnet entitled "Jacob's Well" : THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 41 " Thou pray'st not, save when in thy soul thou pray'st, Disrobing of thyself to feed the poor ; The words thy lips shall utter then, thou say'st, They are as marble, and they shall endure. Pray always, for on prayer the hungry feed ; Its sound is hidden music to the soul ; From low desires its rising strains shall lead, And willing captives own thy just control." Mr. Yerj believed in the absolute surrender to the Divine Will, and this faith he realized in outward life. He crystallized this faith in the lines, — " The Prophet speaks ; the world attentive stands ! The voice that stirs the people's countless host Issues again the Living God's commands." Jones Very was born in Salem in August of 1813, the eldest of six children. The family all had the gift of versification. Li his youth he was an ardent student and expressed a desire to go " to the depths of litera- ture." He graduated from Harvard in 1836 with the second honors of his class, and was immediately ap- pointed a tutor in Greek, carrying on his study of theology at the same time in the Divinity School. Exceedingly sensitive and reserved in character, enig- matic to many, his rare tenderness and sincerity shone through the reticence and reserve of his nature. Writ- ing verse was a part of the daily expression of his life. Like Milton, he regarded it not so much as his own gift, but as proceeding from "a power above him." Like all the group of which he was a prominent and beautiful figure, he was intensely religious ; to a degree, indeed, that made the general public pronounce him a 42 BOSTON DAYS monomaniac, but the keen insight of Mr. Emerson dis- cerned his true poise, and he said of Mr. Very that he was " profoundly sane " and added that he " wished the whole world were as mad as he." It was Elizabeth Peabody, however, who was his chief discoverer. She was the Rontgen ray that flashed its light through all manner of barriers, and her chief mission seems to have been always the revelation of persons to themselves. With her wonderful power of establishing rapport, she became very intimate with Jones Very. Her sister Sophia (afterwards Mrs. Hawthorne) also came to know him well, and in one of her letters to Elizabeth she thus speaks of Mr. Very : — *'I do not think I am subject to my imagination; I can let an idea go to the grave that I see is false. When I am altogether true to the light I have, I should be in the heaveu where the angelic Very now is. . . . Jones Very came to tea this afternoon. He was troubled at first, but we comforted him with sympathy. His conver- sation was divine, and such level rays of celestial light as beamed from his face, every time he looked up, were lovely to behold. We told him of our enjoyment of his sonnets. He smiled and said that, unless we thought them beautiful because we also heard the Voice in reading them, they would be of no avail. ' Since I have shown you my sonnets,' said he to me, ' I think you should show me your paintings.' Mary brought my drawing book and Aeschylos. He deeply enjoyed them." Elizabeth Peabody was deeply interested in Mr. Very's poems, which she says were produced very rapidly, pencilled down "just as they came to him," THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 43 often produced at the rate of two or three a day. These Mr. Very copied on a large sheet of paper, folded in pages, and when the daily supply of poetry was complete he brought it to her and she transmitted it to her familiar spirit, Mr. Emerson. In those days, we must remember, the chief occupation, the prevailing industry, it might be said, of these transcendental folk was to write and discuss each other's poems. Their inspirations were their special capital in life. In his journal Mr. Emerson alludes to Very and says : — " Our Saint was very unwilling to allow correction of Ms verses, but I, his friend, said, ' I supposed you were too high in your thought to mind such trifles.' Mr. Very replied, ' I value these verses not because they are mine^ but because they are not.' Very interesting are the jour- nal records of Mr. Emerson regarding Jones Very. In one place we find him saying : ' Jones Very came here two days ago. His position accuses society as much as society names that position false and morbid, and much of his discourse concerning society, church, and college was absolutely just. He has nothing to do with time because he obeys. A man who is busy has no time. He does not recognize that element. A man who is idle says he does not know what to do with his time. Obedience is in eternity. Mr. Very says that he feels it an honor to wash his face, being as it is the temple of the spirit. He also says that it is with him a day of hate that he discerns the bad element in every person whom he meets which repels him ; he even shrinks a little to give the hand, that sign to receive. His only guard in going to see men is that he goes to do them good, else they would injure him spiritually." 44 BOSTON DAYS Emerson's characteristic humor appears in the follow- ing extract from his journal, in which his amusement at Yery's eccentricities is revealed side by side with his appreciation of the poet's high character : — " I ought not to omit to record the astonishment which seized all the company when our brave Saint the other day fronted the presiding Preacher. The Preacher began to tower and dogmatize with many words. Then I fore- saw that his doom was fixed ; and, as soon as he had ceased speaking, the Saint set him right, and blew away all his words in an instant, — unhorsed him, I may say, and tumbled him along the ground in utter dismay, like my angel of Heliodorus ; never was discomfiture more com- plete. In tones of genuine pathos, he bid him wonder at the Love which suffered him to speak there in his chair of things he knew nothing of ; one might expect to see the book taken from his hands and him thrust out of the room, and yet he was allowed to sit and talk, whilst every word he spoke was a step of departure from the truth ; and of this he commanded himself to bear witness." Mr. Emerson often writes to Miss Peabody of the enjoyment he has in conversations with Mr. Very, and to the latter he wrote : '^ Do not, I beg of you, let a whisper or a sigh of the muse go unattended to or un- recorded." Again, we find Mr. Emerson writing to Miss Peabody : — "I cannot persuade Mr. Very to remain with me another day. He says he is not permitted, and no assur- ances that his retirement shall be secured are of any avail. He has been serene, intelligent, and true in all the con- versation I have had with him. He gives me pleasure and much relief, after all I had heard concerniug him." THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 45 Mr. Very's own mind is vividly revealed in this para- graph of a letter written to Mr. Emerson in 1838, in which he says : — ' ' I am glad at last to be able to transmit what has been told me of Shakespeare — 't is but the faint echo of that which speaks to you now. . . . You hear not mine own words, but the teachings of the Holy Ghost. . . . My friend, I tell you these things as they are told me, and hope soon for a day or two of leisure, when I may speak to you face to face as I now write." Later we find Jones Very ordained as a minister and one who brought wonderful power of unseen and un~ analyzed influence to bear on life. " To have walked with Very/' says anotlier clergyman, " was truly to have walked with God." And another appreciative clerical brother said, "I told my people that to see Very for half an hour in my pulpit was a far greater sermon than any ever preached to them from the lips of an orator." Perhaps the secret of the strong impression he made was his absolute realization of the Divine Presence as the great fact of life. He could not understand this fact as being vague or unreal to any one. One who knew him says that " in the height of his ecstasy he would sit for hours rapt in thought and gazing off into the infinite. Like the saintly Buddha he seemed long since to have slain ' love of self, false faith, and doubt,* a conqueror of the love of life on earth he had become. He regarded the whole duty of life as that of uttering the words given to him." 46 BOSTON DAYS It was in 1839 that the house of Little, Brown, and Co. — that old landmark among Boston publishing houses — published a small collection of Mr. Very's work, — fifty sonnets, three prose essays, and a few lyrics, and this was done, if one mistake not, by the request of Mr. Emerson. The life of Mr. Very was largely that of a recluse, although not by intentional choice. He had the isolation of his temperament. Not with any ego- tism, but with intense humility, he regarded himself as a prophet of God whose service was to be the channel of the divine messages to him. This thought is em- bodied in the following sonnet : — " I looked to find a man who walked with God, Like the translated patriarch of old : Though gladdened millions on his footstool trod, Yet none hke him did such sweet converse hold. I heard the wind in low complaint go by That none its melodies like him could hear ; Day unto day spoke wisdom from on high, Yet none like David turned a willing ear ; God walked alone unhonored through the earth ; For him no heart-built temple open stood. The soul, forgetful of her nobler birth, Had hewn him lofty shrines of stone and wood, And left unfinished and in ruins still The only temple he delights to fill." Dr. Hale, who knew Mr. Very, has recently said of him: — "I have been wishing that some one would prepare a notice of a man whose work is of the very first impor- tance, while his name seems to have been written in water. THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 47 " I lived from September, 1837, to Jialy, 1839, in Massachusetts. So did Samuel Longfellow. Very's room was in the same entry, and he was regarded as the proctor of that entry. He was evidently desirous to be on good terms with the boys in the entry, and always saluted us cordially and invited us into his room. I was but a boy, but Sam Longfellow and I had sense enough to see the genius and insight of the man. We had a very great respect for him, though we knew he was odd, and was called a crank. But a sort of diffidence prevented him from taking in the least towards us the tone of an instructor or a leader. As I was studying some of his sonnets within a fortnight past, I could not but ask my- self what might have happened to the world if this man, with his profound insight, had had the audacity or self- assertion of George Fox or of John Wesley. " We certainly knew that he was outside the line of common men ; we certainly thought that something was to come from that life. But I should say now that only the angels of God can say what infinite results are proceeding from his life in the minds of thoughtful men and women to-day." Mr. Very lived until the May of 1880, and of all that has been written of him nothing more delicately inter- prets his life than the words of Emersou when he said : " His words were loaded with fact. What he said, he held was not personal to him, was no more disputable than the shining of yonder sun or the blowing of this south wind. Jones Very is gone into the multitude as solitary as Jesus. In dismissing him, I seem to have dis- charged an arrow into the heart of society. Wherever that young enthusiast goes, he will astonish and discon- 48 BOSTON DAYS cert men by dividing for them the cloud that covers the gulf in man." The " Church of the Disciples " — that most ideally beautiful of religious organizations — was inaugurated in the house of Dr. Nathaniel Peabody in West Street in April of 1841, when a few persons subscribed their names to the declaration of faith as written by James Freeman Clarke: — " We unite together in the following faith and purpose ; our faith is in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. And we do hereby form ourselves into a Church of the Dis- ciples that we may co-operate together in the study and practice of Christianity." The first names following the signature of the founder and pastor were those of Dr. and Mrs. Peabody and their three daughters, Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia. Somewhat later came into this communion Dr. Henry B. Blackwell and his wife Lucy Stone, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Mrs. Hemenway, Mrs. Cheney, and many others whose names have flown to world-wide fame. From this initiation of the Church of the Disciples whose future held a power undreamed of by its founder, we may for a moment turn backward and study the life and personality of James Freeman Clarke, whose work expanded in many directions. He was the author of several books, of which the most important is his '' Ten Great Religions," which is held by students and thinkers as one of the most valuable works of authority, so extended is its re- THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 49 search into sacred history, so just and fair is it in tone. "The Christian Doctrine of Prayer," " Thomas Didymus," " Common Sense in Religion/' " Steps of Belief," " Events and Epochs in Religious History/' and " Self- Culture " are among his works. Dr. Clarke also wrote many poems of a contemplative and meditative charac- ter, and he wrote the introduction to a book on spirit- ualism, or at least a personal experience of a lady who was a seer of spirits and able to converse with them, and who did not realize during her early childhood that there was anything phenomenal in the appearance of the beautiful beings with whom she held conversa- tions. This book is called " Light on the Path," and in his preface Dr. Clarke expressed his entire confidence in the lady, and, practically, his acceptance of what may be termed spiritual spiritualism, — an acceptance which becomes almost an inevitable sequence, one would sup- pose, of the perfect faith in immortality and in revealed religion. No brief outline of the life of Dr. Clarke can adequately suggest that gentle persistence of energy which charac- terized him, save as it clothed with the personal memo- ries of his nearer circle of friends and the literary knowledge of that yet more extended circle of readers and thinkers on both hemispheres, to whom the name of James Freeman Clarke has been identified with some valuable religious works, and others, perhaps hardly less valuable, of the contemplative type. One of the earliest Transcendentalists, he was one of the purest teachers of that school of thought which has been exemplified in 4 50 BOSTON DAYS his life and work. He was free from the vagaries of Mr. Alcott, he was less magnetized by German metaphysics than Dr. Hedge, and he was of a less exclusively sub- jective temperament than Dr. Bartol. He offers the exceptional study of the purely contemplative life of the scholar who yet resisted the tendency to the closet and the cloister to which this temperament is always liable, and gave to public activities his best whenever duty called him. Not combining the saint and the seer, as did Emerson, he was not less the saint, and his life reveals to us how potent and how wide may be an influence that is as gentle, as quiet — at times as imper- ceptible — as that of the Holy Spirit in its working upon the hearts of men. His nature was the absolutely spiritual ; his kindness was given to the just and the unjust, and his character illustrated the gospel of love which he taught. Oh, beauty of holiness, Of self-forgetfulness, of lowliness ! " The Transcendentalism of New England has been a powerful force in American life. It is the leaven which has leavened national thought ; its influence has been universal, and in no sense geographical ; wherever books are read — and the readers and worshippers of Emerson are so numerous throughout all the great West that they give perceptible tone to intellectual life — wherever books can go, the transcendental spirit of New England has taken root in those temperamentally fitted to come into this spiritual attitude, and thus its force THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 51 has become a great and underlying power in our national life. By entering into the transcendental spirit a man was made " a citizen of the world of souls ; " he accepted a higher allegiance, and entered into the uni- versal life. Transcendentalism was really the purest form of idealism ; the insistence, or " the power of the thought and of will, or inspiration, or miracle, or indi- vidual culture," as against and as greater than " facts, history, the force of circumstances, and the animal wants of man." " James Freeman Clarke was a contemporary and an intimate friend of Theodore Parker," writes Mr. Frothingham ; " he was a co-worker with Channing, a close friend and correspondent of Miss Fuller, a sympa- thizer with Alcott in his attempts to spiritualize educa- tion, a frequent contributor to ' The Dial,' the intellectual fellow of the brilliant minds that made the epoch what it was. But his interest was not confined to the school, nor did the technicalities of or details of the transcendental movement embarrass him ; his catholic mind took in opinions of all shades, and men of all communions. . . . But though churchly tastes led him away from the company of themselves where he in- tellectually belonged, and an unfailing common sense saved him from the extravagances into which some of them fell, a Transcendentalist he was, and an uncom- promising one. The intuitive philosophy was his guide. It gave him assurance of spiritual truths; it interpreted for him the gospels and Jesus ; it inspired his endeavors to reconcile belief, to promote unity 52 BOSTON DAYS among the discordant sects, to enlighten and redeem mankind. His mission has been that of a spiritual peacemaker. But while doing this he has worked faithfully at particular causes; was an avowed and earnest abolitionist in the antislavery days. An enemy of violent and vindictive legislation, a hearty friend of laborers in the field of woman's election to the full privileges of culture and citizenship; a man in whom faith, hope, and charity abounded ; a man of intellect- ual convictions which made a groundwork for his life." The liberal and sympathetic mind of Dr. Clarke asso- ciated him sympathetically both with the adherents to the more liberal forms of evangelical truth and with the avowed liberals and radicals. This, indeed, is the true transcendental spirit to be able to see justly all forms of faith. Dr. Clarke's work exemplified impressively the spiritual charity which characterizes his *' Ten Great Religions." It was rather a matter of coincidence than of cause and effect that the enthusiasm for German literature and thought glowed so brightly among a little group at the time that the transcendental movement increased in strength. Dr. Hedge says that this had no very direct connection with the philosophy of Kant and his succes- sors, although the ideas of the German philosopher were eagerly sought and appreciated by a small group of young and ardent persons and this trend of thought became an outlet for superabundant spiritual activities. In this social circle there were a few who were especially bound to each other in the ties of noble and permanent friend- THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 53 ship, — Emerson, Miss Peabody, James Freeman Clarke, and Margaret Fuller. Dr. Hedge, as a youth of twenty, went abroad taking with him a letter of introduc- tion to Goethe, who received him most cordially. In 1830, when Dr. Clarke was editing a theological and literary magazine in Louisville, Ky., the correspond- ence between himself and Margaret Fuller began. Of this period Dr. Clarke wrote, in the memoirs of Miss Fuller, in which he collaborated with the Rev. William Henry Channing and Emerson — in his portion of these memoirs he wrote of Margaret : — " From 1829 till 1833 I saw or heard from her almost every day. There was a family connection, and we called each other cousin. She needed a friend. She accepted me for this friend, and to me it was a gift of the gods, an influence like no other." Mr. Clarke refers to this friendship as one that en- larged his heart and gave elevation and energy to his aims and purpose, — generous words of appreciation they are, for if Margaret gave him energy he surely gave her steadfastness and gentleness, and a faithful friend on whom her more mercurial nature could rely. While Dr. Holmes had no especial sympathy with the transcendental movement, there yet existed between James Freeman Clarke and himself a tender and beau- tiful friendship, which found expression in one of the most perfect lyrics of the genial Autocrat, who wrote for a birthday tribute to his classmate a poem containing these stanzas : — 54 BOSTON DAYS " I bring the simplest pledge of love. Friend of my earlier days : Mine is the hand without the glove, The heartbeat, not the phrase. ** How few still breathe this mortal air "We call by schoolboy names ! You still, whatever robe you wear, To me are always James. " That name the kind apostle bore Who shames the sullen creeds, Not trusting less, but loving more, And showing Faith by deeds." And the last stanza runs : — " Count not his years while earth has need Of souls that heaven inflames "With sacred zeal to save, to lead, — Long live our dear Saint James ! " Dr. Holmes often alluded to his old classmate as " Saint " James, and to a friend who spoke of this to him one day he smiled and said that at no period of Dr. Clarke's life would the title have been inappropriate, as he seemed always the embodied spirit of gentleness and peace, • — of love abounding and overflowing. Among the habitues of the home of Dr. and Mrs. Clarke were the Channings, Emerson, Longfellow and his brother, Rev. Samuel Longfellow, Mr. and Mrs. Whipple, Dr. Holmes, Rev. Dr. Andrew Preston Peabody, Dr. Hedge, Margaret Fuller, Christopher Cranch, Lydia Maria Child, Dr. and Mrs. Howe, Miss Peabody, Whittier, the Hawthornes, Lowell, Agassiz, and many THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 55 more of the good and the great, all of whom were familiar friends in their household. Between James Freeman Clarke and Margaret Fuller there always existed a confidential friendship. Writing to him under date of July 31, 1862, she says : — " I have no reserves, except intellectual reserves ; for to speak of things to those who cannot receive them is stupidity rather than frankness. Therefore, dear James, give heed to this subject. You have received a key to what was before unknown of your friend; you have made use of it ; now let it be buried with the past, over whose passages, profound and sad, yet touched with heaven-born beauty, let silence stand sentinel." And again she writes to Mr. Clarke : — " I have been happy in the sight of your pure design, of the sweetness and serenity of your mind. . . . Youth is past, with its passionate joys and griefs, its restlessness, its vague desires. Now, beware the mediocrity that threatens middle life, — its limitations of thought and in- terest, its dulness of fancy, its too external life. ... So take care of yourself, and let not the intellect more than the spirit be quenched." Transcendentalism had its inflorescence in many ways, serving as a leaven that entered into the social, literary, and ethical atmosphere, and it may be regarded as one of the voices crying in the Wilderness which summoned the future to larger and nobler views and stimulated the capacity to dwell in still more stately mansions. A story is on record that Theodore Parker's earnest and heroic life dated its first conscious impulse back to 56 BOSTON DAYS aD occurrence which he himself often related. It seems that when Mr. Parker was a boy about twelve years of age he was at work one day on his father's farm near Lexington, and suddenly a venerable man stood by him. His silvery hair and flowing beard impressed the lad as somewhat unusual, and for some time the aged man walked along by him, talking to him earnestly of all that it was possible for a boy to do and to become in the world. It made upon him a lasting impression, and he repeatedly affirmed that the hour became to him a conscious date in life, one that initiated all his latent force and aspiration. On inquiring as to whence the stranger came, no one could tell. It was a country neighborhood where any visitor attracted attention, and as no one but the lad had seen him, he came in after years to half believe that his visitor was of supernormal origin. The impression that Theodore Parker made upon the progress of religion was a deep one, and if its elements were a little mixed and love was somewhat tempered with aggressiveness, it may be remembered that only thus do the Titans of thought shatter the shells and husks of dead forms and bid the spirit emerge into freedom. Mrs. Howe ranks the hearing of Mr. Parker's sermons among the blessings and privileges of her life. Mrs. Child confessed to her impression that he "was the greatest man, morally and intellectually, that our country has ever produced." Frances Power Cobbe, who was all in all his most appreciative friend in the sense of absolute sympathy of spirit, calls his " Dis- THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 51 courses of Religion " epoch-making ; and she felt that he taught her " to see the evidence of a summer yet to be in the buds that lie folded through our northern winter." Mr. Parker regarded his work as in the nature of a gospel for ultimate universal acceptance. Perhaps it was his misfortune to consider himself as too exclusively the channel of that larger truth which was pouring itself through many circles not only in the ministry, but from press and platform and in literature as well. Always indeed the poet's words are true, — " God sends his teachers unto every age, To every clime, and every race of men. With revelations fitted to their growth." Theodore Parker's work doubtless benefits a multitude who have never identified it with his name. The noblest energy, indeed, that a man can contribute to progress springs up in a thousand new forms and communicates itself through various channels. Dr. Bushnell and Henry Ward Beecher were to come ; Edward Everett Hale and Phillips Brooks, Notable work, too, in the liberation of thought has been done by Rev. Dr. Minot J. Savage and Dr. Lyman Abbott, nor could any resumd of Boston ministry miss its profound recognition of the noble work of Rev. Dr. George A. Gordon. When Theodore Parker sailed for Europe on that voyage from which there was no returning, he sent one of his sermons to Mrs. Child with a little note, to which she refers in a letter to a friend, saying she shall 58 BOSTON DAYS treasure it among sacred relics, " for my heart misgives me/' she adds, " that I shall never look upon that Socratic head again." Her heart prophesied truly, for from this voyage he never returned, and his grave in the English cemetery in Florence, where all that was mortal of Mrs. Browning, Landor, and Arthur Hugh Clough was also laid, is still a shrine of reverent and poetic pilgrimage. One of the most typically unique characters of those early years of the Nineteenth century was Delia Bacon, whose life was devoted to the quest of endeavoring to prove that Shakspeare did not write the plays which bear his name. Miss Bacon was the modern Cassandra of literature. Theodore Bacon, her nephew, has made an interesting record of this life, which, beginning in privation and the "simplicity of a refined poverty," ended in disappointment and distraction. The earliest formative influence of the little Delia's life was found in the school of Catherine Beecher, of which she became a pupil. At this time Harriet Beecher, whom the world knows as Mrs. Stowe, was associated in the manage- ment of the school. Nearly thirty years afterward Catherine Beecher described Delia Bacon as a child of '' fervent imagination, and the embryo of rare gifts of eloquence in thought and expression ; pre-eminently one who would be pointed out as a genius ; and one, too, so exuberant and unregulated as to demand con- stant pruning and restraint." The religious life of the girl was fervent and intense, but marked by the bitter- ness and despondency of the time. THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 59 The years went on. She studied, wrote, taught, and worked incessantly. Great force, eloquence, imagery, characterized her language. She was sensitive, proud, finely organized, and knew no rest or care or shelter ; and this, as her biographer says, was not a normal or a healthful life for a nervous organization of fine intellect- ual powers, of strong affections. Her work included, at one time, lessons given to classes at Brattle House in Cambridge, and Mrs. Farrar mentions her in her " Recollections of Seventy Years." In this life of study and teaching, her mind at last became fixed on the greatest work of English letters, the Shakspearian drama. Miss Bacon was in London. Carlyle was her friend, though he disavowed any faith in her theories, and Hawthorne, to whom she appealed for aid, was most considerate and patient. Miss Bacon, while in Cambridge giving lessons at Brattle House, made the impression on Mrs. Farrar of being ^^ one of Raphael's sibyls," who ^' often spoke like an oracle." There are characters sometimes sent into this world who cannot be judged from the ordinary standards of human motive and achievement. They are fated beings, born to fulfil a destiny. They are apparently predestined to a certain work, — a work to which all that marvellous foreordination of heredity, of environment, of place, and time, and influence, lead directly toward, and they fulfil that destiny. Delia Bacon seems one of those. Hawthorne's words on her are those of exquisite justice. Of her convictions regarding Shakspeare he 60 BOSTON DAYS ' ' What matters it though she call him by some other name ? He had wrought on her a greater miracle than on all the world besides. This bewildered enthusiast had recognized a depth in the man whom she decried, which scholars, critics, and learned societies devoted to the elu- cidation of his unrivalled scenes had never imagined to exist there. She had paid him the loftiest honor that all these ages of renown have been able to accumulate upon his memory." Emerson defines fate as the result of " unpenetrated causes." Temperament, too, is fairly synonymous with destiny, and this truth, too, is implied in Emerson's lines : — " Deep in the man sits fast his fate To mould his fortunes, rich or great." Lydia Maria Child is a striking illustration of this theory, for her beautiful temperament dominated and fairly transformed outward events. Mrs. Child was the most sunny and radiant of spirits. She was a wonderful combination of the rational and the mystic, but her mysticism was that of the spirit and never degenerated into mere bombastic rhetoric unrelated to significance. Of spurious transcendentalism she was swift to prick the bubble ; but she entered with deepest sympathy and illuminating intelligence into every form of the intimations of immortality. " This marked spec- ulative tendency seemed not in the slightest degree to affect her practical activities," says Mr. Whittier of her. From the speculative thought she drew that energy which transmitted itself into effort and achievement. Her mind was not only well stored, but it was one of THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 6l exceptionally original power. She was brilliant in wit and repartee. Her husband once remarked to her : ^' I wish for your sake, dear, that I were as rich as Croesus/' to which she flashed back, " You are Croesus, for you are king of Lydia." She was full of high courage. She was one of the great leaders in the cause of human freedom when its unpopularity was so great as seriously to threaten loss of life and property and reputation to every one who embraced it. In the decades of 1820-40 Mrs. Child was the best-known literary woman in the United States, with fame and prosperity attending her, both of which she imperilled and even lost by writing an article entitled, " An Appeal for that Class of Americans called Africans." The Athenaeum Library that had bestowed on her the honor of its freedom closed its doors to her ; the sale of her books and subscriptions to the magazine she was editing fell off. Yet of Mrs. Child at this time it might well be said : — "Then to side with. Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust Ere the cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just." Mrs. Child experienced both extremes, — " sharing the wretched crust " and also living to see the despised cause take its place amid the loftiest ranks of sacrifice. How wonderfully the Boston of the early part of the Nineteenth century rises as a living panorama before those who turn the records ! The transcendental movement initiated by the little group who formed 62 BOSTON DAYS themselves into a club ; the intellectual problems of literature and philosophy as crystallized in the " conver- sations " of Margaret Fuller and her circle ; Theodore Parker preaching that epoch-making sermon on "The Transient and Permanent Elements in Religion ; " Garri- son, Phillips, and Mrs. Child leading the forlorn hope against slavery; Lucy Stone inaugurating her great work for the larger life of womanhood, — and through it all the devotion to German philosophy, to literature in every attainable form, and the constant microscopic scrutiny and analysis of life as is revealed in the volu- minous letter-writing of the day. Born in 1802, Mrs. Child lived on until October of 1880, and she has left a record as one of the most re- markable women that America has produced, not alone, perhaps not even chiefly, in work, but in character. She was gifted with great literary and scholarly ability ; she was a woman who, in the days when the larger oppor- tunities were denied to women, had still achieved high and symmetrical culture. But that culture of character which was hers — the living out of divineness, as it literally was — transcended all else. " Go put your creed Into your deed, " was her ruling precept. At the age of twenty-six she married David Lee Child, a Boston lawyer. Of her literary work Mr. Whittier wrote : — "It is not too much to say that half a century ago she was the most popular literary woman in the United States. c9 /^^^^^^^^^^^^-^ CZ.Z— U/T^^Ae-^ ^^^'^y^ ^^91^^^-Dt: Y ^^^ ^- ^^ Z^^^^-^i^^i^ y / u.^^-^.'^.^'-^^-i^^^^-^-T^ 6.^.,^^^ THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 63 She had published historical novels of unquestionable power of description and characterization, and was widely and favorably known as the editor of the ' Juvenile Mis- cellany,' which was probably the first periodical in the English tongue devoted exclusively to children, and to which she was by far the largest contributor. Some of the tales and poems from her pen were extensively copied and greatly admired." Many anecdotes of Mr. Whittier are told in Mrs. Child's letters, and of a visit to him in his home in Dauvers in 1860 she said : — " Friend Whittier and his gentle Quakerly sister seemed delighted to see me, or rather he seemed delighted and she seemed pleased. There was a Republican meeting that evening, at which he felt obliged to show himself ; but he came back before long, having indiscreetly excused himself by stating that I was at his house. The result was that a posse of Republicans came, after the meeting was over, to look at the woman who ' fired hot shot at Gov- ernor Wise.' In the interim, however, I had some cozy chat with Friend Whittier, and it was right pleasant going over our antislavery reminiscences. Oh, those were glori- ous times ! working shoulder to shoulder in such a glow of faith ! — too eager working for humanity to care a fig whether our helpers were priests or infidels. That 's the service that is pleasing in the sight of God. ' ' Whittier made piteous complaints of time wasted and strength exhausted by the numerous loafers who came to see him out of mere idle curiosity, or to put up with him to save a penny. I was amused to hear his sister describe some of those eruptions in her slow, Quakerly fashion. ' Thee has no idea,' said she, ' how much time Green- leaf spends in trying to lose these people in the streets. 64 BOSTON DAYS Sometimes he comes home and says, " Well, sister, I had hard work to lose him, but I have lost him."' ' But 1 cau never lose a her,' said Whittier. ' The women are more pertinacious than the men ; don't thee find 'em so, Maria?' I told him I did. 'How does thee manage to get time to do anything?' said he. I told him I took care to live away from the railroad, and kept a bulldog and a pitchfork, and advised him to do the same." Mrs. Maria Weston Chapman, the biographer of Miss Martineau, vras prominently associated in the early anti- slavery days w^ith Garrison, Phillips, and Mrs. Child. With them vrere closely allied Rev. Samuel J. May, Dr. and Mrs. Follen, and Mr. and Mrs. Ellis Gray Loring. Miss Martineau has left a pen picture of Mrs. Chapman vrhich is one to live in literature. Miss Martineau writes ; — " When I was putting on my shawl upstairs, Mrs. Chap- man came to me, bonnet in hand, to say, ' You know we are threatened with a mob again to-day ; but I do not my- self much apprehend it. It must not surprise us ; but my hopes are stronger than my fears.' I hear now, as I write, the clear silvery tones of her who was to be the friend of the rest of my life. I still see the exquisite beauty which took me by surprise that day, — the slender, graceful form ; the golden hair which might have covered her to her feet ; the brilliant complexion, noble profile, and deep blue eyes ; the aspect, meant by nature to be soft and winning only, but that day (as ever since) so vivified by courage, and so strengthened by upright conviction, as to appear the very embodiment of heroism. 'My hopes,' said she, as she threw up her golden hair under her bonnet, ' are stronger than my fears.' " THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 65 Miss Martineau left so strong an impression on Boston that fifty years later it crystallized into a pur- pose to place her statue in Wellesley, the '' College Beautiful." The commission to execute it was fittingly given to Anne Whitney, poet and sculptor, and the occasion of its unveiling — in the Old South Church, in December of 1883, was the last public appearance of Wendell Phillips. Of the sculptor's work Mrs. Livermore said : — ''Miss Whitney has, in this instance, unconsciously put much of herself — much of the simple, genuine, almost divine womanhood she herself lived out, and the result is a marvellous statue of Harriet Martineau. As you look you find yourself repeating the lines of Lamar tine : — *" At her feet tiie poor flung palms, And holy women wept their blessing. ' '* The birthplace and early home of Wendell Phillips was in the old West End, his father's house being at the corner of Beacon and Walnut streets. He was born in 1811, and his death, in February of 1884, was an event that marked the close of a thrilling chapter of Boston history. His majestic manhood is known to all. Stronger than John Bright, more eloquent than Victor Hugo, he even transcended both in his devotion to humanity. His public career was an epic poem ; his domestic life an idyl. No tribute has been paid to him that is at once so noble, eloquent, and poetic as that of John Boyle 66 BOSTON DAYS O'Reilly, who fairly embalmed the entire biography of Wendell Phillips in these lines : — " Come, workers ; here was a teacher, and the lesson he taught was good ; There are no classes or races, but one human brotherhood; There are no creeds to be hated, no colors of skin debarred j Mankind is one in its rights and wrongs — one right, one hope, one guard ; The right to be free, and the hope to be just, and the guard against selfish greed, By his life he taught, by his death we learn, the great reformer's creed ; And the unseen chaplet is brightest and best which the toil-worn hands lay down On his coffin, with grief, love, honor — their sob, their kiss, and their crown. From the midst of the flock he defended the brave one has gone to his rest ; And the tears of the poor he befriended their wealth of affliction attest. From the midst of the people is stricken a symbol they daily saw, , Set over against the law books, of a Higher than Human Law ; For his life was a ceaseless protest, and his voice was a prophet's cry To be true to the truth and faithful, though the world were arrayed for the Lie. " From the hearing of those who hated, the threatening voice has past ; But the lives of those who believe to the death are not blown like a leaf on the blast. A sower of infinite seed was he, a woodman that hewed to the ligbt, Who dared to be traitor to Union when the Union was traitor to Eight ! " THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 67 William Lloyd Garrison was six years the senior of Wendell Phillips. Their lives were closely associated in the antislavery struggle, — a conflict whose scenes are difficult to realize in the present. Colonel Higginson has said of Mr, Garrison : " I never saw a countenance that could be compared with his in respect to moral strength and force ; he seems the visible embodiment of something deeper and more controlling than mere intellect. . . . He did the work of a man of iron in an iron age," adds Colonel Higginson, and writes, also, that "in the Valhalla of contemporary statues in Boston, two only — those of Webster and Everett — commemo- rate conservatives in the antislavery conflict, while all the rest, Lincoln, Quincy, Sumner, Andrew, Mann, Garrison, and Shaw, represent the party of attack." To which list might well be added Colonel Higginson's own honored name, and that of Mr. Frank B. Sanborn. Wendell Phillips came from one of what Dr. Holmes so well terms the ^' Academic families " of New Eng- land, — families who, from generation to generation, are college-bred men. The father of Wendell Phillips was a man of wealth and prominence, at one time the Mayor of Boston, and his home was one of ease and culture. Mr. Phillips graduated from Harvard in the class of 1831, — Motley, the historian, being his class- mate. Colonel Higginson, in his fascinating volume called " Contemporaries," pictures the dramatic initia- tion of the career of Phillips in witnessing the mobbing of Garrison in 1835. " To the antislavery cause," says Colonel Higginson, " he sacrificed his social position, 68 BOSTON DAYS his early friendships, his professional career. . . . Being rich, he made himself, as it were, poor through life, reduced all his personal wants to the lowest terms, earned all the money he could by lecturing, and gave away all he could spare. . . . He was fortunate in wedding a wife in perfect sympathy with him, — a life- long invalid, yet with such indomitable courage, such keenness of wit, such insight into character, that she really divided with him the labors of his career. . . . They lived on Essex Street, . . . the house was plain and bare without and within, but peace and courage ruled." On this Essex Street house in which Mr. Phillips lived there is now placed this tablet : — Here Wendell Phillips resided during forty years, Devoted by him to efforts to secure The abolition of African slavery in this country. The charms of home, the enjoyment of wealth and learning, Even the kindly recognition of his fellow-citizens, Were by him accounted as naught compared with duty. He lived to see justice triumphant, freedom universal. And to receive the tardy praises of his former opponents. The blessings of the poor, the friendless, and the oppressed enriched him. In Boston He was born 29 November, 1811, and died 2 February, 1884. This tablet was erected in 1894, by order of the City Council of Boston. THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 69 Mrs. Howe fitly characterizes the first speech of Wendell Phillips in Faneuil Hall as the hour when the Pentecostal flame visited him. Mrs. Child says of one of the early antislavery meetings : — *' I know there were very formidable preparations to mob the antislavery meeting the next day ; I was excited and anxious, not for myself, but for Wendell Phillips. Hour after hour of the night I heard the clock strike, while visions were passing through my mind of that noble head assailed by murderous hands. This meeting was that of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, and it was on this occasion that Mr. Phillips, when his voice was drowned by the mob, stooped forward and addressed his speech to the reporters. Colonel Higginson made himself heard above the storm, and James Freeman Clarke, whose speech preceded that of Mr. Phillips, was ^treated with such boisterous insults that he was often obliged to pause.'" On the Sunday evening following the death of Mr. Phillips, Colonel Higginson addressed a meeting in the Parker Memorial, and he gave a most discriminating analysis of Mr. Phillips, — the finest and truest insight that has yet been formulated. " After slavery had disappeared," said Colonel Higgin- son, " Mr. Phillips, like other old abolitionists, men and women, was left for a moment without a mission. The minor causes they had advocated seemed hardly enough for a lifework. Some of them found no work worth doing after slavery fell. Garrison, more happy by his calm, clear temperament, devoted himself to a few strong, clear, thoroughly comprehended causes, and lived and 70 BOSTON DAYS died for them. Wendell Phillips, more varied in his impulses, more impassioned, less self-controlled, was less his own master in the absence of his one great purpose. He seemed like a man feeling around for an object. He grasped here, there, and everywhere for a new mission, a new cause, new interests, always heroic, always dis- interested, but having with that the disadvantage that a man who had devoted the prime of his life to one great, clear, easily comprehended reform, had lost the study and training that are needed to grasp the more complex reforms that followed the fall of slavery. The anti- slavery movement was the simplest of all reforms in its principles. It needed but to grasp one thought, — that man could not lawfully hold property in man. That given, the intellectual work was done. That time passed, and there came the complex reforms of to-day, — labor reform and its immense difficulties, communism, socialism, and nihilism, questions of currency and tariff, which tax the strongest intellect. In the midst of these, Wendell Phillips found himself unable to grasp them. He carried to them the simple force of his antislavery principles, but the questions were not to be settled so easily. The questions of capital and labor, of distribution and re- adjustment, the complicated relation of the human race, cannot be so easily settled. He was at a disadvantage of the complex questions. Hence the chafing in all his later life of a spirit heroic, magnificently unselfish, yet constantly fretting with the problems which he had grappled too late in life for their full comprehension, while he had an unwillingness to own that he stood at the threshold, which alone would have enabled him fully to comprehend them. "With that came, in later years, an unconsciousness of the strength of his assertions and the vehemence of his denunciations. He thouffht that all THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 71 who were abused by respectable portions of society were abused as Garrison was, and must be right. When we think of the weakened strength with which he grasped great, difficult problems which are arising among us, we may well feel grateful that the measure of one man's activity is fourscore years, when he may be dismissed with the benediction that he has gone to his reward." The funeral of Wendell Phillips was an impressive occasion. Among those present were the poet Whittier, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Colonel Higginson, Frederick Douglass, Louisa M. Alcott, Rev. Dr. Bartol, Mrs. Annie Fields, Mrs. Lucy Stone, Dr. H. B. Blackwell, Miss Susan B. Anthony, Dr. Phillips Brooks, the sons of Garrison, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, Miss Anne Whitney, Dr. Bowditch, Elizur Wright, Theodore Weld, Abby Morton Diaz, John Boyle O'Reilly, President Eliot, of Harvard; the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, Rev. M. J. Savage, James Freeman Clarke, Frank B. Sanborn, the Governor of Massachusetts (then Hon. George D. Robinson) and his staff, and many of the immortals. There was an entire absence of floral decorations, but a simple sheaf of wheat was placed on the casket. The pall-bearers included Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Judge Samuel E. Sewall, and Wendell Garrison. The gathering was a thoroughly American one, all nationalities, creeds, and colors being represented. The colored element was particularly prominent. The choir sang Mr. Whittier's beautiful poem in which the stanza occurs : — 72 BOSTON DAYS • " God calls our loved ones, but we lose not wholly What He hath given : They live on earth in thought and deed as truly As in His heaven." The services consisted only in a prayer by the Rev. Samuel Longfellow (the poet's brother), the singing of a hymn written for the occasion, and a prayer by the Rev. Samuel May. In the prayer by Mr. Longfellow he said : — "We bless Thee for all that lifts up our lives to a nobler plan and a worthier aim ; for the heroes, the saints, the martyrs, who lived by faith in ideas, in principles, in the things unseen, but most real; for the good who lived to bless and help their fellows ; for the faithful who lived for duty; for the true who have chosen to obey God rather than man, willingly bearing the cross in bearing witness to the truth. They have left us an example that we should follow in their steps, and make our lives worthy and unselfish and noble, and live not for the things that perish, but for those that are immortal." Frederick Douglass, as he gazed upon the sculptured beauty of that grand face sealed with the majesty of death, said brokenly : ^^ I came not here alone only to see the remains of my dear old friend ; I wanted to see this throng, and to see the hold that this man had upon the community. It is a wonderful tribute." The floodgates of reminiscence and anecdote and memory seemed opened by the transition of Wendell Phillips to the Unseen, and there was such an illumina- tion on that historic and tragic past of forty years ago as almost made it real to the younger generation. As THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 73 Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, in referring to the services, said, "It was noticeable how they all spoke to God and did not speak to men." The burial scene was very simple and dramatic. The Phillips family tomb in the " Old Granary " burying- ground was near the gates opening on Tremont Street, where the ceaseless tide of city life surged up and down, and the pulse never ceases to throb. It was fitting that Mr. Phillips should rest there — in the heart of the city he so loved. It was five o'clock of that gray February day, with the misty light rapidly deepening into evening, when the funeral cortege reached the gates. The sidewalk was filled w^ith people. A long line of horse-cars were blocked by the crowd. The roofs and walls and every window in the vicinity was crowded. The casket was laid, simply and reverently, in the tomb in which his father, John Phillips, the first Mayor of Boston, rests, and which is near the tombs of Samuel Adams, of Paul Revere, of John Hancock, of Peter Faneuil, and the father and mother of Franklin. The beautiful words of Mr. O'Reilly were on the air : " Come, brothers, here to the bnrial ! But weep not, rather rejoice, For his fearless life and his fearless death ; for his true, un- equalled voice, Like a silver trumpet sounding the note of human right ; For his brave heart always ready to enter the weak one's fight ; For his soul unmoved by the mob's wild shout or the social sneer's disgrace ; For his freeborn spirit, that drew no line between class and creed and race." 74 BOSTON DAYS In later years it was found that the tide of pilgrimage to the grave of Phillips was so incessant that the body was removed to another burying-ground. Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis is a brilliant name in the Boston galaxy, as one with whom patriotism was a passion. She was a woman of fine culture and of cos- mopolitan experience. She had been presented at almost every European court; she had probably the greatest social prestige that had at that time been given to any American woman ; she had the entree of royal circles and the nobility, as well as of art and literature ; and from years of life in Europe, of the most brilliant and distinguished character, she returned to Boston with enlarged and renewed ardor of patriotic devotion to her own country. Elizabeth Boardman Otis was the daughter of William and Elizabeth (Henderson) Boardman. Her father was a wealthy merchant of the India and China trade, which, in the early years of the century, was the chief source of Boston's wealth. Her mother was the daughter of Joseph Henderson, the first sheriff of Suf- folk County, whose sword is preserved among the relics in the old State House. Miss Boardman received the most careful education and the most exquisite culture that the best masters could give, combined with every social opportunity and with travel. While still a young girl she made a brilliant marriage. Harrison Gray Otis was the son of the Mayor of Boston at that time, and bore his father's name. The Otis family stood among the highest in the land, but social distinction was not THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 75 an aim with Mrs. Otis. She was born to it ; she always had it as inseparable from her personality ; she took it as naturally as the air she breathed, and thought nothing of it in itself. Her aims and ideals were of a lofty character. Mr. Otis died in his early life, and JMrs. Otis took her four young sons to Europe where they remained several years for their better study of language and art. She was herself an admirable linguist, speaking four or five languages, and her life abroad was thus rendered most brilliant and delightful. It was somewhere in the '40's that she returned to Boston. She was born about 1803 and died in 1873. At this time Boston was a small town, where one could go anywhere in ten minutes; where people all knew each other and took the keenest interest in each other's personality and work. Mrs. Otis embraced with ardor the stirring philanthropic interests of the day. The asylum for the blind, of which Dr. Samuel G. Howe was then at the head, engaged her interest ; the " Snug Harbor" for disabled sailors; the securing funds for Thomas Ball's equestrian statue of Washington, and the purchase of Washington's tomb at Mount Vernon. To complete the fund for the latter, Mrs. Otis gave a ball at the Boston Theatre on March 4, 1859, which is chronicled as being " more splendid in arrangement, more beautiful in its array of fair women and brave men, and nobler in its purpose than anything which has ever preceded it." The scene is said to have been one of unsurpassed magnificence, and the sum of $10,000 was realized for the purpose. 76 BOSTON DAYS On Washington's birthday Mrs. Otis always opened her house for a public reception. The spacious rooms were decorated in the national colors and filled with flowers sent by friends. All day the throng of citizens, high and low, rich and poor, poured through her portals, and each and all were welcomed with that grace and high-bred courtesy that so peculiarly distinguished this lady. The woman who merely affects the air of the great lady de- lights in being described as ^' very exclusive ; " but the genuine great lady is, by that very attribute, inclusive, and overflowing with generous good-will to all hu- manity. The military processions passing the house of Mrs. Otis on this day paused and saluted her. Her home is still standing, — a spacious house on the corner of Mount Vernon and Joy streets, in the West End, — but it is now used for a boarding-house. It was Mrs. Otis who, on her return from Europe^ inaugurated a fuller and freer social life in Boston. She was far and away the most cosmopolitan woman that Boston had seen, and it was an era in social life when she in- troduced a season of Saturday afternoon and Thursday evening receptions, after the informal European fashion, serving only tea and cake, and thus inaugurating a finer and more easy hospitality. On one of these re- ceptions it chanced that there were present the Pres- ident of the United States (then Mr. Fillmore), Lord Elgin, the Governor-General of Canada and his suite, and several other very noted men of the day. The Otis mansion was the centre of the most brilliant and distinguished Boston life, and to Mrs. Otis all THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 77 visitors from Europe of rank and distinction invariably brought letters. It was, however, in the work of the Civil War — the sanitary commission work — that Madame Otis, as she came to be called, contributed what was perhaps the greatest service of her life. A large building on Tremont Street was given up to the work, and the government gave its entire charge into the hands of Madame Otis. All goods and money for the use of the soldiers were deposited there. Her splendid energy, her noble ardor of patriotism, her irresistible enthusiasm, and great ad- ministrative ability made her the most efficient and valuable aid to the government. One of her first acts was to establish a " Bank of Faith," and to this contri- butions flowed in. During the three years she was in charge, over $1,000,000 came in, and not one penny of this was solicited. Is it not a remarkable instance of the absolute reliance in the most practical way that may always be placed on the Divine power for sending the aid that is needed for a just and holy cause ? The entire system of aid was based on voluntary dona- tions. During these three years she never missed being at her post from ten to three each day, save on Sundays and religious festivals. Madame Otis left an impress upon Boston life that still remains vividly. While her work had not the marvellous scope which characterized Mrs. Livermore's during the Civil War, as Mrs. Livermore's was national and that of Madame Otis restricted to the I>[ew England States, it was of the 78 BOSTON DAYS same generous and noble quality which so signally im- mortalizes that of Mary A. Livermore. The literary homes of Boston were a signal feature of the city. The home of Prof. George Ticknor, the Spanish historian, stood on the corner of Park and Beacon streets, and there for forty years a cordial and gracious hospitality prevailed. After fifteen years at Harvard, Professor Ticknor was succeeded by the poet Longfellow, and in 1835 he went abroad with his family, remaining four years and sharing the social life of courts and nobility. It was at the Ticknor house that Lafayette was entertained when in Boston, at a little Sunday night supper which is still famous in Boston annals. Among other guests were President and Mrs. Quincy, Daniel Webster, and Mr. Prescott. The Adams family were then, as always, prominent in all that made for the local as well as the national de- velopments of progress. The comparative modernity of the Republic is emphasized by the fact that the great-grandson of its second President, John Adams, died within the last decade, with a more famous brother still living. John Quincy Adams, grandson of the Presi- dent whose name he bears, great-grandson of John Adams, who succeeded Washington,, and the son of Charles Francis Adams, the first Republican Minister to the Court of St. James, died at his home. Mount Wollaston, Quincy, at the comparatively early age of sixty-one. In a national sense he was hardly prominent, but a deep interest is associated with his honored and historic name. The antiquarian might prowl about the THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 79 quaint old towns of Quincy, Quincy Adams, Braintree, and the estate of Mount Wollaston with no little reward. The three towns are a little out of Boston, and the resident traveller is always amused to see the way strangers throw open the car windows and lean out and gaze as the quaint names are called by the conductor. The widow of Col. Edmund Quincy died in Braintree in 1700, and Judge Sewall, who attended the funeral, thus describes the event in his journal, which is preserved among historical documents. ' " Because of the porrige of snow [writes Judge Sewall] the bearers rid to the grave, alighting a little before they came there. Manners, Cousin Edward and his sister rid first; then Mrs. Anna Quincy, widow, behind Mr. Allen, and Cousin Ruth Hunt behind her husband." The conscious way in which people took themselves in those days has resulted in leaving the most minute records of trifles. Very little happened, and thus they had abundance of time to set it down. Even in the literary life of the Nineteenth century, whenever two or three Bostonians met together in the home of culture they seem to have always gone home and written down their respective remarks. In one of Louisa Alcott's diary records she notes of an evening: ''Mr. Parker [Theodore Parker] came to me and said, 'Well, child, how goes it ? ' ' Pretty well, sir.' ' That 's brave,' he said." In all the diaries of the Alcotts, Emerson, Margaret Fuller, James Freeman Clarke, Sophia Hawthorne, and Miss Peabody, the reader constantly finds recorded the 80 BOSTON DAYS remarks some one has made during a call or meeting. " I met Mr. Emerson by the large tree near the two roads. He said : ' It is a fine day/ " is a typical speci- men hardly exaggerated. It illustrates the serious way that they all took themselves and each other. The infinite entertainment afforded by^all those old records is not the least of the enjoyments of living in the very heart of their atmosphere. In the old Quincy house at Braintree there is one room still hung with curious Chinese paper placed there in 1777 to prepare to do honor to the marriage of Dorothy Quincy and John Hancock. The house in which John Adams died is still extant^ incorporated with the larger mansion built on its site, and in it is still one room panelled, from floor to ceiling, in solid mahogany. The Adams genealogy, including the Quincy, Hoar, and Norton branches, is a matter of national history and need not be touched upon here. Dr. Holmes, as is widely known by his witty poem "Dorothy Q.," traces a family connection with the Quincys, and Wendell Phillips and Phillips Brooks were remotely connected with each other and with Dr. Holmes through the Wendells. Prof Charles Eliot Norton, of Harvard, traces his ancestry to the Nortons who intermarried with the Quincys. New England genealogy — if one has a taste for social analysis and the study of hereditary traits — offers a very fascinating field, as the individualities are so prom- inent and as they represent ideas, movements, and the general forces of progress. THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 81 Charles Francis Adams, Minister to England under Lincoln, was a remarkable man. John Quincy Adams, who had been locally prominent in politics, rather endured than desired political office ; he was a good citizen in his town of Quincy, where he had always lived, passing the winter in his town house on Mount Vernon Street in Boston. The Adams family are not imaginative and ardent by temperament, but they are conspicuous for sound intellect, cool, calm, and more or less dispassionate views ; they are logical, honorable, and just. Many people believe the calm, dispassionate one to be the genuine New England type, but nothing could be more remote from the truth. Xew England is the land of romance, of poetry, of imaginative grace, of spiritual fervor, of idealism. It is the home of the mystic. If one can find and fit the magic key he can open and read at will many a curious volume of for- gotten history. There have been such treasures of moral earnestness, of religious faith, of spiritual ecstasy poured out in New England that it has become trans- muted into a certain fine exaltation of life — into artistic and creative energy. The most notable member of the Adams family of late years is Charles Francis Adams, Senior, a lawyer, a railway magnate, and a man of letters. One of the ablest, the most fascinating and significant contributions to contemporary literature is his great work, " Three Episodes of Massachusetts History." Before the decade of 1840-50 few Bostonians left their homes for the summer ; but the Ticknors always 6 82 BOSTON DAYS went to Nahant or Portland ; the Prescotts had their country house; Mr. Longfellow had a cottage at Nahant ; Mrs. Howe a cottage near Newport, and in the summer that Tennyson's poem "In Memoriam" was first published, George William Curtis and Charles Sumner journeyed there to read with Mrs. Howe the wonderful new poem that thrilled two nations. There was an occultation of correspondence in those days among the choice spirits. A little (undated) note from Emerson to Whipple thus runs : — Concord, Saturday Morning. Dear Whipple, — I believe you bade me come to your house to-morrow evening, and I was to make a reply later. I hope it is not too late honorably to say that Samuel Ward had asked me for the same hour, a little before you at the club, but with a little uncertainty about his being in town. But now he is, and has got my boy there with him, and his family are such uncertain, transient meteors that I think I must go. So you shall let me pay my respects to you another day. Ever yours, Ralph Waldo Emerson. The loneliness of James Russell Lowell in those days of his early poetic flights is revealed in the following letter written by him to Mr. Whipple, who at that time was editing a paper called the " Boston Notion." Mr. Lowell did not even know the name of the editor whose recognition of his powers was almost the first he had received, but in his grateful appreciation of it he wrote as follows : — THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 83 Boston, Oct. 12, 1841. My dear Editor, — You are to me a mere nominus umbra, — but confident that you are somebody or other, I wish to thank you for your kind notice of me in last Satur- day's " Notion." I regard unkind criticism as little as need be, — yet it is owing to puffing obtained by utterly worthless and mediocre poets, and the ease with which they obtain access to the columns of newspapers, too common in this country. But these unknown friends which the poor poet makes, — these hands stretched out to give him a grasp of grateful encouragement across whole oceans or continents, — these make up for many troubles. Is it not strange that poets who must be the warmest hearted of men should most often be the hardliest educated ? It was very grateful to me as I took up your paper in a public room, where there was but one face in many that I knew, and saw some kmd words about myself, to think that, perchance, the writer was now in the room and that among these strangers I yet had a friend. I send you my volume, which I hope you will like, and if you find anything congenial in the enclosed poem, print it in your next "Notion." And so, my good unknown, I am yours in sympathy, James Russell Lowell. P. S. — It just occurred to me that some editors prefix the notes of their correspondence to their verses. If you print my poem, do not print this. J. R. L. The home of Mr. Longfellow was a centre of emi- nent and beautiful hospitalities. In 1852 Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot and exile, accompanied by his friends, Count and Countess Pulszky, visited Boston. Mr. Long- fellow gave a dinner for them at which Mrs. Howe was 84 BOSTON DAYS also a guest. " Uncle Tom's Cabin " had appeared, and the poet records that every evening he and Mrs. Long- fellow read themselves into despair over that tragic story of which one million copies were sold within the first year of its publication. " The Scarlet Letter " was published and made a profound impression. Charlotte Cushman was playing, and in one of Victor Hugo's dramas, the " Actress of Padua," she especially interested Mr. Longfellow, al- though he thought her acting too powerful and says, "I like less acting better." Dr. and Mrs. Howe, Charles Sumner, and Mr. and Mrs. Longfellow shared a box on the occasion of the premiere of this play. Jenny Lind entranced the music-lovers and the populace alike, and a group of sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning appeared in " Graham's Magazine," inciting discussion : President Quincy of Harvard was then living, " hale and hearty at the age of eighty," as Longfellow records, and knowing everything except, perhaps, his own name, which tradition says that he forgot on one occasion when in the post office inquiring for his mail. Fanny Kemble Butler came with her glowing interpretations of Shakspeare, reading ^' The Tempest," '' Eomeo and Juliet," " Macbeth," and other plays, and of the former Mr. Longfellow writes : — " We went to hear Mrs. Butler read ' The Tempest.' A crowded house. A reading-desk covered with red, on a platform, like the gory block on the scaffold ; upon which the magnificent Fanny bowed her head in tears and great emotion. But in a moment it became her triumphal THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 85 chariot. What glorious reading ! the spiritual Ariel, the stern Prospero, the lover Ferdinand, Miranda the beloved, Stefano, Trinculo, Caliban, — each had a voice distinct and separate, as of many actors. And what a glorious poem is ' The Tempest ! ' — hardly a play, for its dramatic interest is its least interest. It is an emblem of the power of mind over matter. Ariel is an embodied thought projected from Prospero, obeying his will, subduing and controlling the elements. It is the apotheosis of intellect. The poet's hand here sweeps the whole harp of human life, from Ariel to Caliban, the great bass string." Wagner's music was beginning to be known even in the early fifties, and Mr. Longfellow accompanied Mrs. Howe to an orchestral concert when the wonder- ful overture to Tannhauser was produced. Jenny Lind with the young pianist, Mr. Goldschmidt, who after- ward became her husband, went out to call on the poet and lunched with him and Mrs. Longfellow; Sumner dined with them, and they gave a farewell dinner to Hawthorne, on the eve of his sailing for his consulate at Liverpool, at which the guests were Emerson, Arthur Hugh Clough, Lowell, and Charles Eliot Norton. Dr. and Mrs. Howe give a dinner at which Sumner Adams and Palfrey are guests, and Mr. Longfellow notes that he, a singer, came in as Alfred among the Danes. Arthur Hugh Clough, then visiting Boston, gave a din- ner at his hotel, the old Tremont House, to Emerson, and invited Mr. Longfellow, Charles Sumner, Horatio Greenough, the sculptor, Lowell, Hawthorne, and Theodore Parker, and they all adjourned to Music Hall to hear Alboni. Mrs. Browning's ^^ Drama of Exile " 86 BOSTON DAYS appeared, and all literary Boston read it. The tragedy of Margaret Fuller's death occurred, and Mr. Longfellow writes : — " The papers bring us news of the wreck of the ' Eliza- beth' on Fire Island, and the loss of Horace Sumner, and of Margaret Fuller, Marchioness d'Ossoli, with her husband and child. What a calamity! A singular woman for New England to produce ; original and somewhat self- willed ; but full of talent and full of work. A tragic end to a somewhat troubled and romantic life." A potent and beneficent individuality of those days was Elizabeth Peabody, the sister-in-law of Horace Mann and of Nathaniel Hawthorne ; the friend of Channing, Allston, Emerson, Theodore Parker, Mar- garet Fuller, Sarah Holland Adams, James Freeman Clarke ; of Motley, Bayard Taylor, Bronson Alcott ; of Mazzini, Froebel, Carlyle, Lord Houghton, George Eliot, and many another of the greatest minds of a half century ago, — a woman who lived much in the lives of other people. She was the friend, the sympathizer, the inspirer of ideas. She cared nothing for personal fame, and everything for personal service. Hawthorne and Elizabeth Peabody were close friends before he became engaged to her younger sister, Sophia, and on her return one day from an absence it is said that, observing the sympathy of attraction between them, she said, ''I now take you both into my heart." All the forces of heredity predestined Elizabeth Peabody as an educator. Her father. Dr. Nathaniel Peabody, met the woman who became his wife while THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 87 he was teaching a school for boys and she one for girls in Andover. This was in 1800. Two years later they were married, and in May of 1804 Elizabeth Peabody was born in Billerica, a little village between Lowell and Boston, where Mrs. Peabody had established a boarding-school for girls. The mother was a trained English scholar with cultivated tastes and never-failing aspirations. The father was a classical student and taught his daughter Latin in her earliest childhood. Their home was of refining and uplifting influences. They had no money, but they had possessions more valuable. Miss Peabody was one of that remarkable group of persons born in or near Boston in those early years of the past century. She began teaching at the age of sixteen (in 1820), and her intellectual activity hardly waned from that date until about 1888 or 1889. At one time she had a class of girls in Salem whom she instructed in literature ; she had a school on Mount Vernon Street in Boston, and she assisted Mr. Alcott in the famous school he established in this city. On Sept. 22, 1839, Mr. Alcott records in his diary : — " I opened school to-day with thirty children, and am assisted by Miss Peabody, who unites intellectual and practical qualities of no common order. Her proposition to aid me comes from the deep interest she feels in human culture. ... I have spared no pains to surround the pupils with appropriate emblems of intellectual and spiritual life. Paintings, busts, books, have been deemed important. I wish to fill every form that dresses the 88 BOSTON DAYS senses with significance and life, so that whatever is seen, said, or done shall picture ideal beauty and perfection, thus placing the child in a scene of tranquil repose and spiritual loveliness." Somewhere in the early decade of 1830-40, the Peabodys removed to a house on West Street in this city, where Miss Peabody utilized their front room as a foreign book store and circulating library. She im- ported the French and German books of the day, and this room became a meeting place, a " literary centre," where groups of the people who were making the thought of the day could be found. There would drop in Emerson, Dr. Hedge, James Freeman Clarke, and Margaret Fuller. The idea of the Church of the Disciples first occurred to Dr. Clarke in this room. The Boston of this time was one that dined at two p. M. ; that found its artistic ecstasies largely satisfied with what Henry James has since termed the '^ attenu- ated drawings" of Flaxman ; that took a strong and abiding^ interest in the movements for greater liberty and progress in Europe, sympathizing with Kossuth and Mazzini ; that read its German classics and held the faith of the absolute supremacy of the spiritual life. Their special diversion appears to have been " Conver- sations." There was held (in 1848) a series of these on " Self-Knowledge," in which Emerson, Thoreau, Theodore Parker, W. H. Channing, Miss Peabody, Mrs. Cheney, and James Freeman Clarke all took part. In 1867 Miss Peabody again revisited Europe and passed a winter at Rome. Every morning she break- THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 89 fasted with Charlotte Cushman — by Miss Cushmaii's invitation — and of this time she says in a letter to a friend : — '' Never was my mind in such a state of activity. It seems to me that I came to my mental majority that year, and all my own life and the world's life, as history had taught it to me, was explained. . . . Do you recollect how I used to come and announce my discoveries in the world of morals and spiritual life, whose gates seemed to be opened to me by the historical monuments as well as the masterpieces of art? What golden hours those were when such grand receptive hearts and imaginations bettered one's thoughts in the reply ! " The initiation of that reform whose fulfilment came so slowly — the political enfranchisement of women — was a stirring and vital idea of these days, led by sweet Lucy Stone. In this great movement, which has been less the emancipation than the development and advancement of woman's life, Lucy Stone was easily the most potent factor. Her life pre-eminently stands for the development of humanity. No woman of the present or the future is so great or so fortunate as not to receive benefit from the life of this woman, who was born into the simple and primitive conditions of a farmer's daughter in New England. No woman of the present or the future is so humble or so obscure as not to have her life broadened, her possibilities enlarged, because Lucy Stone has lived. Her personality inspires such tender remembrance that it is a little difi&cult to exclude 90 BOSTON DAYS all personal feeling and sketch dispassionately the out- line of this great, this noble and beautiful life. The pen falters, and the eye sees only dimly through tears that silent home where the music of her voice is stilled, and from which her spirit went forth to its larger ministry. Yet it is good to dwell on this life that was lived so serenely, so bravely, so resplendently before us. We may well pause before it as at a sacrament. Lucy Stone was born near West Brookfield, Mass., on Aug. 13, 1818, the daughter of Francis and Hannah H. (Matthews) Stone. Of a family of nine children she was the eighth. She was but eight years the junior of Margaret Fuller, whose comparatively early death seems to throw her a generation farther backward. She was one year the senior of Julia Ward Howe and of James Russell Lowell. The years from 1803 to 1824 are luminous in New England history with the appearance of the constellation of great spirits who came as teachers to their century. They, our poets and prophets, have shaped our Nation's destiny. In his chancellor's address before the University of New York in 1890 George William Curtis said : — *' Amid the exaltation and commotion of material success let this university here annually announce in words and deeds the dignity and superiority of the intellectual and spiritual life, and strengthen itself to resist the insidious invasion of that life by the superb and seductive spirit of material prosperity." These words convey the essence of the spirit in which this group of rare and noble persons of that time THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 91 lived and which they taught to the world. They stood for the supremacy of the higher life over the lower, and among them all no braver or more resolute work was done for humanity's uplifting than the per- sonal work of Lucy Stone. Her ancestry is what in New England parlance is called " good IS^ew England stock." The expression defines a certain flawless integrity of life that the Pilgrim Fathers held as the first essential. To be scrupulously honest and just, to be industrious and intelligent, was their creed. Not unfrequently was there narrowness and hardness in this life. It was apt to be prosaic and colorless, but it was an eminently sure and safe foundation for the superstructure of the larger development that was to come. Francis and Hannah Stone were of this quality. Mr. Stone was a small farmer, prosperous in his activities and greatly respected by his neighbors. But he believed, with his generation, that the husband was the rightly appointed ruler over his wife, and that education in the larger sense, while necessary for his sons, was quite superfluous for his daughters. The little Lucy was born to combat this. Almost .from her cradle she exhibited that in- vincible resolution that characterized her womanhood. She was a vigorous, sturdy, uncompromising little maiden, a keen student, standing first in her classes at the country school, always industrious and active. Often, she has told us, she has driven the cows over the hills barefooted in the early dawn ere the starlight had paled before the sunrise, when the cold dew on the 92 BOSTON DAYS grass made her shiver ; yet always with that radiant sense of the beauty of the morning that was a part of a naturally poetic nature. The household life was one of toil. Her motlier engaged in all the homely domestic labor, and the children were taught to lend a hand as an inevitable result of their conditions. Very early in her childhood Lucy Stone's ruling purpose began to assert itself. She rebelled against the authority of her father over her mother, and being told it was the law, she said, in childish utterance, that such laws must be changed. Even then, however unconsciously, her destiny was upon her. Those whom the Lord hath anointed are sealed with His seal. When the young girl announced her intention to go to college, her father asked : " Is the child crazy ? " He would not — perhaps he could not — give her the money to go. But when did ever the lack of material aid stop in its progress a dauntless spirit? A noble purpose, like love, laughs at locksnriiths. If a god wishes to ride, says Emerson, every chip and stem will bud and shoot out winged feet to carry him. In the case of Lucy Stone, a goddess wished to ride — and she rode. In our colloquial phrasing of the day she " arrived." Beginning in her early teens, Lucy Stone worked and saved until she was twenty-five years old before she had the little fund to enable her to start for Oberlin, the only college of the day that admitted women. How did she gain it ? Not by china paint- ing and music lessons. Instead, she earned money by picking berries and selling them to buy books; THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 9S she studied the books and became a district school teacher. And a most successful one she was ; still, being only a woman, she received only a fraction of the salary paid to men. The day came that this dauntless young woman started for Oberlin. Her scanty resources were too precious to afford comforts, and in crossing Lake Erie she slept with several other women on a pile 6f grain sacks on deck because staterooms were beyond their finances. It is a picture to be held in reverence by the younger women whose possibilities in life are so infinitely enlarged and uplifted because of the girl who picked berries to buy books and who slept on deck that she might journey to a college course. Can too much honor be given to that sublime courage that held its unfaltering view of the end, however hard and distaste- ful the means ? Here was an American heroine. Let us never cover from sight one homely detail of her privations and her sacrifices. That she did housework in the "Ladies' Boarding-hall " at Oberlin at three cents an hour ; that she cooked her own food in her room and lived — as she herself related the story — on fifty cents a week ; that she washed and ironed her clothes, and added to this teaching in the preparatory department, — let this ascendency of the higher powers over the lower never be concealed in any sketch of the life of Lucy Stone. Dante, in his exile and poverty, was not more noble in exaltation of spirit than this New Eng- land farmer's daughter in her quest for knowledge and intellectual resources. But, ah ! the outward poverty 94 BOSTON DAYS and the inward riches ! The limitations in the material, the extensions into the spiritual ! Here was the young woman boarding herself at fifty cents a week and doing housework at three cents an hour, yet being able to donate her time and strength and services to teach a colored school for the many fugitive slaves whom Ober- lin, as a station of the '^ underground railroad," attracted. During this time she made her first public speech, and was remonstrated with by the wife of the President of Oberlin for doing what was unscriptural and un- womanly ! In 1847, at the age of twenty-nine, she graduated from Oberlin. At once she entered on what was to be the work of her life. After giving some lec- tures for " woman's rights," as the incipient movement was then known, she was engaged by the Antislavery Society to speak. But the cause of women took prece- dence in her mind. Rev. Samuel J. May remonstrated, and she finally arranged to divide her lectures between the two causes. Volumes could be written regarding her early lecture experiences and the social conditions of the time. There was no demand for her theme. She had to overcome prejudice, break down barriers, create the demand for the lecture, and then meet it. She would go out to put up her own posters with a paper of tacks and a stone for a hammer. But the personality of Lucy Stone not only disarmed prejudice, but won all hearts. Her daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell, relates this incident : — THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 95 ' ' At one woman's rights meeting in New York the mob was making such a clamor that it was impossible for any speaker to be heard. One after another tried it, only to have his or her voice drowned forthwith by hoots and howls. William Henry Channing advised Lucretia Mott, who was presiding, to adjourn the meeting. Mrs. Mott answered, ' When the hour fixed for adjournment comes, I will adjourn the meeting; not before.' At last Lucy Stone was introduced. The mob became as quiet as a congregation of church-goers ; but as soon as the next speaker began, the howling recommenced, and it con- tinued to the end. At the close of the meeting, when the speakers went into the dressing-room to get their hats and cloaks, the mob surged in and surrounded them ; and Lucy Stone, who was brimming over with indignation, began to reproach them for their behavior. ' Oh, come,' they answered, ' you need n't say anything ; we kept still for you.' " In 1853 there was a "hearing" before the legislature of Massachusetts for a petition for woman's rights, the first signature being that of Mrs. Alcott. Among the speakers were Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, and Lucy Stone. Among the hearers was Henry B. Black- well. Already in sympathy with her speeches, he was charmed with the speaker. For three years he pressed his suit that she would be his wife, and at last was rewarded with success, although she had resolved never to marry, but to devote her life to her work. Her husband won her by the pledge and promise that she should find greater support in it through him. How perfectly that promise has been kept, the world knows. Truly the marriage of Henry B. Blackwell 96 BOSTON DAYS and Lucy Stone was one that fulfilled the poet's ideal of being '' yoked in all exercise of noble aims." In her home in West Brookfield, Mass., in 1855, they were married, Colonel Higginson, then an Unita- rian clergyman, performing the ceremony. It was mu- tually agreed that the bride should retain her own name and be known as Mrs. Lucy Stone. This was to her a matter of the ethics of individuality. Since then what is the story of their wedded life? It is that of a crescendo of personal happiness, of mutual work for humanity through the uplifting and advancement of women, of the ever-deepening honor and affection of friends and of society at large, of modest prosperity, and a wise and beautiful ordering of life. For a few years after their marriage they lived in Orange, N". J. There was born to them their only child, Alice Stone Blackwell, now a young woman whose literary genius and whose eloquence as a speaker is already widely recognized. Miss Blackwell is a poet and a scholar. She is a graduate of Boston University ; is now the editor of the " Woman's Journal," and is the most able and effective and brilliant of the younger women speakers in l^ew England. The records of conventions and legislative movements in which Lucy Stone was so important a factor have recorded themselves in national history. More than thirty years ago Lucy Stone, William Lloyd Gar- rison, Julia Ward Howe, George William Curtis, Colonel Higginson, and others, organized the American THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 97 Woman's Suffrage Association. Its work is well known to all. The home of Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell, on the seashore in Dorchester, a beautiful suburb of Boston, is a large white house with charming grounds. It faces the south, looking out on the dreamy blue of the Milton hills, which Mrs. Stone always called " my little blue hills." On the east is the sea, with the picturesque curve of Squantum thrown far out in the restless water. Entering the house there is on the right a large drawing-room with its grand piano, and on the left the library, its centre-table always littered with late books and periodicals, and its beautiful " sunset window," where the glories of the changeful western sky gleam through the flowering shrubs and trees. Above, Mrs. Stone's own room was that whose eastern windows looked over the sea, and from the south took in the entire range of her " little blue hills." With nothing for show or mere luxury about the house, it is the ideal home of comfort, of peace, of sunny sweetness. The hospitality was simple and cor- dial ; it was especially extended to those most in need of its comforting. Over young women alone in the city Lucy Stone's heart especially yearned. To them went her first invitation to her Thanksgiving or her Christmas dinner ; for them her carriage was sent to meet them at the station. Not those in whose society she might, perhaps, find most of intellectual enjoyment, but those to whom her kindness and her hospitable home could give pleasure, was her first thought. If ever the life of 7 98 BOSTON DAYS the true follower of Christ were lived, it was lived by Lucy Stone. Professing no specific creed, she practised the divine life. The church affiliation of the Blackwells was with that of James Freeman Clarke, now succeeded by Rev. Dr. Ames, whose personal holiness and rare eloquence as a preacher make the deepest impression on the Boston days of the present. Up to the last months of her life Mrs. Stone knew little abatement of its activities. Her blue eyes kept their luminous clearness ; her fair cheek its hint of apple bloom; her brown hair was scarcely silvered under the delicate lace cap that rested lightly over it. The wonderful sweetness of her voice always had an irresistible power. Her presence on the platform was magnetic in its serene and potent attraction. Lucy Stone was a remarkable combination of strength, sweetness, serenity, and sunshine. She had the tem- perament of exhilaration. She never lost her youth. She was never careworn or sad or depressed, because she always looked beyond. Her tenderness was as inexhaustible as her faith ; her sweetness as infinite as her strength. She had a mind of the most remarkable clearness and of logical power. ^' Lucy Stone would have made a great lawyer," once said Murat Halstead of her. She could hold any argument, always with invincible strength and firmness, but always with that same marvellously serene sweetness. She was the very embodied spirit of the morning, the Prophetess of the New Day. And always was there with her that deep tenderness THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL IDEALS 99 and solicitude for the comfort of others. "Are you dressed warmly enough ? " might be her salutation on a cold day. Never of herself, always of others was her thought. She was royal by nature. Well might the poet have said of her : — " She doeth little kindnesses, Which most leave undone, or despise. For naught that sets one heart at ease, Or giveth happiness or peace, Is low-esteemed in her eyes." Never did there fade from her face that trustful, happy, uplifted look. It was always — " A countenance in which did meet Sweet records, promises as sweet." Lucy Stone has left to us the heritage of a singularly noble character. The world is the fairer that she has lived in it. There were none of the ordinary associa- tions of death when this radiant and prophetic spirit put on immortality. We thought of her only as entering into the life more abundant and gaining the use of still greater powers than those she so nobly exercised here. She has left the world better than she found it. What greater tribute can be paid ? Life is made possible to ^ all by the greatness of the few. The degree in which this greatness is shown depends solely on the spiritual quality of the individual, and not in the least degree upon rank or circumstances. The world's greatest benefactors have been her prophets and her poets. It is ideas and ideals that are of value. It is not posses- 100 BOSTON DAYS sions, but thought, that can relate its power to the needs of humanity, and the sublimest gift to man was given by One who had not where to lay his head. And His gift was for all time, and is so beyond price \^ that it is forever free to the poorest. The Boston grouping at this time is one of historic interest. There were the special students and thinkers, — Alcott, Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Peabody, Theodore Parker, James Freeman Clarke, Dr. Hedge, Mrs. Caroline Dall, who also afl&liated with every noble effort in the service of humanity and with the literary interests of the day as well as with their special research and study in metaphysics and philosophy ; and there was Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, " the Cadmus of the Blind," as Whittier called him ; Dr. Edward Everett Hale, then a young clergyman ; Hawthorne, held spell- bound under the magic of romance ; Edwin Percy Whip- ple, the most sympathetic of friends and critics ; James T. Fields, who at the head of a liberal publishing house was doing so much toward making the best foreign literature accessible on this side. Thackeray came and lectured, and was hospitably entertained by Mr. Fields and Mr. Longfellow ; Jenny Lind charmed the city with her lyric art ; Rachel appeared, offering a new revelation of dramatic interpretation, and the great forces of art and thought were a condition of radiant energy. It was a most remarkable period, and one which is almost without parallel since the golden days of Pericles. II CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS For Joy and Beauty planted it, With faery gardens cheered. And boding fancy haunted it With men and women weird. Emerson. CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS Behind thee leaye thy merchandise, Thy churches and thy charities ; And leave thy peacock wit behind ; Enough for thee the primal mind That flows in streams, that breathes in wind Leave all thy pedant lore apart ; God hid the whole world in thy heart. Love shuns the sage, the child it crowns, Gives all to them who all renounce. Emerson. HE Concord idyl is the most classic chapter in American history. The New England town lying in its quiet beauty on a placid river, amid pine-clad hills, has become the shrine of literary pilgrimage, invested with a mystic atmosphere of poetic beauty and consecration which binds the most casual comer to maintain the honor of the place. In the amber lights of an autumn day it is a golden dream, under the embowering yellow maples, shot through with scarlet gleams, under which one saunters conscious of presences unseen, of voices that fall on no mortal ear, of a ^' diviner Silence " in which dwell those who " far beyond our vision and our hail Axe heard forever, and are seen no more." One treads the winding way as a via sacra and sees 104 BOSTON DAYS " in every star's august serenity And in the rapture of tlie flaming rose " some subtle trace of vanished touch and tone. Ah, how profoundly does one feel the truth of the lines: " Empires dissolve and peoples disappear ; Song passes not away. Captains and conquerors leave a little dust, And kings a dubious legend of their reign ; The swords of Caesars, they are less than rust ; The poet doth remain." The Concord seer who crowned our days " with flower of perfect speech ; " the greatest of American romancists who left his " unfinished window in Aladdin's tower ; " the speculative philosopher whom Lowell compared to the Phidian Jove — Emerson, Hawthorne, and Alcott — form an immortal trio inseparably connected with Concord. Here was the scene of their life and work in their more essential phases ; and here, on the crest of the hill overlooking Sleepy Hollow, lie buried all that was mortal of those who have left on life and literature a permanent impress. But the group around these three central figures was itself remarkable, — Thoreau, Frank B. Sanborn, William Henry Channing, whom Mr. and Mrs. Sanborn took into their home and cherished through life as a brother ; Louisa Alcott, Samuel Hoar ; and the friends who came and went in the Emerson, Hawthorne, and Alcott households enjoying hours of the most ideal social intercourse because it was au intercourse based on spiritual gravitation. Thoreau, who graduated from CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 105 Harvard in 1837, "without any literary distinction," as Emerson records ; stoic and recluse, betook himself in 1845 to the shores of Lake Walden, where for two years he lived the life of solitary labor and study, ex- changing his hermit's hut for a brief residence in the town jail, because he refused to pay his taxes, from which he was released by a friend who paid them for him. He was never disturbed by outward things, which, he said, respect the devout mind, and he claimed that " a mental ecstasy is never interrupted/' Emerson notes that the biography of Thoreau is found in his verses, — as in this stanza : — '* I hearing get, who had but ears, And sight, who had but eyes before ; I moments live, who lived but years, And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore." It is Emerson who most truly recognized the inner life of this strange being, and who sums up all Thoreau's character in the words : — " His soul was made for the noblest society ; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world ; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home." The homes and haunts of Emerson, Alcott, Haw- thorne, and Thoreau offer an objective point for as classic a pilgrimage as can be found in the region of the lake poets of England, or to the heath where the witches appeared to Macbeth, to that street in Florence on which stands Dante's house, or to Casa Guidi, which 106 BOSTON DAYS was so long the home of the Brownings. Emerson was one of the few greatest spirits that have ever come into this world, bringing a message of the higher possi- bilities of life ; and even yet we stand too near fully to recognize his supreme power as a spiritual seer. Alcott was an exceptional individuality in his absolute nobility of thought; Hawthorne the greatest magician in prose romance; Thoreau, unique, unworldly, and illustrating in his life the wide distinction between the things that are significant and; insignificant ; Louisa Alcott, a woman whose greatness of character excelled even her literary fame : and the circle that these great spirits drew about them will forever remain an impres- sive one in literary history. The town of Concord is unparalleled by any other in America. It has the distinctive N"ew England flavor, as a matter of course ; but beyond this there is more. The stamp of high intelligence and refinement Concord shares with many another town of New England, and, indeed, of an entire country ; but there is a special recog- nition among its residents of what one may perhaps not inaptly designate as the consecration in the air, — the heritage left by the high spirits that have vanished from mortal eye. " After all, it is the fine souls that serve us, and not what we may call fine society," truly said Emerson; and if one falls inadvertently into a bit of transcendental dialect and refers to Concord as a town of " fine souls " the reader will readily pardon him. Although the most famous of the townspeople have passed on to the life beyond this, there still remain CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 107 noted leaders, and a most refined and cultured circle of people. The name of Mr. Frank B. Sanborn, a wit, poet, and scholar and distinguished as a social scientist, author, reformer, and philanthropist, readily recurs to all in connection with Concord, as does the name of that supremely gifted genius, Daniel French, the artist whose great work entitled " Death and the Sculptor " was regarded as the finest piece of sculpture shown at the Columbian Exposition. The beautiful free library of the town, whose annual circulation averages over 23,000, among a population of 3,000, attracts the visitor, and within he will find the portrait of Emerson, painted by David Scott in Edin- burgh in 1848; Raphael Mengs' copy of Titian's Columbus ; Marshall's copy of Stuart's Washington ; a bust of Hawthorne; French's busts of Emerson, Alcott, and Miss Alcott; Gould's bust of Emerson; Schoff s engraving, Rouse's crayon portrait of Emerson, — the finest likeness of him ; a bust of Plato, and Dexter's bust of Agassiz; a landscape by Edward Simmons, who was a native of Concord ; a bust of Horace Mann, and other works of artistic interest and local association. Loitering along the long street, one passes the former residence of Hon. Samuel Hoar, where his son, Judge Hoar, was born, and who died in Concord in 1856. The house is now in possession of the third generation of the family. It was the daughter of the elder Hoar, Elizabeth, who was the betrothed of Emerson's tenderly beloved brother, Charles, who died in 1836, and of whom Emerson wrote to his wife : — 108 BOSTON DAYS '' A soul is gone, so costly and so rare that few persons were capable of knowing its price. In losing him I have lost my all, for he was born an orator and a writer." The little shops along the street in Concord all placard their windows with photographs and views of the local celebrities and noted places. Xo stranger could fail to realize how all-pervading is the pride and sympathy of the town in the great spirits that have left it their heritage of fame. From Monument Square at the east end several roads diverge, — one running past the " Old Manse " to the bridge and the statue of the Minute Man, where was fired " the shot heard round the world ; " on another, one comes to the home of Emerson and goes on to the " Orchard House," where Alcott lived, and on whose grounds stands the little hillside chapel where the '^School of Philosophy " was held from 1878 to 1886. The approach to the " Old Manse " is through a sombre avenue which was originally of the black ash- trees, but these dying, it has mostly been filled in with maples. Two high posts of granite frown upon the outer entrance. On the hill which rises between the " Old Manse " and the village, is a single poplar-tree out- lined against the sky. The Manse was built in 1765 for Rev. William Emerson, the grandfather of Ralph Waldo. He married Phoebe Bliss. His early death left her a widow at the age of thirty-nine, with a group of little children, and she soon became the wife of Dr. Ezra Ripley, a man nine years her junior, who succeeded J; &.X' '■ - '. ■ '.''jft.'', . ■•k^^' '-^1^-'^ r ;»/■ "■> .;V. ;. ^ j P- ~ . 1 ■-- ■ / -^^V" I ' '-' #^>^!iifl^^lSiW:>' .,.JMi i . 1 ;f ■^■■■^ n II ?^,i>w'^. ■ ■ '1 » '^.csm^-'^'i.M ?^ ' . s i^Ol^v:'- ■ -•* -'-V ^ ■ ' ^' ^' -^ • ^"in ■'^r • -• o CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 109 Mr. Emerson as minister of the parish. Dr. Riplej, who was a character in his day, planted the orchard that still stands sloping down to the river. He often discovered large providences in small events. Purchasing a " shay," he recorded the fact in his diary, and added : " The Lord grant it may be a comfort and blessing to my family." On their all being overturned in it, he records : '^ I desire that the Lord would teach me suit- ably to repent this Providence, to make suitable re- marks on it, and to be suitably affected by it." His long prayer usually included meteorological appeals, and he especially petitioned against lightning, that it might not " lick up our spirits." He was a just and good man, officially severe, as became the times, and most tenderly sympathetic in his own nature. The " Old Manse "has sheltered, at one time and another, nearly all the noted divines of New England ; and the chamber where they slept is still known as the " saints' rest." Its walls are covered with inscriptions. The study is kept just as it was one hundred years ago, and it is said that still at the dead of night unseen hands lift the latch and currents of cold air rush in. Emerson was the enchanter whose magic, like that of Merlin, cast its spell on the atmosphere. "He was surrounded by men who ran to extremes in their idio- syncrasies," said Dr. Holmes : " Alcott in speculations which often led him into the fourth dimension of men- tal space; Hawthorne, who brooded himself into a dream-peopled solitude ; Thoreau, the nullifier of civili- zation, who insisted on nibbling his asparagus at the no BOSTON DAYS wroDg end, to say nothing of idolaters and echoes. He kept his balance among all." Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, on Sum- mer Street, now in the heart of business thoroughfares, on May 26, 1803, and any reference to him cannot but invite meditation on the spiritual seer and the poet whose influence only deepens and increases as the years go by and as humanity progresses to higher planes. The appreciation of Emerson is not limited to any cult : he is more universal even than Goethe ; and while he is the delight of the scholar and of the saint, he is no less the delight, the inspirer, of the enthusiasm of youth, of the man of culture and gifts, or of those whose life is largely given to toil, or hampered by trial or privation. Indeed, it is to these that he is all-essential. For it is Emerson who is supremely, out of all the entire world of authors, "the friend and aider of all who would live in the spirit." Emerson is a poet for poets ; he is the seer, the diviner, the prophet; he is the most re- markable spiritual teacher of this century. There could hardly be to-day any subject so profitable to engage the general attention as that of his life, his influence, and the illumination on the problems of existence which he has contributed to the world. In 1634 the Rev. Peter Bulkeley, rector of Wood- hill and Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, came to this country from England, and was one of the founders of the present town of Concord, Mass. His granddaughter, Elizabeth Bulkeley, married Rev. Joseph Emerson. Their son married Rebecca Waldo, and CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 111 they had a son, Joseph, who also became a mmister and who married Phoebe Bliss. Rev. Joseph Emerson was pastor of the Unitarian Church in Concord, and he lived in the " Old Manse." The famous Mary Moody Emerson — the aunt to whom Ralph Waldo Emerson owed so much — was a daughter of Rev. Joseph and Phoebe (Bliss) Emerson, and among their other children was William, who became a minister and married Ruth Haskins. The Rev. William and Ruth (Haskins) Emerson were the parents of Ralph Waldo Emerson. His grandfather. Rev. Joseph Emerson, died at the age of thirty- three. He was the man who used to pray every night that none of his descendants might ever be rich. He was a classical scholar, a devoted lover of the Iliad, and he ruined his health by his devo- tion to study. After his death Mrs. Emerson became the wife of Dr. Ezra Ripley, — her husband's successor as pastor of the church, who was nine years her junior. Rev. William Emerson recorded in his diary that in June of 1796 he ^' rode out with the pious and amiable Ruth Haskins, and conversed with her on the subject of matrimony," — apparently to good purpose, as they were married in the following October. After this marriage he records in his diary : — ' ' We are poor and cold, and have little meal and little wood, but, thank God, courage enough. In 1799 he was invited to be the pastor of the First Church in Boston, and the emoluments of his pastorate were fixed at $14 a week ; also the parish dwelling-house and twenty cords of wood." 112 BOSTON DAYS He died at the age of fortj-two, in May, 1811, leav- ing his young wife with six children, of whom Ralph Waldo, born in May, 1803, was the third, and all were under ten years of age. The ^^ pious and amiable Ruth," left a widow with her family of children, was constantly assisted and invigorated by the care and help of Mary Moody Emerson, the sister of her husband, who took a lively interest in the little flock. " Educated, " she exclaimed ; " they were born to be educated ! " There was a new family of the little Ripleys, and Mary Moody had been taken by her grandmother in Maiden. Here she had grown up and lived, and only occasionally saw her mother and her little half-brothers and sisters, who lived on in the ^'Old Manse" at Concord. She was the most unique character of her time, and the curious story of her life must always stand out as a marked chapter in New England biography. In a letter written by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his early life, referring to his aunt, he says : — "Give my love to her, — love and honor. She must always occupy a saint's place in my household; and I have no hours of poetry and philosophy since I knew these things, into which she does not enter as a genius.'' Mary Moody Emerson was born in Concord in 1774, and died (in 1863) on Long Island. She was born just before the opening of the Revolution. Her father was the minister of Concord, and as a chaplain went to Ticonderoga where he died. His wife married again, CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 113 aud Mary was reared by her grandmother in Maiden, Mass. The second husband of Mrs. Emerson was Dr. Ezra Ripley, as before noted, and a new family of children sprang up. In the old farmhouse at Maiden, Mary Moody Emerson lived a varied and curious life. '^ What a subject is her life and mind for the finest novel ! " her illustrious nephew has said of her. From her journal, under date of November, 1805, we learn that she " rose before light ; visited from necessity once, and once for books ; read Butler's ^ Analogy/ Cicero's ' Letters,' — a few ; washed, carded, cleaned house, and baked." " There is a sweet pleasure," she says, "in bending to circumstances while superior to them." Emerson, writing of her, said : — "Her early reading was Milton, Young, Akenside, Samuel Clarke, Jonathan Edwards, and always the Bible. Later, Plato, Plotinus, Marcus Antoninus, Stewart, Coleridge, Cousin. Herder, Locke, Madame de Stael, Channing, Mackintosh, Byron. Nobody can read in her manuscript, or recall the conversation of old-school people, without seeing that Milton and Young had a religious authority in their mind, and nowise the slight, merely entertaining quality of modern bards. And Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, — how venerable and organic as Nature they are in her mind! What a subject is her mind and life for the finest novel ! When I read Dante, the other day, and his paraphrases to signify with more adequateness Christ or Jehovah, whom do you think I was reminded of? Whom but Mary Emerson and her eloquent theology? She had a deep sympathy with 8 114 BOSTON DAYS genius. When it was unhallowed, as in Byron, she had none the less, whilst she deplored and affected to de- nounce him. But she adored it when ennobled by char- acter. She liked to notice that the greatest geniuses have died ignorant of their power and influence. She wished you to scorn to shine. '^ For years she had her bed made in the form of a coflSn, and delighted herself with the discovery of the figure of a coffin made every evening on their sidewalk by the shadow of a church tower which adjoined the house. " Saladin caused his shroud to be made, and carried it to battle as his standard. She made up her shroud, and death still refusing to come, and she thinking it a pity to let it lie idle, wore it as a night-gown, or a day- gown, nay, went out to ride in it, on horseback, in her mountain roads, until it was worn out. Then she had another made up, and as she never travelled without being provided for this dear and indispensable contin- gency, I believe she wore out a great many." A more extraordinary character was never known than Mary Moody Emerson. Yet she had the quality of greatness, — vast mental capacity and resources, spir- itual fervor, perpetual aspiration. With these went the constant conflict with circumstances, the constant and triumphant assertion also of the potency of spirit over the temporary vexations of the material world. On the low stone that marks her grave in the Emer- son lot in Sleepy Hollow are the lines : — " She gave high counsels. It was the privilege of cer- tain boys to have this unmeasurably high standard indi- cated to their childhood, a blessing which nothing else in education could supply." CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 115 This eccentric aunt of Emerson's was, nevertheless, one of the strongest formative influences in his life. The three brothers, Edward, Charles, and Ralph Waldo, went to the Latin School and later to Har- vard. At the time Emerson entered Harvard (1817) George Ticknor was professor of modern languages and Edward Everett of Greek. The president was Dr. Kirkland. Emerson was chosen poet for Class Day, but while his standing as a student was fair, it was in no wise distinguished. Josiah Quincy, his classmate, has said of him that he " gave no sign of the power that was fashioning itself for leadership in a new time." Later he taught school, went to Europe for a year, entered the ministry, and finally resigned his charge, as he could not conscien- tiously administer the Lord's Supper. In September of 1829 he married Ellen Louise Tucker, who only lived three years. In 1835 he married Miss Lydia Jackson, of Plymouth, and on her marriage induced her to write her name Lidian, as more euphonious with Emerson. Miss Jackson was, at the time of her marriage to the poet, a woman thirty-three years of age, keenly intelli- gent and cultivated, and with exceeding sweetness of nature. She owned her residence — the ^' old Winslow house," as it was caUed — and proposed that they should make that their home, but Emerson was charmed by Concord. Before their marriage he wrote her, saying : " I must win you to love Concord. I am born a poet, — of a low class without doubt, yet a poet. That is my nature and vocation. My singing, to be sure, is very 116 BOSTON DAYS husky, and for the most part in prose. Still I am a poet in the sense of a perceiver and dear lover of the harmo- nies that are in soul and in matter, and especially of the correspondences between these and those. A sunset, a forest, a snow-storm, a certain river-view, are more to me than many friends, and do ordinarily divide my clay with my books. Wherever I go, therefore, I guard and study my rambling propensities. Now Concord is only one of a hundred towns in which I could find these necessary objects, but Plymouth, I fear, is not one. Plymouth is streets." It would have seemed as if the sea and Plymouth woods might have appealed more to Emerson's poetic sense than an inland village like Concord, quietly pic- turesque as it is ; but they did not. He loved this quiet town and he bought a home on the Lexington road known as the ^^ Coolidge house," where in September of 1835 the wedded couple set up their household gods. They had four children, — Waldo, Ellen, Edward, and Edith. Waldo died in childhood, and it is for him that Emerson's poem, " Threnody," was written. Edward Emerson studied medicine, but of late years devotes himself to art. Edith married a wealthy and prominent man, Mr. Forbes, of Milton, Mass., and one of her children, a daughter, has a talent for sculpture and has studied under Mr. William Ordway Partridge. Miss Ellen Emerson has never married, and she occupies their home in Concord, and is the idolized figure in the entire village. On the death of his brother Charles, Emerson wrote to his wife : — CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 117 " And so, Lidiaiij I can never bring you back my noble friend, who was my ornament, my wisdom, and my pride. A soul is gone so costly and so rare that few persons were capable of knowing its price, and I shall have mysorrow to myself, for if I speak of him I shall be thought a fond exaggerator. He had the four-fold perfection of good sense, of genius, of grace, and a virtue as I have never seen them combined. . . . And you must be content henceforth with only a piece of your husband, for the best of his strength lay in the soul with which he must no more on earth take counsel." To Margaret Fuller he wrote of Alcott, saying : — " He has more of the godlike than any man I have ever seen, and his presence rebukes and threatens and raises. I shall dismiss for the future all anxiety about his success. If he cannot make intelligent men feel the presence of a superior nature, the worse for them. I can never doubt him. His ideal is belield with such unrivalled distinctness that he is not only justified, but necessitation to condemn and to seek to approve the vast actual and cleanse the world. . . . The most extraordinary man and the highest genius of his time. He ought to go publishing through the land his gospel, like them of old time. Wonderful is the steadiness of his \dsion. ... It were too much to say that the Platonic world I might have learned to treat as cloudland had I not known Alcott, who is a native of that country. Yet I will say that he makes it as solid as Massachusetts to me." Under date of August, 1836, Emerson writes to one of his brothers : — '^Mr. Alcott has spent a day here lately, — the character- builder. An accomplished lady is staying with Lidian, — 118 BOSTON DAYS Miss Margaret Fuller. She is quite an extraordinary per- son for her apprehensiveness, her acquisitions, and her power of conversation." From the first Mr. Alcott made an impression on Emerson that only deepened with time. Alcott was four years his senior. " That godlike man/' Emerson called him from the first, and "the highest genius of his time." He asserts that Mr. Alcott *^ makes the Platonic world as solid as Massachusetts to me." Of Emerson's habits in his early married life, James Eliot Cabot writes : — " The morning was his time for work, and he guarded it from all disturbances. He rose early and went to his study, where he remained until 1 o'clock, when, partaking of the mid-day dinner, he went to walk. In the evening he was with his family, and he never worked late, think- ing sleep to be a prime necessitj^" The record of Mr. Emerson's life is almost exclusively that of a spiritual biography. Not that he failed of being in real relations with humanity ; he was pre- eminently in these right relations, and his life as a son, brother, husband, father, friend, neighbor, and citizen rang true at every touch. He was faithful, tender, noble, and loyal. But it was the soul's journey through the universe that interested him, and he read the eter- nities and not the times. Like Emily Dickinson he could have declared, — " The only news I know Is bulletins all day From ImmortaUty." CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 119 His lofty spirituality was conjoined, however, with what the world agrees in calling the practical quali- ties. It is true that nothing is so " practical " as spirituality of life, for when it does not give greater tenderness, greater thought, greater consideration for family, friends, and humanity in general, it is not the highest spirituality at all. In the true sense of the term practical, no one was ever more so than Jesus, the Christ. To comfort the sorrowing, to heal the sick, to inspire all into the radiant hopes of the higher life and the infinite achievement possible to the soul, — is a very practical work. Mr. Emerson made in all three journeys to Europe, — one in his early life and two in later years. By means of these his circle of friends was still further enlarged, and the friendship and correspondence between himself and Carlyle is well known. Prof. Charles Eliot Norton, of Harvard, edited the two large volumes of the correspond- ence of Carlyle and Emerson, as will be remembered, — a work which is one of the monumental contributions to the literature of this century, and which Matthew Arnold characterized as " the best memorial of Carlyle which exists." From his early life up to about 1878 Emerson lectured largely in New England, but somewhat widely, too, in the West. It could hardly be said that he was a popular lecturer in the sense in which it was said of AVendell Phillips, Henry Ward Beecher, and Anna Dickinson, but he was the most winning personality of them all ; and if his lectures appealed only to the 120 BOSTON DAYS higher order of responsive thought, that order was by no means lacking, whether in a country town in the West, or in the New England metropolis. The Eastern people who are not familiar with the West or the South do not realize the intense intellectual vitality of the country and the country towns, — the noble and beau- tiful aspirations of the young people. They consti- tute a public which those familiar with it appreciate truly. Mr. Emerson had a certain fine and persistent instinct of fitness, if one may call it so, that would never have allowed him to be in debt, — to be in any undignified position. Poverty and privation companioned his early life, but it was always the poverty that is borne with dignity and that had the solace of high thought. One may accept the deprivation of fashionable society if he have the company of the gods. In the town of Concord Emerson was the most be- loved citizen. He was always a working factor in town meetings and organizations, actively interested in the schools, the local government, the social and moral progresso He was never a recluse in the sense of being indifferent to whatever made for the welfare of the people. He loved his friends and neighbors, and was beloved, — adored, indeed, by them. And a goodly company, indeed, they were. Hon. Samuel Hoar was a noble man, whose life and influence contributed measurably to elevate the standard of living. He was born in Lincoln (near Concord) in May, 1778, and died in Concord, Nov. 2, 1856. He is CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 121 buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, and on his tomb is a design of a window with the words : — " The pilgrim they laid in a chamber Whose window opened toward the sunrising. The name of the chamber was Peace ; There he lay till break of day and then he arose and sang." Besides this quotation from the " Pilgrim's Progress " there is a long inscription, of which some lines are : *'He-was long one of the most eminent lawyers and best beloved citizens of Massachusetts, — a safe coun- sellor, a kind neighbor, a Christian gentleman. He had a dignity that commanded the respect and a sweetness and modesty that won the affection of all men. He practised an economy that never wasted, and a liberality that never spared. Of capacity for the highest offices, he never avoided obscure duties. He never sought station of fame or emolument, and never shrank from positions of danger or obloquy. His days were made happy by public esteem and private affection, . . . and he met death with the perfect assurance of immortal life." Elizabeth Hoar, his daughter, the betrothed of Charles Emerson, was always regarded by Emerson as a sister, and his mother, Madame Emerson (the '^ pious and amiable " Ruth Haskins), who lived in his family, and died in the fifties, always looked upon Miss Hoar as a daughter. Elizabeth Hoar died in 1878, having lived to be sixty-three years of age. Samuel Hoar married a daughter of Roger Sherman. Judge E. R. Hoar, whose death occurred a decade ago, was their son, as is also the present Senator Hoar. Besides the Hoar 122 BOSTON DAYS family, the Emersous, the Hawthornes, the Alcotts, Thoreau, and Mr. and Mrs. Frank B. Sanborn made up a remarkable drcle. Such a group of residents of course drew visitors of note, and thus for nearly half a century Concord has been the scene of literary pilgrimage. Margaret Fuller frequently visited at the Emersons. Elizabeth Peabody was a familiar guest, as were the Whipples, Mrs. Howe, James Freeman Clarke, and Dr. Hedge. In those days now forever vanished from all save memory, Emerson, Alcott, Dr. Hedge, and Dr. Bartol formed a club of their own, — an alliance defensive, though not offensive, and exclusive of all other varieties of meetings or gatherings. They met at stated times for one hour, and when that was told the four philosophers went each his own way. That they might escape the interruptions of a rude and unfeeling world, whose noise and bustle would jar upon the lofty medi- tations of the transcendental mind, they met in Miss Bartol's studio, which had been evolved from a former stable, in the rear of her father's old' Boston house, on Chestnut Street. Here, however often the doorbell of the house of Bartol might ring, it could not disturb the serenity of the great men. Of this quartet two are so well known as to require no comment. The names of Emerson and Alcott are as immortally linked as those of Goethe and Schiller. Dr. Hedge was the con- temporary and warm friend of James Freeman Clarke and of Margaret Fuller. He lived on into a great age, dying during this last decade, at the age of CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 123 over fourscore. His house was in Cambridge and his specialty was German metaphysics. It was in his early youth that the craze of German enthusiasm swept over Boston, and found its most devoted disciples in Mr. Hedge, Mr. Clarke, Margaret Fuller, and Elizabeth Peabody. At that time Miss Peabody opened a book store in the front room of her father's house on West Street, for foreign books and periodicals, as they were unable otherwise to procure their German lore. This shop became a sort of library clubroom, and it was here, as noted, that James Freeman Clarke first dis- cussed his idea of founding the church to which he gave the name of the Church of the Disciples. Dr. Hedge graduated at Harvard and fared forth to visit Goethe, on his subsequent tour to Europe, with letters of in- troduction to the great poet as before noted, and he re- turned to still further fan the flame of enthusiasm for Goethe's language and literature. He became eminent as a translator, as well as a philosophical essayist ; and it is traditionally told that his intellectual force so im- pressed its superiority on the Harvard undergraduates of the day that he was appreciatively (if irreverently) known to them as "Old Brains." Dr. Holmes knew Emerson well, and despite the " official " authority of Mr. James Eliot Cabot's life of Emerson, the biography written by Dr. Holmes has infinitely more vitality, color, and power of communi- cating the essential personality of Emerson. In a letter (dated Oct. 9, 1894) to Miss Ellen Emerson, Dr. Holmes writes : — 124 BOSTON DAYS '^ . . In a generation or two your father will be an ideal, tending to become as mystical as Buddha, but for these hum,an circumstances which show that he was a man. ... It will delight so many people to know these lesser circumstances of a great life that I can hardly bear to lose sight of any of them." This reveals the more sympathetic and related spirit in which Dr. Holmes wrote the biography of Emerson. The life of Mr. Cabot has the essential claims, too, but, at all events, no lover of Emerson can afford to miss the racy, keen-sighted, vital, and charming interpretation given by Dr. Holmes. Emerson's personality radiated strength and courage. Margaret Fuller thus expressed her recognition of him : — *' When I look forward to eternal growth I am always aware that I am far larger and deeper for him. His influence has been to me that of lofty assurance and sweet serenity. I present to him the many forms of nature and solicit them with music ; he melts them all into spirit and reproves performance with prayer." To Mr. Whipple, who was at one time preparing an article on Emerson for an encyclopaedia, he wrote : — Concord, April 22, 1859. Dear Whipple, — I have with too much pains notched out my calendar of two little events, but as I had begun to fix the year of each work, thought I would wade through. What is curious I have omitted ; namely, that by paternal or maternal lines I am the eighth consecutive clergyman. Otherwise, for eight generations we are a consecutive line CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 125 of clergymen on one or the other side, reaching back to Peter Bulkley, the founder of Concord, who is my ances- tor. Was it not time I should vote for the necessity of change? The rest of all this detail is for your article, but I thought you should have it in manuscript for public reference. Make the shortest article, for I grudge you here to the cyclopedia, which I have not looked into, but believe is to have nothing good but what you and Lowell have put into it. I gave you already the ground of my life. Yours ever, Ralph Waldo Emerson. About this time Mr. Emerson wrote again to Mr. Whipple : — CoNCOED, April 18. Dear Whipple, — I am too well pleased to know that I have fallen into your good hands, and I took up my pen on Saturday to tell you so when I was called away per- emptorily. I did not return home in time for the mail. In ten or twelve days I will attend to the matter of dates, and will make out a list of such as I may think you may want with all the gravity which the occupation demands. Ever yours, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson as a poet is less known than as an essayist. But to those who revel in the latter an ever deeper joy is found in his poetry. The profoundest spiritual mean- ing pervades his poems as the fragrance pervades the rose. Take these lines : — '• Draw the breath of Eternity. Serve thou it not for daily bread, — Serve it for pain and fear and need. 126 BOSTON DAYS Love it, though it hide its light ; By love behold the sun at night. If the law shall thee forget, More enamoured, serve it yet. Though it hate thee, suffer long, Put the Spirit in the wrong." It were an impertinence to attempt to explain a poet's meaning ; but were ever lines more impressive in their counsel to serve the highest right — not for reward, nor bread, but for pain, or fear, or need; to love, though love's light be obscured ; to love so deeply and truly as to work a miracle and " behold the sun at night." The keenest significance is often condensed in his words as in these couplets : — " Thought is the wages For which I sell days." " Would' st thou seal up the avenues of ill ? Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill." " What boots it ? What the soldier's mail Unless he conquer and prevail ? " To the supreme gift of life, — personal charm, — Emerson gives this tribute : — " I hold it of little matter Whether your jewel be of pure water, A rose diamond or a white, But whether it dazzle me with light. I care not how you are dressed. In coarsest weeds or in the best : But whether you charm me, Bid my bread feed and my fire warm me.** CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 127 With this gift of the gods — this perfect inflorescence of wit and grace — Emerson was signally endowed, and Mr. Longfellow eloquently recognized this charm when he called the Concord seer " the Chrysostom of his day." In the group of poems entitled '* Initial, Dsemoniac, and Celestial Love," there is the most perfect exposition of holy and consecrated love, in its immortal significance, untouched and unchanged by any of the changes or the incidents and accidents of life on earth, that is por- trayed in the English language. Not even the sonnets of Shakspeare, nor Mrs. Browning's '' Sonnets from the Portuguese " contain anything more noble than such lines as these from " The Celestial Love." " But God said, ' I will have a purer gift ; There is smoke in the flame ; JSTew flowerets bring, new prayers uplift, And love without a name. Fond children, ye desire To please each other well ; Another round, a higher, Ye shall climb on the heavenly stair, And selfish preference forbear ; ' Nor less the eternal poles Of tendency distribute souls. There need no vows to bind Whom not each other seek, but find. They give and take no pledge or oath, — Nature is the bond of both : No prayer persuades, no flattery fawns, — Their noble meanings are their pawns." 128 BOSTON DAYS Again we find in Emerson : — *' Give all to love ; Obey thy heart : Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good-fame, Plans, credit, and the Muse, Nothing refuse. Follow it utterly, Hope beyond hope ! " The Emerson and the Alcott households almost equally divide the interest of those who still make their passionate pilgrimage to Concord. The life of the Alcott family is an epic poem, and its quality is fairly photographed in Louisa Alcott's " Little Women/' — a story that has so marvellously touched life because it was written out of the very springs of vitality. Mr. Alcott was the mystic by nature and by grace. He was great when tried by the standard of spiritual measurement; but his faculties did not relate them- selves to the needs of ordinary life. Measured, too, by professional demands, he had too little of the applied powers to have ever made a successful teacher, author, or lecturer on genuine professional lines. Mr. Frothing- ham, in his " Transcendentalism in New England," says of Mr. Alcott : ^^ He is not a learned man in the ordinary sense of the term ; not a man of versatile mind or various tastes ; not a man of general information in worldly or even literary affairs ; not a man of extensive commerce with books. Though a reader, and a con- CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 129 stant and faithful one, his reading has been limited to books of poetry — chiefly of the meditative and interior sort — and works of spiritual philosophy. Plato, Plotinus, Proclus, Jamblichus, Pythagoras, Boehme, Swedenborg, are the names oftener than any on his pages and lips." Mr. Alcott was born in Wolcott, Conn., Nov. 29, 1799, the eldest of eight children. His ancestry was that of the plain living and high thinking which has contributed the best elements to American citizenship. The boy was born with a taste for books. The limita- tions of poverty were in the little household, but while there was poverty of the purse there was no poverty of the spirit. The kingdom of the mind, like that of heaven, is open to all who can receive. Not that there could be claimed for Mr. Alcott the dower of a great genius. It was instead that of a very unique personality, — a nature singularly pure, sweet, and trustful as a child ; with no little unconscious but never offensive egotism ; hospitable to all generous impulses and high thought, but almost totally deficient in what Emerson calls the useful, reconciling talents. Of him Emerson wrote to Carlyle in October of 1862 : " As for Alcott, you have discharged your conscience of him manfully and knightly. I absolve you well. He is a great man, and was made for what is greatest ; but I now fear that he has already touched what best he can and through his more than prophetic egotism and the absence of all useful reconciling talents, will bring nothing to pass, and be but a voice in the wilder- 9 ISO BOSTON DAYS ness, as you do not seem to have seen in him under his pure and noble intellect. I fear that it lies under some new and denser clouds." Mr. Alcott apparently thought that Pheidias need not be always tinkering. His nature was created for an Arcadian age, and to the shrewd, sharp, economic New England atmosphere he brought no adaptation. Of economic concerns and the market Mr. Alcott had as little conception as the great god Pan might bring. His affinities were far more with grave, mystic contemplation while loiter- ing " in the reeds by the river." Yet here he was in this work-a-day world, where the poor man must pro- ceed to get a living before he can altogether live, — a world which insists on the logical development that depends on the material for its first stage and substantial basis. Mr. Alcott's ideal nature, however, was only fitted for an ideal world. He was full of love and trust, and faith and fine insights. Unfortunately faith and love do not keep the pot boiling, and the fires of the gods cannot be transmuted to domestic service. Nor was Mr. Alcott sufficiently great in intellect to command from the world its material resources in return for his own bestowal of finer gifts. Agassiz declared his independence of the market, and asserted that his time was too valuable to give it to earning money. But he gave the world that which enriched its resources, which had its positive value to the econo- mists as well as its special message to the scholar, and for him the world of bustling activities was well lost. Not so Mr. Alcott. He had a message of value, but CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 131 the time was not yet ripe. His theory of the education of children, which was the most tangible and positive contribution he had to make to the age of his early manhood, was regarded as dreamy and unpractical. It was the development theory, the truth that a little later haunted the brain of Froebel and of Pestalozzi, but the busy, practical New England life was not then ready for this grafting of higher truth. Ex- cepting with Emerson and Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, in his earlier life, found little sympathy and appreciation. Yet his message was one that could wait. In any retrospective glance over the wonderful Nineteenth century, the appearance of this purely Greek nature seems more than ever an anomaly in New England life. Emerson has wittily said : — "Unless to thought is added will, Apollo is an imbecile.'* Mr. Alcott was by no means an imbecile, yet it must be confessed that not much power of will was ever added to his thought. His purposes were always nebulous and undefined, and yet so pure and exalted that they were a tremendous force for the good. George Eliot, in her ^^ Middlemarch," makes Dorothea say something to the effect that by desiring what is good, even if we do not know exactly what it is, we become a part of its power. This was illustrated in the life of Bronson Alcott. The story of his early life is not unfamiliar, — his attendance at a district school, his experiences as a pedler, — but it was only as he 132 BOSTON DAYS came to Boston and began to find his own place that his life began to take on significance. In June of 1836, some years after his marriage, he wrote to his mother, saying: "You are associated in my heart with sympathy forever. I was diffident ; you never mortified me. I was quiet ; you never excited me. I loved my books ; you encouraged me to read. You knew my love for the beautiful, and you cherished it. I am sure that I owe not a little of my serenity of mind, hope, and trust in the future to you." When Mr. Alcott met and married Abigail May (a sister of Rev. Samuel May), he found the ideal complement of his nature. They were married in King's Chapel, in Boston, in May, 1830. Miss May was the daughter of Colonel Joseph and Dorothy (Sewall) May, born in October, 1800, a woman of singular beauty and force of character. Mrs. Alcott quite understood the life which she was entering on her marriage. Soon after that event she wrote to her brother : "" My husband is the perfect personification of modesty and moderation. I am not sure that we shall not blush into obscurity and contemplate into starvation." There was in Connecticut an educational fund of $1,000,000 which Mr. Alcott— not an edu- cated man in the college sense, not a man possessing at that time any social or financial influence — resolved should be used for higher educational purposes than had heretofore been the custom, and as a lofty purpose en- forces its own right of way he succeeded in effecting this decision. Education, indeed, in the broad sense of the CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 133 term, was Mr. Alcott's ideal aim, and there are results seen to-day in the better training of children that can be traced to his influence. To speak of the better class of the young people of his day as not being " educated " is slightly misleading, for in culture they far exceeded many of the college-bred men and women of to-day. At the age of nineteen we find Miss May (afterward Mrs. Alcott) reading Fdnelon in the original, studying Latin and botany, and reading Hume, Gibbon, Hallam, Scott, Locke, and Stewart, taking these authors into her daily life. But one smiles to read in a passage of her diary the way in which Mr. Alcott entertained his fiancee during the engagement. She writes to a friend : — " He read to me two interesting articles, — a review of 'Hints for the Improvement of Early Education and Nursery Discipline ' and one on the ' Management of Children with a View to their Future Character.'" A wonderful life began with this new household, — a life which radiated peace, tenderness, sweetness, and beauty to the community, and finally to all the world. The potency of a noble ideal is seen in the fact that Mr. Alcott, when young, unknown, and poor, with no conceivable influence in the world save that of his own lofty thought, determined that a Connecti- cut fund for educational purposes should be used for higher ends than those to which it had been devoted, and he succeeded. Soon after their marriage the Alcotts removed to Germantown, a suburb of 134 BOSTON DAYS Philadelphia, where Louisa Alcott was born on her father's birthday (November 29) in 1832. The friendship of Emerson and Alcott (as notable as that of Goethe and Schiller) must have begun before the Alcotts' removal to Germantown, for in 1838 Emer- son said of his friend : " Alcott is a ray of the oldest light. They say the light of some stars that parted from the orb at the deluge of ISToah has only now reached the earth." The autumn of 1839 found the Alcotts again in Boston, where Mr. Alcott opened the famous Temple School, which Elizabeth Pea- body has described. Of his arrangements Mr. Alcott said : — " I have spared no expense to surround the senses with appropriate emblems of intellectual and spiritual life. Paintings, busts, and books have been deemed important. I wish to fill every form with significance and life, thus placing the child in spiritual loveliness." "With thirty pupils at a tuition of $60 per year Mr. Alcott entered on this work. To have $1,800 a year looked to him like a competency, and his work was joy, for in it he expressed his highest conception of life. It is a sad commentary on the press of that day that the local papers attacked this ideal school until it had to be sus- pended, and Mr. Alcott's health broke down with the disappointment and grief Emerson, ever hospitable and generously considerate, invited the Alcotts to come to his house to recover, and in his note he said : *' If you will come here and get well, we will agree on CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 135 hours of sitting together and apart, and nobody shall be allowed to annoy you." In October of 1837 Emerson wrote of Alcott to Dr. Furness : — " I shall always love you for loving Alcott. He is a great man ; the god with the herdsmen of Admetus. I cannot think you know him now, when I remember how long he has been here, for he grows every month. His conversation is sublime ; yet when I see how he is under- estimated by cultivated people I fancy none but I have heard him talk." In the "Sonnets," which Mr. Alcott wrote in his eightieth year, he thus describes the early reading of his wife: — " My lady reads, with judgment and good taste, Books not too many, but the wisest, best, Pregnant with sentiment sincere and chaste, Rightly conceived were they and aptly dressed. These wells of learning tastes she at the source, — Johnson's poised periods, Fenelon's deep sense, Taylor's mellifluous and sage discourse. Majestic Milton's epic eloquence, — Nor these alone do all her thoughts en'gage, But classic authors of the modern time, And the great masters of the ancient age, In prose alike and of the lofty rhyme : Montaigne and Cowper, Plutarch's gallery, Blind Homer's Iliad and his Odyssey." The children of Mr. and Mrs. Alcott were Anna Bron- son, born in 1831 ; Louisa May, in 1832; Elizabeth, and May, born in 1834 and 1840. The third daughter was the " Beth " of " Little Women," and died in early girl- hood. May Alcott became an artist, and married in 136 BOSTON DAYS Paris a Swiss gentleman, M. Nieriker. A year later she died, leaving a little daughter named Louisa May, for her aunt Louisa, who immediately adopted her, and duriog all her childhood the little girl was in Concord with her mother's family, the especial pet and darling of her aunt and grandfather. On Miss Alcott's death her father came, taking the little maid with him to his Swiss home in Geneva. The eldest daughter, Anna Bronson, married Mr. John Pratt. She died leaving two sons, one of whom was adopted by his aunt Louisa, and his name legally changed to Alcott. The two brothers, Mr. Alcott and Mr. Pratt, the sons of Anna Alcott Pratt ; and Miss Louisa May Nieriker, the daughter of May Alcott Nieriker, are the only liv- ing grandchildren of Mr. Alcott, whose name and life continue to be among the present vital forces in New England life. The husband and wife read together from Aristotle, Plato, Bacon, Carlyle, Shelley, Sismondi, and various other authors. The sonnet in which (in his advanced age) Mr. Alcott describes Elizabeth Peabody is reminis- cent of her association with his school, and it is fairly a portrait of the great-souled woman : — *' Daughter of Memory! who her watch doth keep O'er dark Oblivion's land of shade and dream, Peers down into the realm of ancient Sleep, Where Thought uprises with a sudden gleam And lights the devious path 'twixt Be and Seem. Mythologist ! that doth thy legend steep Plenteously with opiate and anodyne, Inweaving fact with fable, line with line, CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 137 Entangling anecdote and episode, Mindful of all that all men meant or said, — We follow, pleased, thy labyrinthine road, By Ariadne's skein and lesson led : For thou hast wrought so excellently well, Thou drop'st more casual truth than sages tell." In his schoolroom Mr. Alcott placed the busts of Plato, Socrates, Shakspeare, and Milton, a head of Jesus in high relief, and other works of art. Emerson said of it : " When Alcott had made the room beautiful he looked at his work as half done." The way in which the people of those days wrote the most lengthy letters to each other constantly, and the way in which they wrote their daily journals by the yard, so to speak, suggests that time must have been far more unlimited than now. Probably the simplicity of ways and means had much to do with this. The diaries of Emerson, Alcott, Miss Peabody, Margaret Fuller, etc., contain the most abstruse reflections, as, for instance, in one entry of Alcott's in 1856 he begins by noting that he has had a long conversation with "' L. G." regarding the ante-terrestrial life, and he runs on for pages on this subject. It is not, however, that life is the less noble or exalted now, in this new cen- tury, than at that time ; it is rather that we are trans- lating the abstract into the practical realization ; that the dreams of the past have become the deeds of to-day. An evening is not passed in discussing the origin of the myth of Ceres after the fashion of Margaret Fuller and her associates, but rather, perhaps, there is discussed the way to improve tenement-houses or to establish 138 BOSTON DAYS vacation schools, or to bring the teaching of music within the reach of every one, and this translation of theory into practical activities is by no means retro- gressive, but progressive instead. The rich and beauti- ful past of Boston has flowered in a still richer and more beautiful present. Somewhere about 1840 " The Dial " appeared, and the contributions of Mr. Alcott excited no little ridicule. In the "Memoirs" of Mr. Alcott written by Mr. Sanborn and Dr. Harris this passage occurs : — ' ' Our apparent failures are often the greatest success ; and there is nothing, not even the Crucifixion, which the levity of mankind cannot hold in derision for a time. Great was the laughter in Boston, and lively, no doubt, the village cachinnation of Concord, when the Boston ' Post ' daily burlesqued Alcott in ' The Dial/ and Emerson in his lecture-room; when Dr. Holmes, at the festivals of Harvard College, laughed at Edmund Quincy, at Garrison and Phillips, as — " Men such as May to Marlborough chapel brings, Lean, hungry, savage, anti-every things, Copies of Luther in the pasteboard style — " Or, with more copious rhetoric specially barbed for Alcott and Emerson, recited this — " With uncouth words they tire their tender lungs, The same bald phrases on their hundred tongues ; ' Ever ' ' The Ages ' in their page appear, ' Alway ' the bedlamite is called a ' Seer ; ' On every leaf the ' earnest ' sage may scan, Portentous bore ! their ' many-sided ' man — CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 139 A weak eclectic, groping vague and dim, Whose every angle is a half-starved whim, Blind as a mole and curious as a lynx, Who rides a beetle, which he calls a ' Sphinx.' " Mr. Alcott's experiment at Fruitlands — some twenty miles from Concord — has become historic. The phi- losopher made a great distinction between the products that '^ aspired," or grew in air, as wheat and fruits, and those which basely and ignominiously grew in the ground, as beets and potatoes. The latter he considered unfit for food. Emerson wrote of this experiment: '' Alcott and Lane are always feeling of their shoulders, to find if their wings are sprouting ; but next best to wings are cowhide boots, which society is always advising them to put on. It is really Alcott's dis- tinction that, rejoicing or desponding, this man always trusts his principle, whilst all vulgar reformers rely on the arm of money and the law." A little later Emerson again wrote : — " Last night in the conversation Alcott appeared to great advantage, and I saw again, as often before, his singular superiority. As pure intellect I have never seen his equal. The people with whom he talks do not ever understand him. . . . Yesterday Alcott left me, after three days spent here. I had lain down a man and had waked up a bruise, by reason of a bad cold, and was lumpish, tardy, and cold. Yet could I see plainly that I conversed with the most extraordinary man and the highest genius of the time. He is a man. He is erect; he sees, let whoever be overthrown or parasitic or blind." 140 BOSTON DAYS Mrs. Cheney has said that while Theodore Parker admired Alcott and recognized his value, he found no help from him on account of their different intellectual methods. The Alcotts returned to Concord from the Fruitlands experiment, and about 1845 established themselves in the Orchard House, near Emerson, and adjoining the Wayside, Hawthorne's home. Thoreau, about this time, built his hut on Walden Pond, and there located himself. A series of "conversations" (which seemed to be the favorite amusement of the day, their opera, their theatre, as it were) were held, in which Emerson, Thoreau, Theodore Parker, Dr. Channing, James Freeman Clarke, and Alcott took part. In one of these conversations Mr. Alcott said : — " The desire for wealth has its good side also. Cali- fornia, with all its greed of gold, will become poetical ; but what men desire is not the true wealth, although commerce has been and is our most adventurous missionary and civilizer. Trade imports things which minister to the lower nature, but we want an importation of all good things, so as to form the perfect man and the great nation. Let the Oriental scriptures come to us as well as the silks, the tea, and the diamonds, — let them be translated for the common benefit of mankind, so that we may trace the stream of inspiration to its sources." Of late years the "Oriental scriptures" have come to American life and their greatness has become rather generally familiar. The present age is not a sordid material one, but is rather the heir of all the ages and freighted with still richer treasure than that of a half- century ago. CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 141 It is sometimes asked, " What did Mr. Alcott leave as tangible results of life ? He made no special con- tribution to literature ; he founded no institutions." The reply may be that Mr. Alcott was to the century a source of the purest and most potent influence which, though diffused like the air and hardly crystallized into language or literature, is yet, like the atmosphere, a most potent and indispensable power in the general life of humanity. Influence is the most spiritual form of power, and that of this ideal and pure-hearted man permeates the life of Boston to-day and radiates, indeed, so widely that to it no limits may be assigned. Mr. Alcott and his family continued to pass most of their life in Concord. When Louisa Alcott's genius first began to make itself felt, money for the first time flowed in to make life easier in a household whose altars were always consecrated to truth and aspiration. Mr. Frank B. Sanborn has said : — " Wherever Alcott dwelt the altars of learning stood and were served with daily worship, for he was the most studious of mankind, as well as the most radical and reformatory." The Alcott household life was vividly interpreted in the pages of Miss Alcott's "Little Women," and it there lives and radiates its beautiful influence to gene- ration after generation. " Alcott had singular gifts," said Emerson, '' for awakening contemplation and aspiration in untaught and in cultivated persons." How strangely introspective 142 BOSTON DAYS were these lives, and how much more indeed did they get out of life than those who never pause long enough to be steeped in an impression I When the Alcott family took up their residence in Concord, in 1857, in the ^'Orchard House," the Haw- thornes were in Europe, not returning until three years later. In the spring of 1858 Louisa Alcott writes in her diary: — " Came to occupy one wing of Hawthorne's house (once ours) while the new one was being repaired. Father, mother, and I kept house together ; May being in Boston, Anna at Pratt Farm, and, for the first time, Lizzie ab- sent. . . . July, 1858. Went into the new house and began to settle. Father is happy ; mother glad to be at rest ; Anna is in bliss with her gentle John ; and May busy over her pictures. I have plans simmering, but must sweep and dust, and wash my dish-pans awhile longer till I see my way." In the " Memoirs " of Bronson Alcott Mr. Sanborn says of this period in the Alcott fortunes : — " These first years of family life at the Orchard House, although not years of outward prosperity, were a season of great importance for the literary activity and the per- sonal enjoyment of the Alcott family. The early circle of friends who had found Concord so delightful from 1840 to 1848 was still unbroken by death, — for only Margaret Fuller, who was shipwrecked in 1850, had passed away ; and Hawthorne, after his long residence in Europe, was returning to spend the rest of his life at Concord. Emerson was in his most active career as a public teacher by lectures and discourses ; Thoreau also CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 14S lectured frequently, and was making those observations on Nature and Man which since his death have filled so many volumes ; and Ellery Channing, after a short ab- sence in New Bedford, where he edited a newspaper, had returned to Concord, and was living in the immediate neighborhood of Thoreau. Mrs. Ripley, that learned lady, who read Greek for pleasure, dwelt in the Old Manse, with her daughters near her ; and Elizabeth Hoar, since her father's death in 1856, was occupying his hos- pitable house, and joining in the studies and pursuits of her friends, young and old." When Mr. Alcott was about to make a trip abroad, Emerson thus wrote of him to Carlyle : — ' ' About this time, or perhaps a few weeks later, we shall send you a large piece of spiritual New England, in the shape of A. Bronson Alcott, who is to sail for London about the 20th of April, and whom you must not fail to see, if you can compass it. A man who cannot write, but whose conversation is unrivalled in its way, — such insight, such discernment of spirits, such pure intellectual play, such revolutionary impulses of thought ; whilst he speaks he has no peer, and yet all men say ' such par- tiality of view.' I, who hear the same charge always laid at my own gate, do not so readily feel that fault in my friend. But I entreat you to see this man. Since Plato and Plotinus we have not had his like. I have written to Carlyle that he is coming, but have told him nothing about him. For I should like well to see Alcott before that sharp-eyed painter for his portrait, without prejudice of any kind." The "Orchard House" where the Alcotts lived so long is one of the homes cobwebbed with memories. 144 BOSTON DAYS The stately trees vocal in the evening wind ; the orchard embalmed in the "Concord Days" of Mr. Alcott; ^' May's Studio," where sweet May Alcott sketched and painted and dreamed; the shaded grounds where the four " Little Women " played, — all make up a beauti- ful picture that still lives in memory. Associated with this home are those exquisite and touching poems of Mr. Alcott and of Miss Alcott when the shadow of sorrow fell, and the artist daughter and sister had gone from them to that far, fair country, where flowers are fadeless and where love is deathless. "It was but yesterday That all was bright and fair Came o'er the sea So merrily, News from my darling there. Now o'er the sea Comes hither to me Knell of despair, * No more, no longer there.' *' Ah, gentle May ! Could'st thou not stay ? Why hurriest thou so swift away ? No, — not the same, Nor can it be, That lovely name. Ever again what once it was to me. " Broken the golden band, Severed the silken strand, Ye sisters four ! Still to me two remain, And two have gone before ; CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 145 Our loss, her gain. And He wlio gave can all restore. And yet, O why, My heart doth cry, Why take her thus away ? " When one reflects that these tender, beautiful lines were written by the silver-haired sage in his eighty-first year, the purity of his life is realized anew in being thus in tune with "the holiness of perfect thought." In his latest years he told in verse the story of his life, from the time the '^mild schoolmaster" wooed his love, fair Abby May, and led his bride out of the old King's Chapel to begin their wedded life together; through the years when children came to crown his life ; through the beautiful friendships which that hos- pitable home invited ; and closing with the last touch- ing lines read over the lifeless form of his friend, Mr. Emerson. The " Love's Morrow " commemorated the death of his daughter May in the far foreign land, and the coming of her baby daughter to his heart and home is lightly touched in these simple stanzas : — " Voyager across the seas, In my arms thy form I press ; Come, my baby, me to please, Blue-eyed nursling, motherless. " Safe, ye angels, keep this child, — Lifelong guard her innocence ; Winsome ways and temper mild, Heaven, our home, be her defence !" In one of his sonnets to Emerson occur the lines, 10 146 BOSTON DAYS " Thy fellowship was my culture, noble friend ! And lifelong hath it been high compliment By that to have been known, and thy friend styled.'* One addressed to Margaret Fuller says of her life, - — " Charming all other, dwelling still alone." Professor Harris is addressed as, — " Interpreter of the Pure Keason's laws And all the obligations Thought doth owe, These high ambassadors of her great cause." As the Christian of old marked the year with prayers, Mr. Alcott marked his years with his poems, which tell all the story to the reader who holds the key. Of old John Brown he would speak in earnest words of his martyr-spirit. "He knew just what the result would be to him," said Mr. Alcott, " and he was ready for the sacrifice ; nor do I believe freedom would ever have triumphed as it did without the aid and the inspiration of his life." The fame of Bronson Alcott is not that of the literary man in the exclusive sense of creative literature. It was more archetypal, — the man who stood for the idea itself, for the pure thought, and who was less concerned with its expression. Emerson's estimate of Mr. Alcott as far and away the greatest man of his time is one that the ages will justify. Dr. Harris and Mr. Sanborn con- cur largely with this judgment. The more deeply one studies the shaping, all-determining power of thought, the more does one come to say with Emerson, "In majesty Alcott exceeds." CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 147 The Alcott family were a living illustration of the truth that poverty cannot greatly hinder the higher progress of life when there is affluence of the spirit. The divinest gifts are free to all. " 'T is heaven alone that is given away, — 'Tis only God may be had for the asking." The childhood of Louisa Alcott was one of singular force and beauty. " I go to sleep repeating poetry, — I know a good deal," she had recorded in her diary at the age of nine. At sixteen she began to handle a pen, and she received five dollars for a story in the "Saturday Gazette" — which went to buy a shawl for her mother. In these early years she heard the lectures by George William Curtis; Theodore Parker invited her to his Sunday evening reunions, where she met Wendell Phillips, Garrison, Dr. Hedge, Mrs. Howe, the Whip- pies, and Sumner. She heard Mr. Whipple's lecture on *' Courage," — which revived her own. She heard a reading by Fanny Kemble ; and passed Sunday at the Emersons. " I can't do much with my hands," she writes in her journal about this time, "so I will use my head as a battering-ram to make a way through this rough-and-tumble world." She records the time in which she read the life of Charlotte Bronte and says : " Wonder if I shall ever be famous enough for people to care to read my story and struggles." Of Emerson she writes, too, about this time : " Father is never happy far from Emerson : the one true friend who loves, understands, and helps him." 148 BOSTON DAYS All these experiences and thoughts and efforts brought Miss Alcott up to her twenty-fifth year, when the family removed to the " Orchard House " destined to be their first permanent home. A few years of con- stant struggle passed by, and in 1867 Mr. Niles, of Roberts Brothers, asked Miss Alcott to write a girl's book, and this was the initiative of the great success of her life, " Little Women." She had herself no idea of the magnetism, the vitality, that was in it. " We really lived most of it," she said, " and if it succeeds, that will be the reason of it." In literary Boston, Miss Alcott was a unique per- sonality. To the distinctively literary guild she is even still something of a puzzle in that for one thing she left no " correspondence," in the usual sense of the author. Her letters were restricted to the limits of her family and personal friends, rather than ranging over epistolary communings with others of her guild. Her life left her little leisure after the duty next her was done, and it was in her character to fulfil faithfully this "duty lying next" before making any excursions into flowery fields beyond. Her stories are transcriptions rather than creations, and if the Alcott family life had not been what it was, the " Little Women " and " Little Men " and the other delightful stories could never have been written. For they were the literary flowering of outward and actual experiences. Coming directly out of life, Miss Alcott's books appeal to life. It was the spell of that vital magnetism of which she held the secret. All this time. CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 149 instead of giviog herself over to creative visions, Miss Alcott's chief concern was for the household needs, — the coat required for the philosophic father, the warm wrap for the worn and gentle mother, the hat for " Amy," the gown for " Beth," the shoes for herself. The demands of the household life encompassed her round about. The marvel is that she could have writ- ten at all, only — and this clause contains the key and the clue — only that this was a household of idealism and ideals, and thus there was always in the very atmosphere that spiritual stimulus which makes the hardest things in life easy and the rough places smooth. "Visions," well said George Eliot, "are the creators and feeders of the world." Some of the more arti- ficial writers or critics of writers who do not suffi- ciently relate literature to life assert that Miss Alcott's stories lack this or that, and are not " literature." Yet her books are translated into more than a half a dozen languages ; they are widely read in half a dozen countries, and her name is a household word where the names of some of these superfine critics will never be dreamed of or heard. Miss Alcott appealed to the higher qualities of the spirit in our common humanity, and the response was universal. She had an infinite capacity for aifection, great love for the people, an exquisite tenderness, keen, practical good sense, and a fund of humor that enliv- ened daily life. Here is an extract from a letter written to her mother in 1868, that well illustrates these qualities : — 150 BOSTON DAYS "It's clear that Minerva Moody [by which name she called herself] is getting on in spite of many downfalls, and by the time she is a used-up old lady of seventy or so, she may finish her job and see her family well off. A little late to enjoy much, maybe, but I guess I shall turn in for my last long sleep with more content in spite of the mental weariness than if I had folded my hands in ele- gant idleness, or gone into fits of despair because things moved so slowly." Louisa Alcott was indeed, a great woman, a great character ; and her literary work, extensive and valuable as it is, was still but one of her many forms of expres- sion. If the true purpose of literature is to invigorate and to elevate life, then, indeed, did she fulfil this high purpose. She was a thoroughly noble woman. Not of the type of the traditional saint or martyr, — she was very human, and to the last found an eager and impetu- ous temper, needing wise control, to be among her marked traits; but the quality of her life was noble. Never, in herself or in others, could she consent to the ungenerous or the trivial. The entire atmosphere of the Alcott home was that of aspiration. There was no poverty of the spirit, — the only form in which poverty is hopeless. The story of Louisa Alcott's life is one of the most tender and touching in all the literature of biography. In one thing, especially, her life was unique, — in that it was one of the widest human relatedness. She was always the friend, the helper, the caretaker. By taste and temperament her father was detached from ordinary ^ Louisa M. Alcott CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 151 affairs. He was formed for all high and beautiful things, for conversation, for philosophic meditations. He essayed teaching. Many of his ideas were truly great ones in educational science, yet they lacked that power to relate themselves to existing conditions which makes such ideas of immediate value. Mrs. Alcott was a woman of remarkably clear mind, fine perception, lofty ideals, and practical tact. The Mays were all ex- ecutive in their nature and Miss Alcott combined many of the ancestral traits of the Alcotfcs and the Mays. She was the perfect flower of a mixed heredity. She could do anything and everything, — make a bonnet, wash dishes, cut and make clothing, nurse the sick, cook, scrub the floor, act in private theatricals, write verses, be the life of a social assembly, or write a book of which fifty thousand copies were sold before it was placed on the market at all. How much more than a '^ literary woman " alone, was this woman of literature, this generous, noble spirit who came to this world not to be ministered unto, but to minister. I am sure that we will not think less of her when, after unexpectedly receiving $100 for some literary work, she writes in her journal : — " So the pink hyacinth was a true prophet, and I went to bed a happy millionaire, to dream of flannel petticoats for my blessed mother, paper for father, a new dress for May, and sleds for my boys." Louisa Alcott lived a far larger life than the mere " literary " one of the traditional author. No human 152 BOSTON DAYS need appealed to her in vain. She was a great favorite socially. As a raconteur she had hardly a rival. Her dramatic vividness and her fund of humor made her the most inimitable of story-tellers. And her sympathy was as strong as her courage ; and these, united with a hopeful and most sunny disposition, made her a most responsive and delightful friend. Fame has its inconveniences, but Miss Alcott was too simple and sweet and genuine not to enjoy hers. So much love was poured out to her all over the land that she could not fail to feel its spontaneity and beauty. " I asked for bread and got a stone — in the shape of a pedestal," she would say laughingly, but the letters and gifts and adoration of her vast constituency touched and pleased her always. After the appearance of " Little Women " her fortune seemed assured ; yet success is a thing always making and never made. It has no finality. It is progressive, or it is nothing. So with Miss Alcott the conflict con- tinued. She would fly from Concord and shut herself up in an upper floor room which she called '^ Gamp's Garret," in a tall house in some retired nook in Boston, where for weeks she would write, emerging only at twi- light, until the book in hand was completed. It is a most curious study to note the constant interweaving of the ideal and the practical in her life. Mrs. Alcott had a natural literary gift, as her beauti- ful letters to friends and her diary records reveal. But the wife of an idealist must, perforce, often refrain from hitching her wagon to a star and perhaps drive to the CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 153 market-place instead. Yet she would not have had him otherwise. There are other qualities which create happiness in a home than the ability to grasp the coin of the realm. It cannot be claimed for Mr. Alcott that he was dowered with great genius, but rather that his was a very unique personality. It was a nature singularly pure, sweet, and trustful, with no little unconscious but never offensive egotism; hos- pitable to all high and generous thought, but almost totally deficient in what Emerson calls "the useful, reconciling talents." The life of the Alcott family is indeed a unique chapter in New England history. The period covered by the life of Bronson Alcott was the period of New England's greatest literary activity, the period in which ideas were formed that helped to shape the destiny of the nation, and to influence all the future. During Mr. Alcott's life Garrison, Sumner, Emerson, Theodore Parker, Margaret Fuller, and Lydia Maria Child lived and died. Their senior, he survived them all. He occu- pies an unrivalled place in history and literature. Not, strictly speaking, a man of letters, he had affinities for all literature and scholarship. Not a reformer, he had the spirit of reform, and did much to inspire reformers. One of his own finest expressions is in this para- graph : — " Thought feeds, clothes, educates. The idealist is the capitalist on whose resources multitudes are maintained. The idealist gives an insight into life deeper than that of any other school of thought, and an age deficient in ideal- ism is an age of imperfect and superficial attainment." 154 BOSTON DAYS The graves of the Alcotts — the five low stones mark- ing the last resting-place of the father, mother, and daughters — is one of the most impressive objects in the cemetery of Sleepy Hollow. Here is the earthly close of a household life that represented the purest and most perpetual form of the ideal life. Here they lie — the low stones bearing only initials. *'A. B. A., 1799- 1888," marks the grave of Amos Bronson Alcott, whose watchword of life was indeed that "Thought feeds, clothes, educates." "A. M. A., 1800-1870," marks that of Abby May Alcott, his wife. " E. S. A.," 1835- 1858," " M. A. N., 1840-1879," and " L. M. A.," 1832- 1888," mark the graves of the daughters, Mrs. Pratt, the married daughter, being buried in another lot by her husband. On Miss Alcott's grave, however, as a concession to public interest, is a little slab with ^'Louisa M. Alcott" inscribed over the spot where lies all that was mortal of one of the noblest of women. Her books have been translated into half a dozen languages. Their influence is constantly increas- ing. Wherever high thought and noble purpose and spirituality of aspirations are held dear, will be loved and revered the name of Alcott, made forever great, in all that aids spiritual development, by the father and daughter whose lives were singularly united in affection and in all high aims. Meantime at " The Wayside " the Hawthorne life was like a page from the richly illuminated missals in the ancient library in Siena. In Sophia Hawthorne's diaries we find such passages as these : — CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 155 " September, 1860. "Julian illuminated till tea time ; and after tea I read to both bim and Rose a chapter in Matthew, told them about Paul. Rosebud has been drawing wonderfully on the blackboard recognizable portraits of Mr. Benoch and Julian. . . . We all met at the Alcotts' at tea time. Mr. Alcott was sweet and benign as possible, and Mrs. Alcott looked like Jupiter Olympus. . . . Elizabeth Hoar spent the whole of yesterday morning with me. We talked Roman and Florentine talk. She thought our house the most fascinating of mansions. She is always full of Saint Paul's charity. On the Roman table is a glass dish of exquisite pond lilies, which Una brought from the river ^this morning ; and out of the centre of the lilies rose a tall glass of superb cardinal flowers." And again : — " January, 1862. " Mr. Thoreau died this morning. The funeral services were in the church. Mr. Emerson spoke. Mr. Alcott read from Mr. Thoreau's writings. The body was in the vestibule covered with wild flowers. We went to the grave. Thence my husband and I walked to the old Manse and Monument. Then I went to see Annie Fields at Mr. Emerson's. ... I read (Christ the Spirit). I read about Alchemy and Swedenborg." The Hawthornes have a most interesting history. Jnlian Hawthorne, in his biography of his parents, has by no means " spoiled a story for relation's sake," but has related the strange traits of his ancestors. Witch- haunted Salem produced much uncanny living. The great romancer had his peculiarities, as is well known, though these were largely counteracted by his wife, — 156 BOSTON DAYS gentle, wise, sweet Sophia Peabody, who came of a family eminently sane and harmoniously attuned. Mrs. Hawthorne was even more than the perfect wife ; she was the heaven-appointed guardian of her husband's genius, and it is no exaggeration to say that but for her exquisite qualities the marvellous romances of Haw- thorne, which are the very inflorescence of American literature, would never have been written. The genius of Hawthorne was of too subtle and delicate a nature to have flourished in an uncongenial atmosphere, and it was his wife who made possible the most perfect condi- tions for his art. In 1844 she wrote in a private letter to her sister of Hawthorne's delicacy of genius : — " He waits upon the light in such a purely simple way that I do not wonder at the perfection of each of his stories. Of several sketches first one and then another came up to be clothed upon with language after their own will and pleasure. It is real inspiration, and few are reverent and patient enough to wait for it as he does. I think it is in this way that he comes to be so void of extravagance in his style and material. He does not meddle with the clear, true picture that is painted on his mind." Nathaniel and Sophia (Peabody) Hawthorne had three children, — Una, Julian, and Rose. The elder daughter was gifted but unbalanced, and she died in London at a comparatively early age. Julian Haw- thorne began early to make a name for himself in literature, and his work is constantly before the public. Rose became the wife of George Parsons Lathrop, CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 157 a writer of ability who was truly a son to the elder Hawthorne in the sense of being his best interpreter. Nothing in this line has ever equalled Mr. Lathrop's ^' Study of Hawthorne/' which is fairly a hand-book, indispensable to the lover of his great romances. Rose Hawthorne was a great beauty as well as a woman of charming gifts and most winning personality, and she still retains much of that beauty of coloring and win- some grace, her Titian gold hair, and beauty of expression. Mrs. Lathrop has the literary gift of her family, and to fugitive magazine work she has added a book (" Memories of Hawthorne "), in which she has given to the world revelations of her father that no one else could have given, and which are indispensable to a clearer understanding of the man who is unquestionably the greatest romancist in the English tongue. Mrs. Lathrop had a store of letters to Jraw upon, — letters written by her mother and her aunt, the celebrated Elizabeth Peabody (who in her later years was called " The Grandmother of Boston "), to a large number of the most noted people of their day. The Peabodys were a genial and cordial race, with literature, art, and social intercourse as " the three gracious deities " of their home, with the daughters all attractive yet diflPerent, — Elizabeth "profoundly interesting," Mary considered to be exceptionally "brilliant," and Sophia "lovely." On their marriage Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody took up their residence in the *' Old Manse," forever immor- 158 BOSTON DAYS talized in Mr. Hawthorne's " Mosses." And what days are those revealed in Sophia Hawthorne's letters from the Old Manse! — when Emerson comes, "with his sunrise smile, " Ellery Channing, " radiating light," and Elizabeth Hoar, " with spirit voice and tread." Surely a precious heritage were these letters to Rose Haw- thorne Lathrop, and exquisitely has she used them in her fascinating volume. The Hawthorne family are a marked example of the curious persistence of individuality, which in some of them has been so strong as only to be termed eccen- tricity. Madam Hawthorne, the mother of the great romancist, betook herself to her own room on the upper floor of her Salem house and did not descend the stairs again for two years. She dressed exclusively in white and isolated herself from the world. A sister of Nathaniel Hawthorne carried out her intense individu- ality through life, and he, too, was a man who walked apart from the world. He had the isolation of his temperament as well as that of his rare and delicate genius. His life appears like a spiritual drama. As the scenes change, from the night in Salem, when Hawthorne returned to his home after his dis- missal from the Custom House, discouraged, weary, sad, and his wife exclaimed cheerfully, " Now you can write your book ; how fortunate ! " — from that scene, which was the initiatory phase of his immortal ro- mance, " The Scarlet Letter," through the vicissitudes of their life in Concord, in the Berkshire hills, and then in Liverpool and London and Paris and Italy, — the CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 159 panorama is one of singular interest and charm. It has been left for later years more fully to reveal the exqui- site nature and the high gifts of Sophia Hawthorne. As is well known, she was one of three gifted sisters, — the others being Mary, who married Horace Mann, and Elizabeth Peabody, the great philanthropist and thinker, who died unmarried at the age of ninety-four. Mrs. Hawthorne herself had the literary gift, and had she fol- lowed her clue she, too, would have been an author of distinction. As it was, she might well have said : — " My life is the poem that I would have writ ; But I could not both live and utter it." In December of 1842 Mrs. Hawthorne writes : ^ — "My dear Mart, — I hoped I should see you again before I came home to our Paradise. I intended to give you a concise history of my Elysian life. Soon after we returned my dear lord began to write in earnest, and then commenced my leisure, because till we meet at dinner, I do not see him. I did not touch a needle all summer and far into the autumn, i\Ir. Hawthorne not letting me have a needle or a pen in my hand. We were interrupted by no one, except a short call now and then from Elizabeth Hoar, who can hardly be called an earthly inhabitant; and Mr. Emerson, whose face pictured the promised land (which we were then enjoying), and intruded no more than a sunset or a rich warble from a bird. One evening, two days after our arrival at the Old Manse, George Hillard and Henry Cleveland appeared for fifteen minutes on their way to Niagara Falls, and were thrown into rap- tures by the embowering flowers and the dear old house 1 " Memoirs of Hawthorne," by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop. 160 BOSTON DAYS they adorned, and the pictures of Holy Mothers mild on the walls, and Mr. Hawthorne's study and the noble avenue. We forgave them their appearance here because they were gone as soon as they had come, and we felt very hospitable. We wandered down to our sweet sleepy river, and it was so silent all around us and so solitary that we seemed the only persons living. We sat beneath our stately trees, and felt as if we were the rightful owners of the old abbey which had descended to us from a long line. The tree-tops waved a welcome, and rustled their thousand leaves like books over our heads. But the bloom and fragrance of nature had become secondary to us, though we were lovers of it." Hawthorne died (in May, 1864) in New Hampshire, as will be remembered ; and when his body was brought home for burial the casket was carried directly to the church. The townspeople transformed the entire inte- rior into a bower of bloom with apple blossoms, so that when Mrs. Hawthorne entered she said it looked to her like a heavenly festival. In Mr. Longfellow's commemorative poem on Haw- thorne he thus pictures the scene : — "The lovely town was white with apple-blooms, And the great elms overhead Dark shadows wove on their aerial looms Shot through with golden thread." The burial of Hawthorne, as pictured by Mrs. Whipple, one of his nearest friends, was a beautiful and pathetic scene. The casket was taken to the Concord Church, and there the Saturday Club came to pay the last trib- ute of respect. Longfellow, Agassiz, Emerson, Holmes, CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS l6l Whipple, Lowell, Peirce, and Fields sat side by side. As the simple services closed, they all, moved by simul- taneous accord, rose and bent for a last look above the dead friend. The little concourse of people all vralked to Sleepy Hollow. Only one carriage, that bearing Mrs. Hawthorne, was in the procession. As Agassiz entered the cemetery he stopped and gathered a little bunch of violets, which he dropped on to the casket as it was being lowered, and each member of the Saturday Club cast into the open grave a spray of arhor vltcB. At this time Mr. Longfellow thus wrote to Mrs. Hawthorne : ^ — June, 1864. Dear Mrs. Hawthorne, — I have long been wishing to write to you, to thank you for your kind remembrance, but I had not the heart to do it. There are some things that one cannot say ; and I hardly need tell you how much I value your gift, and how often I shall look at the familiar name on the blank leaf, — a name which, more than any other, links me to my youth. I have written a few lines trying to express the impres- sions of May 23rd, and I venture to send you a copy of them. I had rather no one should see them but yourself, as I have also sent them to Mr. Fields for the " Atlantic." I feel how imperfect and inadequate they are ; but I trust you will pardon their deficiencies for the love I bear his memory. More than ever I now regret that I postponed from day to day coming to see you in Concord, and that at last I should have seen your house only on the outside ! With deepest sympathy, yours truly, Henry W. Longfellow. 1 " Life of H. W. Longfellow," by his brother. 162 BOSTON DAYS Mrs. Hawthorne wrote in reply : ^ — Concord, July 24, 1864. My dear Mr. Longfellow, — Your kind note and profoundly affecting poem moved me so much that it has been very difficult for me to reply. This you will entirely understand. We are both now entered fully into the worship of sorrow, and comprehend all its conditions. It is impossible for me to express the emotion with which I saw you, — on that wonderful day, that was made to seem to me a festival of life, — at the head of the line of loving friends, going up to the Mount of Vision. I have not seen you since the dread epoch of God's mys- terious dispensation to you. As it was, I did not see your face, but only the form and the white hair waving in the wind. I thought I had always sympathized with you; but that day I first knew what you had suffered. I under- stood the depths and heights of bereavement. Remember- ing also my husband's most affectionate regard for you, it was very sweet and grateful to see you there. I earnestly wished that I could convey to you my sense of these things. My dear Mr. Longfellow, the last Sunday Mr. Haw- thorne was at home, he was sitting in this little library with Julian; and I, in another room, suddenly heard J. begin to read aloud a passage from " Evangeline " beginning " Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of wonder," and ending with the end of the poem. It broke on the perfect silence with singular power. At the close, Mr. Hawthorne said, " I like that," — and then there was again silence. We have often recalled that incident since. With Evangeline we have been enabled to murmur, ''Father, I 1 " Life of H. W, Longfellow," by his brother. CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS l63 thank you." I suppose you know how very much Mr. Hawthorne loved this poem ; and it was remarkable that Julian should happen to open to it on that last day he saw his father, and read that particular passage, with no forethought. The poem that you send me has such an Eolian deli- cacy, sweetness, and pathos, that it seems a strain of music rather than written words. It has in an eminent degree the unbroken melody of your verse. The picture of the scene you have now made immortal. " Its monument shall be your gentle verse." I cannot suppose that you would wish, now that All is gone, to come to this house, no longer a palace since the king has left it. But if you are ever in Concord, and would not feel too much saddened to enter these deserted halls, I should most gladly welcome you as one of his chief friends, tenderly valued. His visits to you in Cam- bridge used to be a great enjoyment to him. He always spoke of them as peculiarly agreeable. For the last years he had stood reverent, silent, and appalled before your unspeakable sorrow. With great regard, sincerely yours, Sophia Hawthorne. Emerson thus wrote to Mrs. Hawthorne : — "July, 1864. .... ''The very selection of his images proves Behmen poet as well as saint, yet a saint first, and poet through sanctity. . . . " I have had my own pain in the loss of your husband. He was always a mine of hope to me, and I promised my- self a rich future in achieving it some day when we should 164 BOSTON DAYS both be less engaged to tyrannical studies, and unreserved intercourse with him. T thought I could well wait his time and mine for what was so well worth waiting. And as he always appeared to me superior to his own perform- ances I counted this yet untold force an insurance of a long life. . . . " Ralph Waldo Emerson." After Hawthorne's death his family returned to London, where Mrs. Hawthorne and her elder daughter, Una, died. The only son, Julian Hawthorne, returned to his own country and has made a name in literature which is being perpetuated by the genius of his daughter Hildegarde, who, as a poet and story- writer, is worthy her distinguished ancestry. Mrs. Lathrop (Rose Hawthorne) embraced the Catholic faith, in which she found a rap- ture of comfort and of leading, and, under the name of a rMigieuse, consecrates her life to the care of the suf- fering, finding in her self-abnegation the sublimest sweetness and joy. The dream of Mr. Alcott that an Academe might be established for conversational teaching of philosophy and literature fulfilled itself, as dreams have, indeed, a way of doing, in the establishment of the School of Philosophy in Concord, in 1878, which continued its summer sessions into the middle eighties, closing only with the close of Mr. Alcott's life. The story of this school is one of the inimitable chapters of New Eng- land history. When this nebulous idea that had so long haunted the platonic brain of Mr. Alcott assumed actual form of realization, it was to him the opening of CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS l65 a new heaven, for his sole idea of a terrestrial Paradise was that of conversation " where congregations ne'er break up." His choice circle of friends — Mr. Sanborn, Dr. William T. Harris, and others — sympathized in his vision, and longed to gratify him by its realization. Dr. Harris had a little before resigned his important work in St. Louis as the Superintendent of City Schools and lecturer at Washington University, to go to Concord and live near Emerson and Alcott as friend and neighbor during the remainder of their lives, and had established his family in the "Orchard House" formerly occupied by the Alcotts. Here was the chamber where Louisa Alcott's " Little Women " was written ; here the scenes haunted by the " Little Women " and " Little Men ; " here the chamber occupied by May Alcott with her sketches of Flaxman's graceful figures, that were sacredly preserved by Dr. Harris, as they covered doors, panels, window-sills, and casings. Next to the Alcott home on the Lexington road, was the house which was formerly the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne, " The Wayside," and which was then occupied by his daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. George Parsons Lathrop. At this period Miss Alcott was much in Boston, engaged in her literary work, and Mr. Alcott made his home with his married daughter, Mrs. Pratt, who lived in another part of Concord. Mr. Sanborn, Dr. Harris, Emerson, Prof Benjamin Peirce, and Mrs. Cheney joined in the purpose to initiate Mr. Alcott's cherished ideal, and the first session of the Concord School of Philoso- 166 BOSTON DAYS phy opened in the Orchard House on July 15, 1879, the programme including a Salutatory from Mr. Alcott and a course of ten lectures on " The Power of Per- sonality ; " ten by Dr. Harris on " Philosophic Know- ing ; " a course by Mrs. Cheney on " Art ; " by Dr. H. K. Jones on " Platonic Philosophy ; " by David A. Wasson on " Social Genesis and Texture ; " by Professor Peirce on " Ideality in Science ; " by Colonel Higginson on " American Literature ; " Dr. Thomas Davidson on the " History of Athens ; " one lecture from Emerson on " Memory ; " a course of three by Mr. Sanborn on "Social Science;" one by Rev. Dr. Bartol on ^^Educa- tion ; " and readings from " Thoreau's Manuscripts " by Mr. Harrison G. O. Blake. The success of these conferences was so assured that the next year saw the building of the little Hillside Chapel in the Orchard House grounds, and the school opened with the following programme, which is pre- sented as typical of those of all the succeeding summers : — Mr. A. Bronson Alcott. — Five Lectures on Mysticism : 1. St. John the Evangelist. 2. Plotinns. 3. Tauler and Eckhart. 4. Behmen. 5. Swedenborg. Mr. Alcott also delivered the Salutatory and Valedictory. Dr. H. K. Jones. — Five Lectures on The Platonic Philosophy, and five on Platonism in its Relation to Modern Civiliza- tion : 1. Platonic Philosophy ; Cosmologic and Theologic Outlines. 2. The Platonic Psychology ; The Daemon of Socrates. 3. The Two Worlds, and the Twofold Con- sciousness ; The Sensible and the Intelligible. 4. The State and Church ; Their Eelations and Correlations. 5. The Eternity of the Soul, and its Pre-existence. 6. The Im- CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS l67 mortality and the Mortality of the Soul; Personality and Individuality ; Metempsychosis. 7. The Psychic Body and the Material Body of Man. 8. Education and Discipline of Man ; The Uses of the World we live in. 9. The Philosophy of Law. The Philosophy of Prayer, and the '* Prayer Gauge." Dr. William T. Harris. — Five Lectures on Speculative Phil- osophy, namely: — 1. Philosophic Knowing. 2. Philo- sophic First Principles. 3. Philosophy and Immortality. 4. Philosophy and Religion. 5. Philosophy and Art. — Five Lectures on the History of Philosophy, namely : 1. Plato. 2. Aristotle. 3. Kant. 4. Fichte. 5. Hegel. Rev. John S. Kednet, D.D. — Four Lectures on the Philosophy of the Beautiful and Sublime. Mr. Denton J. Snider. — Five Lectures on Shakspeare: 1. Phil- osophy of Shakspearian Criticism. 2. The Shakspearian World. 3. Principles of Characterization in Shakspeare. 4. Organism of the Individual Drama. 5. Organism of the Universal Drama. Rev. William H. Channing. — Four lectures on Oriental and Mystical Philosophy : 1. Historical Mysticism. 2. Man's Fourfold Being. 3. True Buddhism. 4. Modern Pessimism. Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney. — 1. Color. 2. Early American Art. Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. — Modern Society. Mr. John Albee. — 1. Figurative Language. 2. The Literary Art. Mr. F. B. Sanborn. — The Philosophy of Charity. Dr. Elisha Mulford. — 1. The Personality of God. 2. Prece- dent Relations of Religion and Philosophy to Christianity. Mr. Harrison G. O. Blake. — Readings from Thoreau's Manuscripts. Rev. Dr. Cyrus A. Bartol. — God in Nature. Rev. Dr. Andrew P. Peabody. — Conscience and Consciousness. Mr. Emerson. — Aristocracy. Rev. Dr. Frederic H. Hedge. — Ghosts and Ghost-seeing. Mr. David A. Wasson. — 1. Philosophy of History. 2. The Same. 168 BOSTON DAYS The Faculty was composed of Mr. A. Bronson Alcott, Dean, Mr. Emery, Director, and Mr. F. B. Sanborn, Secretary. These three, with Dr. William T. Harris, Dr. H. K. Jones, Miss Peabody, Mrs. Cheney, Mr. Snider, Dr. Kedney, Dr. Holland, or any of these and other lecturers who might be in Concord, constituted the Faculty for the time being ; but the permanent and active members were Mr. Alcott, Dr. Harris, Mr. Emery, and Mr. Sanborn. The aim was, as Mr. Sanborn stated, "to bring together a few of those persons who, in America, have pursued, or desire to pursue, the paths of speculative philosophy ; to en- courage these students and professors to communicate with each other what they have learned and meditated ; and to illustrate, by a constant reference to poetry and the higher literature, those ideas which philosophy presents." The little chapel was almost as primitive as the groves where Plato taught. There were wide spaces between the rough boards of the walls where creep- ing vines and greenery found hospitable entrance and twined their way in with a decorative effect. The busts of Plato, Pestalozzi, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and A. Bronson Alcott were placed about, and a mask of Anaxagoras hung upon the wall, while over the mantel was an engraving of the " School of Athens." Other engravings and photographs, which were changed from time to time, added to the classic attractions. Upon a low platform in a wide alcove stood the table at which the lecturers placed themselves, and camp CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS I69 chairs, arranged rather for comfort than in geometrical figures, furnished the seats of the audience. The accessibility of the hillside in its alluring shade, from the chapel, in which the mercury not un frequently stood at ninety degrees, — without in the least disturbing the eloquence of the philosophers, — enabled the less philosophic mind occasionally to escape through the open door and enjoy a brief interlude in which to pull himself together for further draughts of knowledge from the sages. During a five hours' discourse upon the " Genesis of the Maya," or of " Reminiscence as Related to the Pre-existence of the Soul," there was, to the unregenerate mind not fully initiated, a certain mundane joy in a brief vacation from these high themes, and it was found that on returning it was possible to recognize the point to which the lecturer had conducted his hearers with no perceptible loss of its deep significance. In these days Dr. Bartol was a prominent figure, and his essays (not unfrequently more than three hours in length), were delivered in a peculiar chanting tone, with a rhythmic efibct to which his fragile body corre- ponded, swaying with every inflection and emphasis like a leaf fluttering in the breeze. Mr. Alcott usually went to sleep during these incantations, and Miss Elizabeth Peabody, who always sat faithfully through every half day of the four to six weeks' sessions, also relapsed, at intervals, into apparent slumber, from which she would suddenly arouse herself with a movement that sent flying in various directions her bag, handkerchief, note-books, pencil, and all her various belongings which those of 170 BOSTON DAYS the younger and non-distinguished persons sitting near considered it an honor to scramble about and pick up for her. \¥hen it came to the discussion of the theme, however, it always turned out that Miss Peabody, half- blind, nearly deaf, and wholly asleep, had yet heard everything that was said to much better advantage than any one else in the audience. Dr. William T. Harris, the present National Com- missioner of Education, whose eminence as a scholar and a philosophic thinker has conferred new exaltation and dignity on his high office, had achieved, even at this time, a wide recognition and following both in Europe and in our own country, as the leading exponent of Hegelian philosophy and the founder and editor of a journal not less unique than " The Dial/' a periodical that made itself a pre-eminent aid to scholarly culture and the finest insight, — ^'^ The Journal of Speculative Philosophy." This magazine made a profound impress upon the thought of the day. Devoted essentially to philosophic thought, it also contained some of the choicest literary criticism of the time. The reputation of Dr. Harris had preceded him, and for some years before the establishment of the School of Philosophy, he had been from time to time invited to lecture in Boston, where he was always received with ardent friend- ship and joyful recognition. Of the eminent character of the services of Dr. Harris, Dr. Cyrus Northrop, President of the University of Minnesota, in his address before the Yale Bicentennial Celebration (October 22, 1901) said: — CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 171 *' He is a philosopher. He founded aad has edited the ' Journal of Speculative Philosophy,' the first journal of the kind in the English language, if the language of philosophy can properly be called English ; and yet he did not lose his common sense, his clear way of stating things, his power of suggesting new thoughts and plans to teachers and thus getting them out of the ruts, nor his ability to awaken enthusiasm in teachers for their work. Above the roar of the mighty flood of so-called pedagogical learning with which our country is being inundated, the clear good sense and philosophical suggestions of Mr. Harris never fail to reach the understanding of teachers and to prove most helpful to them. His views on educa- tion are always sound, and the great multitude who listen to his words and in turn repeat them in substance to a still greater multitude, make his influence on the education of the people beyond calculation. Let him be honored as he deserves for what he has done and what he is doing. The government at Washington honored itself when it made Wm. T. Harris Commissioner of Education, and whatever the party in power he should be retained in his present oflSce as long as he is able to serve the cause of education as well as he has done in the past." Dr. Harris is perhaps the most able and sympathetic of the interpreters of Emerson, and he has always discriminated carefully between the organic unity required in the drama or the novel, and the logical unity demanded in the prose essay. In Emerson's essay entitled " Experience " he felt that the dialectic art was strikingly revealed. " In this wonderful piece of writing," said Dr. Harris in reference to this essay, "we have a compend of his insights into life and 172 BOSTON DAYS nature arranged in dialectic order. The first phrase brings us to the consciousness of illusion." Miss Alcott used laughingly to say that she " fled the town " when the philosophers began to arrive ; but for a great number of other people, apparently, it was the time to fare forth to classic Concord. All in all there was an element of comedy, as well as of the serious pursuits of the scholar, in these Concord summers. Mr. Sanborn often looked on with a suspicious twinkle in his eye ; but the exquisite courtesy of all the leaders in this modern Academe — Mr. Alcott, Dr. Harris, Mr. Sanborn, and the lecturers who came and went — was not the least of the charm that impressed itself upon the devotee, and perhaps, indeed, upon even the camp- followers, who were by no means wanting. " Thou knowest not what argument Thy life to thy neighbor's creed hath lent." For there were cranks attracted to the "School of Philosophy " like moths to a light, and they were not invariably of the order of whom Dr. Holmes affirmed that they " turn the wheel of the universe." Yet largely the classic town was thronged with scholarly and aspiring truth-seekers, who, if not of an order to precisely set the lazy, sluggish Concord River on fire, were at least serious and reverent, and were largely composed of the choicest minds of the country. The audience, not unfrequently, was only less remarkable than the leaders who graced the platform. Saint and sage were attracted to this unique centre of speculative CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 173 thought. It was considered the greatest of privileges to hear the remarkable lectures of Dr. Harris, — a privi- lege for which the scholar and thinker would gladly cross ocean or continent: Emerson's beautiful person- ality made immortal the two summers during which he was often present, but when the third summer session came it was to include memorial tributes to the seer who had just withdrawn from the visible communion of these choice spirits. Mr. Alcott was universally beloved and his " conversations " and his presence inspired a curiously intense interest; and Mr. Sanborn, with his classic learning, his wide literary grasp and exceptional power of penetration and insight, his wit, his mercurial brilliancy and magnetic charm of manner, was a potent factor in attracting a significant concourse to the little hillside chapel. While Dr. Harris expounded Speculative Philosophy, Dr. Hiram K. Jones, the celebrated Platonist, took for his province Platonic Philosophy under the heads of "The Platonic Idea of Deity," "The Platonic Idea of the Soul," " The Platonic Idea of the World, or the Habitation of the Soul," and " The Platonic Idea of History." Hiram K. Jones, M.D., LL.D., came from Jackson- ville, 111., where he was the founder and the president of the Plato Club, and he was regarded by students of that ancient worthy as the leading Platonist in this country. His lectures sometimes approached five hours in length, and there were those among the audience who would slip out of the little door into the shade and 174 BOSTON DAYS fragrance of the hillside greenery, for a vacation inter- lude during the prolonged process of the good doctor's delivery of his insights into the Platonian realm. The attentive listener would hear him saying : — ' ' All corporeality is related to a somewhat, of which it is corporality or body, as shadow to substance. From the thinker, is a spiritual power. Only spirit feels and thinks and moves and knows; and man only by means of corporeality. And man feels and thinks and moves in view of, and in relation to, three aspects of reality, — physics, metaphysics, and divinity — by means of three orders of corporeality — as instruments therein respec- tively of the three orders of knowing." Again, the learned Doctor would be heard announc- ing, — his words falling with the measured and slightly metallic sound of a phonograph : — " Man does not first think tree or animal shape, and then fumble about till he finds one, but he is first sentient of these forms by their image and impress upon his physi- cal sensorium, and thereupon arise the motion and form of his thought and science concerning those natures. And likewise in his psychical and spiritual sensoria man does not first think essence, soul, God, and then grope around in the limbo of ignorance and inexperience until he has found one of these forms, but he is first sentient of their form by means of the impress and reflection pf the images of these natures in his psychic and pneumatic sensoria ; and toward these impressions spring the motion and form of his thought and knowledge concerning super- physical and super-essential natures." CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 175 Sometimes, indeed, an irreverent couple would leave these Platonic expositions of the " physical sensorium " and " spiritual sensoria " and be off for an hour's row on the Concord River, — whose current is so sluggish that Hawthorne said he swam across it every day all one summer without being able to determine which way it flowed, — but as the lectures of Dr. Jones were, like the quality of Japanese pictures, such as to permit approach from any angle of vision, — upside down, or divided anywhere ; any part, despite mathematical laws, being equal to the whole, — they lent themselves to the charming possibilities of being taken in sections. In- deed, the irreverent and unplatonic mind was not un- frequently found to insist that a part was better than the whole of the good doctor's discourses, whose length suggested the infinite leisure of the Eternities rather than the limits of an ephemeral summer's day. The session of the School of Philosophy for the summer of 1881 opened with a poem by Mr. Edmund C. Stedman, that afterward enriched the pages of the "Atlantic Monthly." In 1882 the poem was by Mr. Sanborn, — an ode of classic beauty, entitled, " The Poet's Countersign." Mr. Sanborn is a Harvard man, of the class of 1855, and has been for many years widely known throughout the country as a leader in social economics and for his counsel upon the management of charities, the care of the insane, and kindred topics as well as for his brilliant literary work. He was long the Secretary of the American Social Science Associa- tion ; he was Inspector of Public Charities for the State 176 BOSTON DAYS of Massachusetts, and has for many years been the Boston correspondent of the " Springfield Republican." He was the literary executor of Theodore Parker, the Unitarian preacher, and had many of his papers. He wrote the life of Henry D. Thoreau, which was pub- lished in the " American Men of Letters " series, and his biography of John Brown is one of the great contribu- tions to American literature. The opening of Mr. San- bom's " Ode " is full of beauty, when the poet finds that ^' . . . another unreturning spring hath passed," and one canto is as follows : — " Along the marge of the slow-gliding streams, Our winding Concord and the wider flow Of Charles by Cambridge, walks and dreams A throng of poets, — tearfully they go ; For each bright river misses from its band The keenest eye, the truest heart, the surest minstrel hand, — They sleep each on his wooded hill above the sorrowing land. Duly each mound with garlands we adorn Of violet, lily, laurel, and the flowering thorn, — Sadly above them wave The wailing pine-trees of their native strand ; Sadly the distant billows smite the shore, Plash in the sunlight, or at midnight roar, — All sounds of melody, all things sweet and fair On earth, in sea or air, Droop and grow silent by the poet's grave." Mr. Alcott's " Salutatory " for each session was always very characteristic : he welcomed the audience to the pleasant town and to the mental delights of Hillside Chapel. He spoke of the absorbing beauties of divine CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 177 philosophy, — a subject which embraces eternal truth, righteousness, and beauty. There were but few orna- ments at the chapel, for they believed that a holy life is the only true beauty, as the eye itself, not what it sees, is beautiful. God is the true philosopher, he would continue, and is philosophy Himself. He would quote Hierocles, a commentator of Pythagoras, who said : "Philosophy is the purification and perfection of human nature, — its purification because it delivers us from the temerity and folly that proceed from matter, and because it delivers our affections from the mortal body, and its perfection because it makes it recover its original felicity by referring it to the likeness of God." Philosophy addresses the intellect, the affections, the will, Mr. Alcott would add. It has in its heart religion. A philosopher is a lover of truth. Dr. Harris gave during one session a series of lectures on " Socrates and the Pre-Socratic Philosophy," Aristotle's " De Anima," " Gnosticism and Neo-Platon- ism," '^Christian Mysticism," '^Philosophy of the Bhagavad Ghita," and one or two lectures on Art. " Philosophic knowing is to be distinguished from ordinary reflection," one would find him saying, in his musical vibrant voice, " through the fact that it sets up one principle as the explanation of the world, while mere reflection is content to find subordinate unities, and to make classifications and generalizations. Ordi- nary science seeks unities and tries to piece together the fragments of experience and to trace facts to principles ; but philosophy is more ambitious, and undertakes to 12 178 BOSTON DAYS find one principle for all facts. Say what we will of the pride of the human intellect, and of the desirability of humility, we find, after all, that the deepest interest of the human mind lies in the question which relates to the ultimate principle. The subordinate principles are not so important, — we can appeal from them to the higher; but the absolute principle of all, — that is something that concerns the origin and destiny of all human beings. In this respect philosophy corresponds to religion, and both are conversant with the absolute principle." In his lecture on Aristotle Dr. Harris gave this fine and most valuable passage : — *' Aristotle's work on the Soul, although a small book, has made a great impression on the thinking of mankind. It is a treatise in three parts, having thirty chapters in all, and could be printed entire on a hundred pages octavo, with large clear type. It contains the application of the highest doctrines reached by Greek speculation to the knowledge of what is most interesting to man, — his spiritual nature. In whatever department Aristotle worked he reached distinctions that were fundamental, and gave them technical names of such aptitude that the scientific mind of all subsequent ages has gladly adopted them. To state the first elements of any science relating to man or to nature, is very nearly to talk the language of Aristotle. To use a thinker's technique, is, of course, in some measure to accept his view of the world. Dante, in the fourth canto of the ' Inferno,' calls Aristotle the ' master of those who know,' — that is, of all who pursue science. So it has happened in this book on the Soul especially, that Aristotle's distinctions and definitions have formed the nucleus of all spiritual theories in psychology. CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 179 It is therefore profitable for us to go over the inventory of his thoughts when we are studying the history of phi- losophy, and investigating the origin of ideas current in our times and weighing their value." Scotch philosophy when expounded by President McCosh of Princeton became a weighty matter in- deed — to the hearer, if not to the lecturer. During the several summers many of the same lecturers were heard in each session, and some new ones gave variation to the themes. On one evening Mrs. Julia Ward Howe lec- tured on " Dante and Beatrice," and among those present were Mrs. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Miss Ellen Emerson, and Miss Louisa M. Alcott. Mrs. Emerson was a slight shy, silent figure in black, with her soft white hair show- ing under her dark, cavern-like bonnet like a fringe of finest floss. Mrs. Howe's lecture was a noble and beautiful interpretation of the power of idealized love to lead to spiritual heights and holiest inspiration. Never has the sublime meaning of Dante's immortal poem been more wonderfully revealed than it was that evening by the fine insight and classical thought of Mrs. Howe. Her picturing of Dante's vision of Bea- trice was a representation so artistic and so impressive that painting or drama could hardly have enhanced its vivid power. Mr. Sanborn, lecturing on "The Oracles of New England/' spoke in this beautiful way of " The Sphinx " of Emerson : — " I have been wont to consider this (the vSphinx) as the most remarkable oracular poem in literature," said Mr. 180 BOSTON DAYS Sanboru; " far more so, even, than that brief compend of the Bhagavad Gita which Emerson published twenty-five years ago in the first number of the ' Atlantic Monthly/ under the name of ' Brahma.' Out of that poem you can only unfold by evolution a certain number or form of the Totality, but ' The Sphinx ' has implied in it the Totality itself, so far as this world of man is concerned. I expect to live long enough," he continued, "to see professorships established even at Harvard and Yale to explain this poem, as professors have for so many years been explaining Plato's ' Timoneous ' and Aristotle's ' Work on the Soul.' " The summer of 1881 found Elizabeth Peabody in Pennsylvania, unable to betake herself to the Platonic and Socratic platform, and to Mr. Alcott she wrote as follows : — "Dear Mr. Alcott, — Here I have before me the programme of the Concord School, the bill of fare a ban- quet of the gods, which I must miss because my material body is at odds with my psychic body (I wonder if Dr. Jones can explain why ?)....! may be wound up to go another ten years, perhaps, not half dead, but alive and capable. And therefore I feel it necessary to say that you must get some one else to take my place, and since you want a paper on Dr. Channing let me advise you to ask Mr. Eowland G-. Hazard, who once published a lecture on the ' Philosophical Character of Dr. Channing,' with whom he was, from early youth, in philosophic con- cord, having so attracted Dr. Channing by the metaphy- sical insight he showed in his maiden essay on language that Dr. C. took great pains to discover his identity that he might advise him to pursue as a life work his researches into yet unspoken truth." CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 181 Miss Peabody proceeded to say that she had wished to speak, not on Dr. Channing or Margaret Fuller, as Mr. Alcott suggested, but on the ideal of the School of Philosophy itself. The next season (1882) she came, an aged woman of unwieldy figure, whose cap was always falling off, and whose bag, pencil, and spectacles, as before noted, fur- nished constant employment to her votaries in collecting and picking them up from the floor. Lovely, golden- haired Mrs. Lathrop (Rose Hawthorne) was the de- voted attendant of her aunt Elizabeth. The Lathrops were living that summer at the Wayside, whose grounds joined those of the Orchard House, on whose hillside lawn the chapel was built. Miss Peabody was in a state of exaltation and beatitude during these lectures. Her hearing was impaired, but she occupied a seat near the lecturer, and she contributed to the discussion thoughts of essential value. Untidiness of dress was always, one is forced to con- fess, one of Miss Peabody 's characteristics. Not un- cleanliness, but untidiness. It arose, it may be, from her utter unconsciousness of self. Miss Helen M. Knowlton, the artist, and the biographer of her friend and master, William Hunt, relates this amusing incident : — "I was in a street car," says Miss Knowlton, "and Mr. , sitting by me, whispered the question as to whether I knew Miss Peabody. I replied that I did not, and he said : ' That is she in the other corner, but don't look for a minute.' The caution came too late, for as he 182 BOSTON DAYS named her I glanced that way. It was in the days of hoops, and she sat serenely and meditatively in her seat, her hoop skirt flying up before her, disclosing a black- and-red petticoat and white stockings, but she was per- fectly unconscious of any disarray in her appearance." Mrs. Hawthorne, on the contrary, was a model of neatness and exquisite taste. Miss Peabody's care- lessness of personal attire was always a trial to the eyes of Emerson, who demanded neatness and order about him. It was probably due to a certain lack of executive and applied power. In fact, with more power on the plane of the visible and material, Elizabeth Peabody would have left a deeper impress upon her time than she has, as she would have formulated her work and related it more definitely to the needs of humanity. Transcendentalism, however, did its work in its asser- tion of the absolute supremacy of the spiritual over the material. That was what it stood for, and that is the inheritance that it left to the future. The present theosophical and metaphysical thought — the Christian science and spiritualistic trend in general — is but the same transcendental thought appearing under other names and conditions. The essential idea is the same in all. It is the assertion of man's diviner powers; the confident assurance while dwelling temporarily amid material things, he is essentially a spirit, living a spiritual life. In 1887 Miss Peabody published her last book, " Evenings with Allston, and Other Essays," and her preface to this collection of scattered papers which had CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 183 first appeared in " The Dial " was singularly clear and forcible. There are no words strong or vivid enough to convey any adequate impression of the abounding love that was the keynote of the nature of Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. She was essentially a spirit of love, of enthusiasm for humanity, and for the diviner phases of progress. " How rich she was ! " well said Mrs. Howe at the last services, held in the beautiful atmosphere of the " Church of the Disciples," on her death. " How rich in love, how rich in sympathy, how rich in interests ! " She loved every one. Her nature was a fountain of infinite tenderness and the most exalted and exquisite beauty of feeling and of appreciation. She was pecu- liarly fitted to enter into the kingdom of heaven. She lived in it while on earth and made this celestial joy in the entire atmosphere of her life. Among the memorable visitors to Concord in the early summers of the school, was Julia Romana Anagnos (Mrs. Michael Anagnos), the eldest child of Dr. and Mrs. Howe, a woman whose beauty and charm radiated like sunlight in the air. Mrs. Anagnos embodied her im- pressions of the school in a fanciful little sketch called " Philosophse Quaestor " and in this we find her saying of one lecture on the Buddhist faith : — " Genially as they enjoyed the noble essay, the audience did not seem converted to a wish for annihila- tion. On the contrary, they appeared extremely flourish- ing, and went to a musical party that very afternoon. The music gave rise to philosophic discussion, quite as 184 BOSTON DAYS eagerly attended to as the art which called it forth. No piece was considered complete without the ringing out of a silvery voice in exposition of its meaning; and the blending of the metaphysical with the artistic and social thought-factors on this occasion was felicitous in the extreme." As a liberal education in the beauty of courtesy, the School of Philosophy must be especially remembered. The unbounded mental hospitality for opposing views ; the infinite toleration of the leaders, Mr. Alcott, Dr. Harris, Mr. Sanborn, or any lecturer of the day, — Mrs. Howe, Dr. Jones, Mrs. Cheney, President McCosh, or younger lecturers, as Julian Hawthorne, who spoke once on the structure of novels, and George Parsons Lathrop, who gave a series of these lectures on " Color, " their liberality toward opposition or even ignorance, the gentle benignity and serene patience of Dr. Harris, w^ho was always especially being questioned by persons in the audience, — all this spiritual loveliness of atmosphere must forever remain in memory as an added illustration of the profound truth involved in Tennyson's lines : — " For manners are not idle, but the fruit Of loyal nature and of noble mind." The work of the school was destined in various ways and through various channels to stand for a great liber- alization of ideas in all the radiant activity of study, thought, and expression, which communicated itself to the outer world and whose results and effects continue in ever widening influence. The " truth once uttered " is indeed like CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 185 " A star, new-born, that drops into its place. And which, once circling in its placid round, Not all the tumult of the earth can shake." In the April of 1882 Emerson, the beloved, passed on into the life more abundant, and the quiet town, whose associations have made it the classic spot in America, received a new consecration when, near the graves of Hawthorne and Thoreau, was made the grave of Emerson. It was a notable company that met in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and strewed the twigs of pine taken from the trees that Thoreau had planted, over the casket. Of the family were Mrs. Emerson and her daughters, Mrs. Forbes and Miss Ellen, Dr. Edward Emerson, and other relatives. Among the friends present were Mr. Alcott, Oliver Wendell Holmes, George William Curtis, Dr. William T. Harris, Elizabeth Peabody, Miss Longfellow, Mrs. Agassiz, Thomas Wentworth Higgin- son, President Eliot of Harvard, Mrs. Annie Fields, Henry James, Mr. and Mrs. Edwin P. Whipple, Dr. and Mrs. Hedge, J. Eliot Cabot (who was afterwards Emerson's biographer). Dr. Asa Gray, the famous botanist, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Louisa Alcott, Pro- fessor Horsford, Charles Eliot Norton, Mrs. John A. Andrew, Rev. Dr. Bartol, and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. The simple services were appropriate to the life and faith of him whom they commemorated. At the house Rev. Dr. Furness, Emerson's lifelong friend, read Tennyson's poem, " The Deserted House " : — 186 BOSTON DAYS " Life and thought have gone away, Side by side, Leaving door and windows wide, Careless tenants they. Come away, for life and thought Here no longer dwell ; But in a city — glorious, A great and distant city — have bought A mansion incorruptible. "Would they could have staid with us! " Two stanzas from Longfellow's poem " Resignation," which five weeks before had been read at his own funeral, were repeated over Emerson. The plain wooden pulpit was covered with pine boughs; and a beautiful harp of yellow jonquils, the gift of Louisa Alcott, was placed in front. The Emer- son School sent an open volume composed of flowers, the last page of which was of white lilies with the word " Finis " in blue forget-me-nots. The rich glow of jacqueminot roses and of scarlet and white geraniums lined the pulpit stairs, while above on the wall hung one single emblem, — a laurel wreath. The funeral march from Chopin, and " Pleyel's Hymn," by request of the family, were rendered on the organ. James Freeman Clarke entered the pulpit and Judge Hoar stood by the coffin. In a brief address, he said after referring to the universal sorrow on both continents : " But we, his friends and neighbors, feel that he was ours. He was descended from the founders of the town. He chose our village as the place where his lifelong work CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 187 was to be done. It was to our fields and orchards that his presence gave such value; it was in our streets, in which children looked up to him with love and the elder did him reverence. He was our ornament and pride. . . . O friend, brother, father, lover, teacher, inspirer, guide ! is there nothing more for us to do than to give thee our hail and farewell ? " Selectious from the Scriptures were read by Dr. Furness, and the chief address was given by James Freeman Clarke, who said, in part : — " It is not for me, it is not for this hour, to say what ought to be said of the genius which has kindled the fires of thought in two continents. The present moments belong to reverential love. We thank God here for the influences which have made us all better. The voice now hushed never spoke but to lift us to a higher plane of generous sentiment. The hand now still never wrote except to take us out of ^ our dreary routine of sense, worldliness, and sin' into communion with whatever is noblest, purest, highest. " That day dawned anew when the sight of the divine truth kindled a light in the solemn eyes of Channing and created a new power which spoke from the lips of Emer- son. Yet the young and hopeful listened with joy to this morning song ; they looked gladly to this auroral light. When the little book 'Nature' was published, it seemed to some of us a new revelation. Mr. Emerson then said what has been the text of his life, ' Let the single man plant himself on his Instincts and the great world will come round to him.' He did not reply to his critics. He went on his way, and to-day we see that the world has 188 BOSTON DAYS come round to him. He is the preacher of spiritual truth to our age. . . . The first time I saw him I went with Margaret Fuller to hear him preach in the church on Hanover Street. Neither of us then knew him. We sat in the gallery and felt that a new influence sweet and strong had come. . . . One summer afternoon we came to Con- cord and had a meeting in his parlor. There was George Ripley, admirable talker, most genial of men, and Orestes A. Brownson, full of courage, intelligence, and industry, who soon went over into the Roman Catholic church, and James Walker, of whom Mr. Emerson once said to me, ' I have come to Boston to hear Dr. Walker thunder this evening,' Theodore Parker, and many others. Days of enthusiasm and youthful hope, when the world seemed so new and fair, life so precious, when new revelations were close at hand, as we thought, and some new Plato or Shakspeare was about to appear. We dwelt in what Halleck calls ' the dear charm of life's illusive dream,' and the man who had the largest hope of all, yet joined with the keenest eye to detect every fallacy, was Ralph Waldo Emerson. We looked to him as our master, and now the world calls him its master, — in insight, judgment, charm of speech, unfailing courage, endless aspiration. We say of him as Goethe said of Schiller : 'Lo, he went onward, ever onward for all these years — then, indeed, he had gone far enough for this earth. For care is taken that trees shall not grow up to heaven.' His work, like that of the apostle, was accomplished by the quantity of soul that was in him, — not by mere power of intellect, but ' by pureness, by knowledge, by long suffering, by kind- ness, by the Holy Spirit, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and the left.' " CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 189 Those present felt the deeper significance in these lines from one of his own poems : — " Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know What rainbows teach and sunset show ? Voice of earth to earth returned. Prayers of saints that inly burned, Saying, ' What is excellent, As God lives, is permanent ; Hearts are dust, heart's loves remain ; Heart's love will meet thee again.' House and tenant go to ground, Lost in God, in Godhead found." After the prayer the venerable Mr. Alcott stepped to the side of the coffin and read the following sonnet of his own : — " His harp is silent ; shall successors rise. Touching with venturous hand the trembling string, Kindle glad rapture, visions of surprise. And wake to ecstasy each slumbering thing ? Shall life and thought flash new in wondering eyes. As when the seer transcendent, sweet and wise, World-wide his native melodies did sing, Flushed with fair hopes and ancient memories ? Ah, no ! that matchless lyre shall silent lie, None hath the vanished minstrel's wondrous skill To touch that instrument with art and will : With him winged poesy doth droop and die ; — While our dull age, left voiceless, must lament, The bard high Heaven had for its service sent." The beautiful courtesy that characterized Mr. Emerson was a gift and a grace to all who met or passed him. It was different even from that fine 190 BOSTON DAYS breeding of cultured society, and had about it the purely angelic atmosphere. His presence was more than the refined courtesy of polite life ; it was in itself a benediction. " While some persons pin me to |^the wall with others I walk among the stars," he has written. In his presence, truly, one walked among the stars. It is rare to find this exquisite quality of presence in such a degree as characterized Mr. Emerson, but it is also felt in Dr. William T. Harris, whose exqui- site, gentle courtesy seems to enfold one in the same atmosphere of angelic ministration, quickening intel- lectual thought, exalting spiritual perception, till life is seen on its mount of transfiguration. The loss of memory from which Mr. Emerson had sufibred for some years was most touching. After the funeral of Longfellow, which he attended, he said to his daughter, Miss Ellen, " That gentleman whose funeral we have been attending was a sweet and beau- tiful soul, but I forget his name." One of the touching things said on learning of his death was the remark of Mrs. Lucy Stone, that ^^Mr. Emerson has found his memory now." The grave of Emerson on the crest of Sleepy Hollow is marked with a vast boulder of rose quartz. A bronze tablet bears the inscription : — EALPH WALDO EMERSON, Born in Boston, May 25, 1807. Died in Concord, April 27, 1882. " The passive master lent his hand To the vast soul that o'er him planned." CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 191 By his side now lies his wife, and the grave of the little son Waldo, in whose memory he wrote the " Threnody," is next his own. On this stone is the inscription : — WALDO EMERSON, Died January, 1844, Aged five years and three months. " The Hyacinthine boy for whom Morn well might break and April bloom, The gracious boy who did adorn The world where into he was born." The Emerson Memorial lectures of the Concord School of Philosophy were fitly collected into a volume edited by Mr. Sanborn, which is one of the finest con- tributions to literature as well as to the study of the genius and character of Emerson. Mr. Sanborn's own noble lecture initiated these me- morial tributes, and in this address we find him saying of his lifelong friend and neighbor, who leaned upon him almost as a son : — *' It is not given tons, and to few men can it be given, to measure the height and depth of Emerson's genius, either as poet or as philosopher. But there is an aspect of his philosophical character which we cannot too often dwell upon, — his flowing, unfailing courtesy to all men, his hospitality to everything that bore the upright face of thought, his deep sympathy and fellowship, beneath an exterior sometimes cold, with all that was human and aspiring. His friend Jones Very once said, in an essay on poetry too early forgotten : ' The fact is, our manners, or the manners and actions of any intellectual nation, 192 BOSTON DAYS can never become the representatives of greatness. They have fallen from the high sphere which they occupied in a less advanced stage of the human mind, never to regain it.' But this remark, like almost everything in daily American experience, found its constant contradiction in Emerson; whose manners represented nothing else than greatness, and that not in a dazzling, overpowering way, but with the sweetness of sunlight." Mrs. Cheney and Mrs. Howe spoke of Emerson with great felicity of appreciation. " He had power to take people into realms of thought and life," said Mrs. Howe. Dr. Harris, in a finely critical discussion of Emerson's prose, said : — "The essay on The Over-Soul treats of succession, surface, and reality, under other names ; that on Spiritual Laws, on reality and subjectiveness ; that on Fate treats of temperament and succession; those on Worship, History, Gifts, Heroism, Love, and such titles, treat of subjectiveness. His treatises on concrete themes use these insights perpetually as solvent principles, but always with fresh statement and new resources of poetic expression. There is nowhere in all literature such sus- tained flight toward the sun — a flight, as Plotinus calls it, of the alone to the Alone — as that in The Over-Soul, wherein Emerson, throughout a long essay, unfolds the insights, briefly and adequately explained under the topic of ' surprise ' in the essay on Experience. It would seem as if each paragraph stated the ideas of the whole, and then again that each sentence in each paragraph reflected entire the same idea." Dr. Bartol discussed '^The Nature of Knowledge — Emerson's Way." For more than an hour he held the CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 193 large audience spellbound with the magic of his thought, saying, in part : — " An old apology makes a bishop say to a sceptic, ' How can we guard our unbelief ? ' I had thought to speak of the nature of knowledge, but Emerson's death and your appointment of this memorial day makes im- possible any theme that his spirit does not postpone into an illustration. I feel the magnetism from the name of one never accounted unbelieving, save by such as he had soared out of sight of into the heaven of faith. If I can bring back for a moment that light of our day which Emerson was, it will be a sober joy ; for to have lived in the same time with him, to have been his friend and shared his love, not demonstrative because loath to ask any return, is a memorable privilege. "Emerson had no code, or system, or creed : no com- prehensive, practical view of principles, but only keen, single perceptions, fatally certain within whatever field he surveyed and brought his perfect instrument or brain theodolite to bear. He was an insulated sun, as was Milton, Dante, Wordsworth, — an island rather than a star; and as Homer, Shakspeare, and Goethe were not, and the mighty Browning is not. His style is crisp and insular : he himself is a robe without seam, all of one piece : his leaf is a carcanet. His thoughts are a selection of beads to be strung, all belonging together, by their perfect shape and hue. But the best lines are like a succession of rockets, with their fierce sallies, shining trains, and handsome curves opening wide glimpses of the sky. His poems and essays are songs, not sym- phonies, odes and not dramas. But there was a tune in his mind so constant and sweet that he cared not for chords and pipes." 13 194 BOSTON DAYS The poem by Mr. A. Bronson Alcott in memory of his dead friend was one of the touching tributes ; the opening lines were: — " Shall from the shades another Orpheus rise ? Sweeping with venturous hand the vocal string ? Kindle glad raptures, visions of surprise, And wake to ecstasy each slumberous thing ? Flash life and thought anew in wondering eyes, As when our seer, transcendent sweet and wise, World wide his native melodies did sing, Flushed with fair hopes and ancient memories ? Ah, no ! his matchless lyre must silent lie, None hath the vanished minstrel's wondrous skill To touch that instrument with art and will. With him winged Poesy doth droop and die, While our dull age, left voiceless, with sad eye Follows his flight to groves of song on high." The School of Philosophy filled the closing years of Mr. Alcott with heavenly light. Mr. Sanborn — in that noble " Memoir " of Bronson Alcott, written by himself and Dr. William T. Harris, — quotes a note written by Alcott to a friend, in 1882, in which Mr. Alcott says : " Yes, the school is a delight and a realized dream of happy hours in days of sunshine. Life has been a sur- prise to me during these latter years, and I allow myself to anticipate yet happier surprises in the future stiU to be mine." During the preceding year, as Mr. Sanborn records, Mr. Alcott — then eighty-one years of age — had made a lecturing tour of seven months in the West, travelling more than five thousand miles, and holding conversa- CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 195 tions and lectures at the rate of more than one a day, and he returned from this journey in radiant health and with a thousand dollars that he had earned during the time. Of Mr. Alcott's character Mr. Sanborn gives this admirable judgment : — " Without auy distinguished literary gift and quite devoid of the training which best fits the literary man for his task, Alcott yet possessed what many men of let- ters always lack, — an original and profound habit of mind, directed toward the most serious questions that can occupy human thought. In this rare trait he surpassed nearly all his contemporaries, and equalled those two be- tween whom he stood in age — Carlyle and Emerson — and from whom he differed so much in his intellectual equipment." Mr. Sanborn is especially felicitous in what he says regarding the " cheap wit " of which Mr. Alcott was the target. " That this hostility and misconception of his real pur- pose, which was high and beneficent, did not drive our philosopher into bitterness or insanity is one of the surest evidences of his intellectual greatness. He continued to love mankind when they rejected him, for he knew how transient must be that state of things against which his simple life was a protest." Mr. Sanborn quoted Dr. Hedge as saying that Mr. Alcott was " a spiritual hero," and that in him was a man "who scorned the bribes of earth, whose spirit 196 BOSTON DAYS dwelt on the heights and who sought converse with the heavenly and the eternal." Dr. Harris, who when a Junior in Yale College first met Mr. Alcott, says of his " conversations " : — "It was perhaps difficult for those who attended the conversations to name any one valuable idea or insight which they had gained there, but they felt harmoniously attracted to free-thinking, and there was a feeling that great stores of insight lay beyond what they had already attained. That a person has within him the power of growth in insight, is the most valuable conviction that he can acquire. Certainly this was the fruit of Mr. Alcott's labors in the West. Ordinarily a person looks upon his own wit as a fixed quantity, and does not try a second time to understand anything found too difficult on the first trial. He set people to reading Emerson and Thoreau. He familiarized them with the names of Plato and Py- thagoras as great thinkers whose ideas are valid now and to remain valid throughout the ages." This School of Philosophy may be held as one of the great contributions to the liberalization of thought. The philosophic expositions of Dr. Harris were of untold significance and beauty ; they enlarged the mind and exalted the spirit of all privileged to listen to such lectures, and they have communicated to the world of thought an impulse that widens like the swelling waves of the ocean. Dr. Jones — albeit a trifle incomprehen- sible — was a true interpreter of Plato ; Mr. Sanborn, with his liberal and indeed almost exhaustless familiarity with classics and literature and his charm and richness of expression ; Mrs. Howe's two finest lectures — now CONCORD, AND ITS FAMOUS AUTHORS 197 published in a little brochure called " Modern Society " — which were delivered before the School ; and the many great thinkers of the day who were heard left a lasting impress on the age. Mr. Alcott's talks were full of illumination, — and all these made up a series of charmed hours in the American Academe. One beauti- ful little expression from Mr. Denton J. Snider — whose course of lectures on Greece were singularly interesting — was made regarding Dr. Harris. Mr. Snider, refer- ring to one of the lectures of Dr. Harris, was led by the warmth of his enthusiasm into an extended reference to the great thinker in which he abruptly checked him- self, saying : " He is too great for any praise of mine." So, surely, all who listened to him felt regarding Dr. Harris, and the remark suggested to one of the audience a little rhythmic " Impromptu," ^ which offered its trib- ute to Dr. Harris as the acknowledged Master, in the following stanzas : — " He is too great for any praise of mine." So said the artist whose rare touch had wrought For us the glow of Grecian morns — the shrine Of buried majesty — of living thought. He, whose fine power had pictured mountains old, And brought us draughts from Helicon's pure stream ; He, who of legend, myth, and poet told, Of Delphic oracle and mystic dream : — And who, with subtle power, revealed to all The listening world immortal Shakespeare's art ; He, too, discerned this spell of wisdom's thrall : The grand ideal of our Master's heart. 1 " From Dreamland Sent." Little, Brown & Co. 198 BOSTON DAYS Teacher, Philosopher ! our Master still ! Thy words thrill life with subtler harmonies; Thy guidance teaches duties to fulfil ; Transfigures time in sacred mysteries. Thou art too great — we echo still the thought ; We reverence thy life as Wisdom's shrine. And say, Master ! all that thou hast wrought, — " It is too great for any praise of mine." The School drew together from all parts of the coun- try those who were interested in speculative philosophy ; and its liberal scope, wide range of intellectual sym- pathies, its inclusiveness of poetry and general literature with philosophy and ethics, made it one of the marked features, one of the important intellectual landmarks in the spiritual culture and advancement of the Nineteenth century. Ill THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS All true, whole men succeed ; for what is worth Success's name, unless it be the thought, The inward surety, to have carried out A noble purpose to a noble end. Although it be the gallows or the block ? Lowell. THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS Song breathed from out the forest ; The total air was fame : It seemed the world was all torches That suddenly caught the flame. Emerson. |N the remarkable group of these poets and men of letters — Emerson, Longfellow, Haw- thorne, Holmes, Lowell, Whittier, Dr. Par- sons, and Mrs. Stowe — it is a curious fact to note how with them was closely associated a man who was not only one of the creative workers but who seemed also destined to be their friend, their interpreter, their stimu- lating and encouraging sustainer, Edwin Percy Whipple. Side by side with the great poets and romancers stood the critic, the man who fairly re-created and gave a new meaning to criticism, redeeming it from the paltry sense of discerning faults and conserving it to the high use of discerning virtues and beauties, and of interpreting these to the world, and almost, indeed, of interpreting the author to himself. This is the true office of the critic and of the critical reviewer of literature. It does not require any special ability to point out faults. That is the common task of common minds. But to discern and point out the significance of thought, the exaltation of the vision, and its true relation to intellectual pro- 202 BOSTON DAYS gress, — this is indeed an office so high that it becomes wellnigh holy. Criticism of this noble quality was founded, so far as American literature goes, by Mr. Whipple. He was a great critic, — a critic not of literature alone, but of life as well. Young people who are reaching out toward the best that has been thought and done in the world cannot afford to fail of reading his ^' Character and Characteristic Men," " Success and its Conditions," " Outlooks on Literature, Society, and Politics," and the " Essays and Reviews." '' Literature and Life " is the title of another volume of Mr. Whipple, which is an invaluable aid to clear conditions of thought and high conceptions of purpose. His work on " The Elizabethan Literature " still remains the most valuable contribution to the interpretation of that age, and con- temporary opinion would agree with the verdict of Charles Sumner, who wrote to Mr. Whipple as fol- lows : — CooLiDGE Home, 7th September, '69. My dear Whipple, — If anybody wrote as well about the Elizabethan authors as you have done, I have not read them. Your book is a real contribution, with knowl- edge, thought, and art. What an artist you are! Ever yours, Charles Sumner. It is like going into Aladdin's tower to be permitted to sit down with Mrs. Whipple in her own room in her home in Pinckney Street, — a room vibrating with memories and associations, — and listen to letters writ- ten to Mr. Whipple in the early days of that literature ,^ '/yr<^ Y^J^e ^ ^.^..Jjt^C . Jl ^ ^ aJl— 3^t'^ ^ ^^c^ "^ vfff.^.^^^ 3 ,0^^o„ ,V- CU^i. ^c^V.rW^ 4f'^ JVj^-r Oat. tLXL. }y- AvOt Cfi^_^ .>c -O-v^ '^<^^ ^^dt^Le. ^^"-^^^-^^ ^^^-^e-^ ^^ ;^ THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 217 When Dr. Holmes had finished his brilliant and powerful work, " A Mortal Antipathy/' to an appreci- ative word of Mr. Whipple's he thus replied : — November 23, 1885. My dear Whipple, — I have twenty-two letters before me with " immediate " marked on the margin, but I must write a line to thank you for your most welcome and generous letter. I needed a kind word from a friend whose judgment I could rely upon, and I have it. I was somewhat tired after finishing my memoir of Emerson, and plunged into this study as a soldier after the march goes head-first into a swift and cold current. I did not know whether it would chill me to death with the sudden change of temperature from a life history to a fiction, or dash me to pieces on the rock of impossibility, for I feared I could not make my gyration seem probable enough to interest anybody. The pleasant words of your letter and the approval of Mrs. Whipple as well as yourself have made this stormy day the sunniest I have seen for a long time. The mag- nificent nautilus Mrs. Whipple gave me is always before my eye and keeps her in ever fresh remembrance. I am, my dear Whipple, always j^ours, Oliver Wendell Holmes. Again, in another letter, referring to Emerson, Dr. Holmes writes : — December, 1883. My dear Whipple, — I am sorry that you have lost sight of your first article on Emerson. I think it was in the '' Times " of that day that I saw the article that I was thinking of. I have a complete set of the " North Ameri- can Review " and Indices, so that I can lay my hands 218 BOSTON DAYS at once on the two articles in tliat periodical. If'yoii can spare or lend me a copy of the one in " Harper's " I shall be much pleased to receive it; but if not convenient, I will get it at the shops or from one of the other Public Libraries. I have never forgotten the impression your first article on Emerson produced on me, and I wish I could find it now. Faithfully yours, Oliver Wendell Holmes. An interesting coincidence in comparing Emerson to Franklin that occurred between Dr. Holmes, Matthew Arnold, and Mr. Whipple is thus touched upon in a letter from Dr. Holmes : — 296 Beacon St., Dec. 31, 1883. My dear Whipple, — A thousand thanks for your most interesting and valuable article on Emerson. To think I should have thought I was the first to couple Emerson with Franklin. My poem in the '* Atlantic " in which the conjunction occurs was all printed and corrected before Matthew Arnold delivered the lecture in which he married the two names, and now it seems that we were both jump-up-behinders. Well, I was honest, and no doubt he was. I can only claim that I put a pair of wings on the old gentleman who was a rather heavy cherub. I have no doubt we steal (conscientiously) a great deal more from each other than we are aware of. You, at any rate, have furnished more people with good printable notions than you will ever get credit for, and I have no doubt that before I get through with Emerson I shall innocently borrow so much from you that if my pockets were turned inside out you could find a whole scrap-bag full of your own property. Always faithfully, Oliver Wendell Holmes. THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 219 An amusing little story of Mrs. Stowe belongs to these days. It seems that a dame of high degree who lived in Arlington Street which was called then " very far out," was to give a grand reception for Mrs. Fanny Kemble. Mrs. Stowe had come in town from some outlying place, — Andover, perhaps, — to pass the day with Mrs. Fields, who invited her guest to remain and go with her to the festivity. Mrs. Stowe made some objection regarding her little black gown as not being suitable, which Mrs. Fields overruled with the promise of some of her own laces and adornments, and Mrs. Stowe, who never thought twice of her clothes, accepted the suggestion and remained. The evening came, and literary and fashionable Boston flocked to the drawing-rooms of the hostess, where Mrs. Kemble, in an elaborate costume of purple and silver brocade, was enthroned in the semi-royal state that was second nature to her. The guests were brought up and duly presented to the heroine of the fete, but Mrs. Stowe meantime had escaped to a quiet nook, where, with Edwin P. Whipple for an audience, she was deeply absorbed in recounting her experience with the Brownings, whom she had met many times in Europe, and with whom she had enjoyed many interesting conversations. From time to time the hostess came up, as the hostess always feels it her duty to break up an absorbing tSte-d-tSte, and drag her victims to be presented to some stranger, but Mrs. Stowe refused to be interrupted, and the time sped by. Mrs. Kemble left early, and she and Mrs. 220 BOSTON DAYS Stowe did not, therefore, meet at all. At last when the evenmg was over and the ladies were in the dressing-room putting on their wraps, Mrs. Stowe was asked by some one her impressions of Mrs. Kemble. " Why, was Mrs. Kemble here ? " she explained, having utterly forgotten the purpose for which Mrs. Fields had entreated her to remain. " I should have thought she would have asked to be presented to me ! " The naivet6 amused Mrs. Stowe's friends, for never was there a less conscious woman; but she had just returned from Europe, where every one, from the crowned heads and the duchesses to the untitled, was anxious to meet her, and the impression remained on her mind. The Boston of those days dined at two o'clock and had "tea" at night. There was a leisure and, indeed, one must concede an elegance, too, of social life that had its choice quality. The reminiscences of the Boston whose social festivities were enriched by the presence and participation of Longfellow, Lowell, Emer- son, Professor Peirce, Motley, Starr King, and a host of others of gifts and rare quality are more and more interesting as they recede into a very definite past. Dr. Holmes was perhaps less apt to be found in purely social meetings than in the semi-ceremonial gatherings, and a note of his runs thus : — 296 Beacon St., November 15. My dear Mrs. Whipple, — It was very kind in you to ask Mrs. Holmes and myself, but we are both very shy about going out evenings. I hope you had a pleasant Mrs. Edwin P. Whipple THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 221 time, and know that you and Mr. Whipple can never fail to find good company, as you will be sure to make it. Faithfully yours, Oliver "Wendell Holmes. Prof. Benjamin Peirce was one of the most inti- mate of the choice circle that gathered around the Whipples. The great astronomer and scientist was identified with the Harvard Observatory over a long period of years, and he was not only a great scientist, but a great man ; one whose exaltation of nature made him one of the most important leaders in the advance- ment and elevation of human progress. His life stood, not only for achievement, but for the radiation of influ- ence. The quality of his genius was so lofty that one who comes now to approach him through his writings alone is amazed to find how incommensurate with his greatness is the general recognition. Professor Peirce was one of that remarkable galaxy of brilliant men born in New England during the first quarter of the century. His father, the elder Benjamin Peirce, had been a Harvard man before him, and was for many years the college librarian. His mother was a woman gently born and bred and of no little literary culture. Benjamin Peirce was born in Salem in 1809, almost contemporary with Dr. Holmes, and he gradu- ated from Harvard in 1829, James Freeman Clarke and Dr. Holmes being among his classmates. For some two years after this he was a teacher in the famous school for boys at Round Hill, Northampton, Mass., where 222 BOSTON DAYS Motley passed his early school-days. In 1833 he was given a tutorship at Harvard, and soon afterward was made university professor of mathematics, and natural philosophy. In 1842 he was made the Perkins professor of astronomy and mathematics and he gave a service of fifty years to Harvard before his death in October of 1880, in the seventy-second year of his age. This mere outline of facts and dates offers little sug- gestion of his lofty intelligence, his enthusiasm for wisdom, his impressive personal influence, and his insight into spiritual laws. It was the latter, indeed, that made his life and work so rich, and that invites contemplation. In his mathematical work Professor Peirce was held to rank with La Place and Euler. He extended the field of mathematical research. He infused into the science of numbers speculative vitality, imaginative power, and an artistic selection. In a series of text- books entitled, "" Curves, Functions, and Forces," he made a permanent impression upon the methods of teaching all over the country. It is he who introduced infinitesimals into elementary mathematics, and thus even his text-books bear the stamp of his own personal force. He prepared the lunar tables for the nautical almanac of 1852. For the succeeding four years he was engaged in the investigation of the rings of Saturn, and he discovered and demonstrated that they were not solid, but fluid, and were sustained by the planet's satellites. Professor Peirce was engaged in the United States coast survey from 1867-74. Among his books THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 223 that followed this period are three that are singularly imbued with philosophic thought, although they are strictly mathematical and scientific works, dealing vari- ously with Mechanics, Physics, and with Morphology. While these are eminent hand-books for the specialist, they are also deeply fascinating to the general reader. " Every portion of the material universe," he says, " is pervaded by the same laws of mechanical action which are incorporated into the very constitution of the human mind." Honors and troops of friends attended his life. He received the degree of LL.D. both from the University of North Carolina and his own alma mater ; he was elected an associate of the Royal Astronomical Society in London, of the Royal Society, an Honorary Fellow of the Imperial University at St. Vladimir, and a member of the Royal societies of Edinburgh and Gottingen. It is an open question if any other of the great men of his time aroused such personal enthusiasm as did Professor Peirce, who was beloved to the point of an idolizing affection. He was so responsive, so sympathetic, and, above all, so inspiring. He stimulated the best in every one who came near him, and what more marvellous power can there be than this ? His sympathetic in- clusiveness of interests included pure literature, the drama, the opera, to a degree that on poem, or play, or lyric artist his criticism was almost equally valuable. One of the noblest sermons of Phillips Brooks is entitled ^' The Symmetry of Life," in which he speaks of the length and breadth and height of life; the 224 BOSTON DAYS length, in the life of activity and thought and self- development ; the breadth, in that diffusive tendency which is always drawing a man outward into sympathy with other men, and the height — *' in its reach upward toward God." And then, picturing ideal manhood, he emphasized the symmetry in these words : — " It must be that forever before each glorified spirit in the other life there shall be set one goal of peculiar ambition, his goal, after which he is peculiarly to strive, the struggle after which is to make his eternal life to be forever dif- ferent from every other among all the hosts of heaven. And yet it must be that as each soul strives toward his own attainment he shall be knit forever into closer and closer union with all the other countless souls which are striving after theirs. And the inspiring power of it all, the source of all the energy and all the love, must then be clear beyond all doubt; the ceaseless flood of light forever pouring forth from the self-living God to fill and feed the open lives of his redeemed who live by him. There is the symmetry of manhood perfect. There, in redeemed and glorified human nature, is the true heavenly Jerusalem.'* This ideal suggests the realization of Professor Peirce . Strong in his own personal work and aims, broad in his sympathies with his fellow-men, and ever and always aspiring toward the divine, — what wonder that his life leaves an influence that is destined to extend still more widely. It was good for all to be brought in touch with such a man. Rev. Dr. Bartol says of him that he belonged to the same class of minds as Newton, Kepler, Swedenbofg, and Plato. His books are characterized THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 225 by work involving such profound thought, such mar- vellously speculative apprehension of divine laws, that they open to the reader undreamed vistas of spiritual life. With any reminiscence of Dr. Peirce must be asso- ciated the memorial poem written of him by Dr. Holmes, — a poem singularly full of intimations of the sublimity of the heavens : — " For him the Architect of all Unroofed an planet's star-lit ball ; Through voids unknown to worlds unseen His clearer vision rose serene. " With us on earth he walked by day ; His midnight path, how far away ! We knew him not so well who knew The patient eyes his soul looked through. "To him the wandering stars revealed The secrets in their cradle sealed." It was an event in the history of progress when Professor Peirce delivered, before the Lowell Institute, in 1877-78, a course of lectures on " Ideality in Science," which he afterward repeated before the Peabody Listitute in Baltimore. In the opening one he says of the computation of the geometer that, " how- ever tedious it may be, it has a loftier aspiration. It provides spiritual nourishment ; hence it is life itself, and is the worthy occupation of an immortal soul." These lectures were fortunately published in a vol- ume (" Ideality in Science "), so that they are readily accessible. What a wonderful passage is this ! — 15 226 BOSTON DAYS " What is this which we call fact ? It is not a sound ; it is not a star. It is sound heard b}^ the ear ; it is a star seen by the eye. In the simplest case it is the spiritual recognition of material existence. . . . There are even physical facts of which the knowledge is wholly mental and of which there is no direct evidence to the senses. It is undoubted that there are sounds which are inaudible to some ears and colors which are invisible to certain eyes. It is equally undoubted that there are innumerable vibrations coursing through space which make no sensi- ble impression on any auditory or visual organ, or on any human nerve. Such facts, known through our powers of reasoning, are to us non-existent, except as pictures on the imagination." And again : — " What is man? What a strange union of matter and mind ! A machine for converting material into spiritual force. A soul imprisoned in a body ! . . . The body is the vocal instrument through which the soul communicates with other souls, with its i^ast self, and even, perhaps, with its God. Were the communication between soul and soul direct and immediate there would be no protec- tion for thought; and there would be no such thing as personality and individuality. The body is needed to hold souls apart and to preserve their independence as well as for conversation and mutual sympathy. Hence body and matter are essential to man's true existence. The soul that leaves this earthly body still requires in- corporation. The grandest philosopher who has ever speculated upon this theme has told us that there are celestial bodies as well as bodies terrestrial." Such a voice is not silenced by death, and the work and influence of Professor Peirce are constantly widening. THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 227 The interblending of the little coteries and groups of the choice spirits that made the golden age of American literature is interesting to note. Lowell and Long- fellow were neighbors and friends in Cambridge ; there, too, lived Charles Eliot Norton, who, of all Lowell's circle, was the nearest to the poet, as Sumner was to Longfellow ; Emerson and Alcott, closely conjoined, not merely by locale, for social sympathies know nothing of geographical relations, but by ties of spirit ; Dr. Holmes and James Freeman Clarke in responsive accord ; and with all these and others, in harmonious mutual blend- ing, Mr. Whipple was intimately associated as critic and friend. The most important literary event in the last half of the Nineteenth century was the founding of the ^^ At- lantic Monthly," which was christened by Dr. Holmes. The new periodical, first seen as in vision by Mr. Francis Henry Underwood — the literary adviser for the publishing house of Phillips and Sampson in Boston — was suggested by Mr. Underwood to the publishing house. The idea incited the sympathy of Mr. Phillips and he resolved to give a dinner at the Parker House (on May 5, 1857) to consult the writers on whom the project must chiefly rely for a corps of contributors. The guests invited were Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Motley, Dr. Holmes, Whipple, and J. Eliot Cabot, — a ^^ brilliant constellation of philosophic, poetic, and his- torical talent," as Mr. Underwood recorded. Mrs. Stowe's co-operation was immediately sought. Her " Uncle Tom's Cabin " had been published in 1853, and 228 BOSTON DAYS "Dred" was at this time about being issued. Her story called "The Minister's Wooing" opened in the "Atlantic" in December of 1858. Mr. Lowell ac- cepted the editorship ; and when Emerson inquired as to whether the contributions were to be signed, Mr. Lowell replied in the negative but added : " You will be quite helpless, for your name is written in all kinds of self-betraying anagrams all over yours." The initial number of the new magazine which was destined to inaugurate an era in American literature and which has always kept faith with its high ideals, was enriched with four poems of Emerson's, — " Brahma," "Days," "The Romany Girl," and "The Chartist's Complaint." It seems that this group was sent in order that Mr. Lowell might select one from them ; but he published all and said, "I will never be so rapacious again till I have another so good a chance." Mr. Scudder in his biography of Mr. Lowell notes that of all these poems it was " Brahma " that seized upon the imagination, and he quotes Mr. Trowbridge as say- ing that it was " more talked about and puzzled over and parodied than any other poem of sixteen lines published within my recollection." Lowell himself said of this poem that the line, — " When me they fly I am the wingrf ; " " abides with me as an intimate," and that " meaning is crammed into it as with an hydraulic press." The initial number of the " Atlantic " was also made memorable by containing Mr. Whittier's '^ Tritonius," and in THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 229 the second number appeared " Skipper Ireson's Ride." Later came the serial publication of that inimitable creation by Dr. Holmes, " The Professor at the Break- fast Table/' followed by " The Poet at the Breakfast Table." Colonel Higginson contributed prose romance and poems ; Richard Grant White first published in the ^^ Atlantic" his Shakspearian criticism; Mr. Lowell's " The Biglow Papers " first appeared in the '^ Atlantic ; " Harriet Prescott (later Mrs. SpofFord) arrested atten- tion with her story " In a Cellar ; " and poems from Longfellow, essays and criticism by Mr. Whipple, and a story called ^' Pink and Blue " by Abby Morton Diaz contributed to the blaze of glory with which the new venture was invested. In 1861 Mr. James T. Fields succeeded Mr. Lowell as the editor of the new magazine. About the time of the founding of the "Atlantic Monthly " there was inaugurated the " Saturday Club," among whose members were Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Motley, Whipple, Whittier, Agassiz, Prof. Benjamin Peirce, Sumner, R. H. Dana, Dr. Holmes, Governor Andrew, Charles Eliot Norton, Henry James (the elder), James Freeman Clarke, Judge Hoar, Pres- cott, and later still. President Eliot, Howells, Aldrich, and Phillips Brooks. The scofifers — for there always is a scoffer — termed this club " The Mutual Admiration Society," to which Dr. Holmes retorted that " if there was not a certain amount of mutual admiration, it was a great pity and implied a defect in the nature of men who were otherwise largely endowed." 230 BOSTON DAYS The poems and essays of Emerson continued to appear frequently in the ^' Atlantic ; " and regarding a paper by Mr. Whipple— which Cornelius Conway Felton of Harvard mistook for one of Emerson's, — Professor Felton wrote to Emerson as follows : — Cambridge, April 21, 1858. My dear Mr. Emerson, — I have this moment read an article in the ' ' Atlantic " which is attributed I presume truly to you, on " Intellectual Character," and while the impression of its admirable depth, style, reasoning, and purport is fresh upon me, I want to express to you my thanks for it and my sense of the importance, the un- speakable importance, of the principles it develops. I wish the article could be printed as a hand-book — a revised pamphlet — and a copy of it placed in the hands of every student in every college, and in that of every man and woman, — the great college of society. I do not know that I have ever read an essay which contained more sound, healthy, practical truth tersely expressed. It will benefit minds of every stage and every age. I have just turned the half-century corner and I feel that I may apply its philosophy for the future ; and if I had fallen in with a similar exposition of such a doctrine thirty years ago I should have had thirty more years of intellectual benefit. One of the consolations of a long and tedious but not utterly disabling illness such as I have just been passing through is that it gives one freedom and time to read, pause, and inwardly digest (when one can digest little else) portions of the great masters of thought, — an essay of Bacon, — a tragedy of ^schylus, — the sixth and twenty-fourth books of the Iliad, — a passage from Montaigne, a canto of Dante, an Introduction of Agassiz, or such a paper as " Intellectual Character." ^ ^4.^^/^ /U'^ /O £cur^ /^4^^C//^^ W /Ac A'it^^'i^e^ A--. ^P-^^^^^^s-^ /tCeC — > / -^ ^ {o, jMj^, 2^ ti^Z^ / -^/- ^^^ ^.jl^ ^T^J^^ ^.r^^^ ^^^^ ^^^/^ iTxL^/- y^2Zr^/£i^^?». j^dla,^:^^ ^^y^a. ^^li^^:^;^^^ /ra^/- THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 249 The one immortal work of Dr. Holmes in literature is "The Chambered Nautilus." This poem appeared in the fourth paper of the series of the " Autocrat/' and it is one that will live as long as the English language endures. His own analysis of this poem incidentally given in the following letter acknowledging Mr. Whipple's felicitations on a later work is deeply interesting : — 296 Beacon St., Nov. 16, 1880. Dear Mr. "Whipple, — You cannot tell how much good your hearty note has done me. It was an act of true kindness to write it. I thought I might get a pleasant word from somebody or other (in addition to what Howells wrote when I sent him the poem), and now I have it and from one who knows what poetry is and would not praise carelessly. I confess I thought the poem in its own way one of the best I have ever written. I suppose a writer may greatly overrate his powers, but I do not think he is so like to be mistaken about the felicities of any particular effort, judged by the scale of his own merit, and I could not help feeling that I had expressed what I wanted to as I wanted to, and was content to send it about. I was reminded by your note very forcibly of one which the late Mrs. Follen wrote me soon after the publication of " The Chambered Nautilus," which I have always con- sidered the most artistically finished of any of my poems. She said she had tried to alter some phrase or word and found she could not im.prove it. I was glad she did not suggest any change, for it had passed a pretty sharp ordeal, — a thoroughly lyric poem has always walked over the red hot ploughshares and is impatient when pins are stuck in it. 250 BOSTON DAYS Perhaps you may have hesitated whether or not to write to me about the poem. I do not know — I only know that it costs an effort to write and don't doubt the sight of a pen is often odious to you. Well, now be glad you did it, for it made me a great deal happier, and I feel as much obliged to you and Mrs. Whipple for liking my poem and to you for saying so, as I ever did to any- body for the handsomest Christmas present I ever got in my life. Believe me, Yours, Oliver Wendell Holmes. From this period (1857-94) the life of Dr. Holmes flowed as in a crescendo progress of growing literary fame and a social prominence which is best described as national recognition and love. Never was there a sweeter nature than his. How beautiful is this let- ter written to his friend and classmate, James Free- man Clarke, — a letter which is as a key to the minor life of Dr. Holmes. Under date of June, 1864, he writes : — " I have been feeling your texts (which, as you know, are the pulses of sermons), and from these I have stolen my way along until I got my hand on the hearts of a good number of them. " Now, the beauty of your sermons is that they have eggs in them, fragrant juices in them, strengthening cordials in them, sound brains in them, and therefore you and I are logically bound to approve, to admire, and to applaud them. I have always done my part in the way of approbation, admiration, and applause ; but as authors are apt sometimes to undervalue themselves, I want you THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 251 to take my word for it that your discourses, read or heard, are the aurum potabile of spiritual medicine. Less fanci- fully, they are first perfectly human (which theology has not commonly been at all, still less divine) ; full of faith, full of courage, full of kindness and large charity; tender, yet searching the realities of things with true manly thought ; poetical, yet with a great deal of plain common sense, — sermons that will always be good read- ing, because they reach down even below Christianity to that plutonic core of nature over which all revelations must stratify their doctrines. "Thank you for being good, for being brave, true, tender, brotherly to all mankind, sinners included, for thinking such good thoughts, for preaching them, for printing them, and once more for sending them to your loving friend and classmate." Calling on Mrs, Agassiz after the death of her husband, Dr. Holmes thus writes to Motley : — "Yesterday I went to Cambridge and called on Mrs: Agassiz, — the first time I have seen her since her hus- band's death. She was at work on his correspondence, and talked in a very quiet, interesting way about her married life. What a singular piece of good fortune it was that Agassiz, coming to a strange land, should have happened to find a woman so wonderfully fitted to be his wife that it seems as if he could not have bettered his choice if all womankind had passed before him, as the creatures filed in procession by the father of the race." It is a question if any man in public life exerted a wider influence or left on his age a finer and deeper impress than has Dr. Holmes, 252 BOSTON DAYS At one time Lowell wrote to him one of those curious letters of reproach, veined with bitterness, by which the poet and diplomat occasionally surprised and disap- pointed his nearest friends. In his reply Dr. Holmes says : — " I supposed that you, and such as you, would feel that I had taught a lesson of love, and would thank me for it. I supposed that you would say I had tried in my humble way to adorn some of the scenes of this common life that surrounds us, with colors borrowed from the imagination and the feelings, and thank me for my effort. I supposed you would recognize a glow of kindly feeling in every word of my poor lessons — even in its slight touches of satire, which were only aimed at the excesses of well- meaning people. I supposed you would thank me for laughing at the ridiculous phantom of the one poet that is to be, whose imaginary performances inferior persons are in the habit of appealing to, to prove that you and such as you are mere scribblers. I am sorry that I have failed in giving you pleasure because I have omitted two subjects on which you would have loved to hear my testimony. " Above all, I shall always be pleased rather to show what is beautiful in the life around me than to be pitchiug into giant vices, against which the acrid pulpit and the corrosive newspaper will always anticipate the gentle poet. Each of us has his theory of life, of art, of his own existence and relations. It is too much to ask of you to enter fully into mine, but be very well assured that it exists, — that it has its axioms, its intuitions, its connected beliefs, as well as your own. Let me try to improve and please my fellow-men after my own fashion at present; when I come to your way of thinking (this THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 253 may happen), I liope I shall be found worthy of a less qualified approbation than you have felt constrained to give me at this time." After this it seems to me no words could be added of the gentle dignity, the noble outlook — no less noble because so sympathetic and sunny — of Dr. Holmes. In his own city most truly could it be said of him : " None knew him but to love him ; None named him but to praise." Dr. Holmes found his "summers of Hesperides " on » the North Shore, that haunt of the painter and the poet ; the region that still echoes with his own songs and those of Whittier and Longfellow, Celia Thaxter, and Lucy Larcom. The "Autocrat," however, was less touched by nature than by life, and scenery to him was largely but a setting for circumstance. He was in- tensely in love with the spiritual drama of life, and in the " Com^die Humaine " he discerned significances unremarked by insight less keen and by sympathy less delicate and responsive. Never was a man more be- loved and yet less truly understood save by his most intimate circle than Dr. Holmes. His nature was like quicksilver, — forever dancing, sparkling, shifting, and yet with depths so profound as to be forever unsounded. His gayety and sparkle were the outer garb of the deepest thought constantly engaged with the problems of destiny. He was always ready for the mere touch and go of life, but that was his armor, so to speak, and beneath it was another world, another 254 BOSTON DAYS life, a divinely touched nature in whose depths phil- osophy and science and the most far-reaching grasp of the ethical laws had their abiding-place. Dr. Holmes lived so absolutely in an intellectual world, a spiritual world, in that larger sense of thought and divination, as well as religious feeling, that he little needed and little heeded the change of outer scenes afforded by travel. To leave ^' the water side of Beacon Street " in the early summer for his country house at Beverly farm, on the North Shore, and to leave Beverly in the autumn for " the water side of Beacon Street," quite satisfied him for change and variety. There are exceptions to the tradition that whom the gods love die young. The fame of Dr. Holmes is the more permanent and abiding in that he lived to so great an age, and some of his best work was done after his seventy- fifth year. Without ever having been iden- tified with any special phase of reform or philanthropy, his nobility of nature was impressive. Life itself is the most important of problems to solve, the finest of all the fine arts to achieve, and the symmetry of character that enables a man to meet well the claims of private life is often greater than that of him who wins fame in public achievement. Dr. Holmes was never known as an abolitionist, or a suffragist, or a prohibitionist, or as this or that outside of the natural life and work of a man keenly alive to a great range of interests ; but there is not a question that affects social progress that he did not regard with interest and discuss with the most brilliant and discrim- THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 255 mating keenness. There are persons whose entire force seems to express itself on a few specific things, or even on one, and they usually disappoint those who have known them through this one achievement when they come to be seen in the wholeness of life. Again, there are those whose power expresses itself in many ways, no one of which is perhaps dazzling, but on meeting them the stranger will feel how much greater is the character than any one or any number of its specific achievements would indicate. Dr. Holmes was one of these, save that any one of his various phases as poet, essayist, or romancer is brilliant enough to have quite excused his being no more than the author in that spe- cific literary line alone. Comparing Dr. Holmes and Mr. Lowell, there is a point which may not be without interest. Mr. Lowell united in himself two distinctive personalities, — the man of letters and the man of the world, while in Dr. Holmes the man and the author are one. In much of his literary work Mr. Lowell reveals himself as the saint and the hero ; but in personal companionship he was the cultivated and agreeable gentleman, courteous, scholarly, and fine, yet always a man of the world. But the personality of Dr. Holmes is fairly identical with his expressions of it as the author. His conversation, while in no sense bookish, was strangely like his books. It had the same indescribably brilliant quality. All aglow with the color of the moment, it had still that rhythmic and chiselled beauty that conveys a sense of form as well as of significance. 256 BOSTON DAYS It was not only thought, profound, fine, far-reaching as may be, but thought so finely related and subtly suggestive of the vast range of vital experiences, ex- pressed in diction so choice as to lie within the region of art. Much of his conversation might be heard as if he were fairly reading from his own books, if one only listened with closed eyes. It is probably safe to believe that America has never produced a conversationalist so brilliant as Dr. Holmes. With Mr. Lowell conversation was one thing and writing another, although it goes without saying that his conversation was exceptionally interesting and fine. To the heart of the poet, the temperament and tastes of the scholar, the polished grace of the gentleman, he united ethical ideals in a way that became part of his individuality, and prede- termined the cast and conduct of his life. As a critic and scholar he holds rank commensurate with his fame as a poet. It would be hard to find a more perfect piece of literary criticism than his paper on Dante, and in his hands, indeed, the literary essay becomes a very vital and suggestive thing, although it may be held that Lowell had not the brilliancy of Macaulay, the depth of Carlyle, the electric wit of Whipple, the logical power of John Morley, the subtle insight of Ste. Beuve, or the artistic grace of Matthew Arnold. Nor had he the spiritual divination of Emerson, the imaginative art of Hawthorne, or the tenderly sympathetic genius of Longfellow. Still we have hardly any other American in whom so great a degree of talent has manifested itself in so many directions as in Mr. Lowell, — as poet, THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 257 scholar, statesman, lecturer, and diplomat. In him the American of the nineteenth century was typically represented. His character revealed a kind of inflores- cence of the Puritan virtues, — their ruggedness, cul- tivated and polished, appearing as strength; their uncompromising truth taking on in him the guise of noble sincerity and fearless devotion ; their aspiration appearing in him as spiritual truth. A panorama of enchanting scenes arises when the magician's power lifts for a moment the veil that hides the golden age of Boston, — the age of Emerson, Haw- thorne, Longfellow, Holmes, Whittier, Freeman Clarke, Whipple, Fields, and Lowell. They are the immortals whose lives are the most precious heritage of their State. Mr. Lowell will be remembered as the poet and man of letters who became a citizen of the world. Wherever literature is loved, wherever patriotism is held as a pious virtue, wherever human progress is seen as an individual and national ideal, the name of James Russell Lowell will be enshrined. Far other words are needed to characterize Dr. Holmes in his electric personality, recognizing with the lightning swiftness of intuition the keynote to any scale of elective affinities. He was not so much magnetic as magnetism impersonated. He was so much more alive than other people. There was little of him to die. For the most part he was an immortal spirit now and here. One very marked attribute of Dr. Holmes in his later years was his searching and intelligent interest in the 17 258 BOSTON DAYS occult and psychical phenomena. Of course his readers know that he struck the keynote of this quest in early life in his romance of " Elsie Yenner/' and in the very remarkable psychological analysis presented in "The Guardian Angel." No one can read that novel without gaining at once an altogether clearer comprehension of human life. Dr. Holmes often talked of " brain waves," as he called thought transference. At a club dinner in London he said to the Bishop of Gloucester and to Mr. Haweis: '^I think we are all unconsciously conscious of each other's brain waves at times ; the fact is, words, and even signs, are a very poor sort of language com- pared with the direct telegraphy between souls. The mistake we make is to suppose that the soul is circum- scribed and imprisoned by the body. Now the truth is, I believe I extend a good way outside my body; well, I should say at least three or four feet all round, and so do you, and it is our extensions that meet. Before words pass, or we shake hands, our souls have exchanged impressions, and they never lie." Dr. Holmes was once asked what suggested to him the remarkable psychological problem wrought out in his metaphysical romance of " Elsie Venner." He replied that there was no external suggestion at all, — that the romance was merely the result of his own contemplation of the doctrine of original sin. That in this story he showed how a life, before becoming an organized being, could be poisoned at its source. He instanced the responsibility of the person who, for example, had given intoxicating drink to a boy, who, unknowing, had THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 259 taken it and proceeded to work mischief and destruc- tion. The person giving the debasing drink, not the boy who drank it, would be responsible for the evil wrought. It is the most hopeless of tasks — notwithstanding the most fascinating as well — to attempt any tran- scription of a conversation with Dr. Holmes. The readers of his inimitable prose, whether in romance or essay, realize the ramifications of thought, or specula- tion, or incident which almost any topic or event suggests to him. This quality was pre-eminently felt in his conversation ; and as conversation may be more flexible than writing, his kaleidoscopic flashes of insight and thought illumined and enlarged every conceivable subject. Dr. Holmes has somewhere asserted that he " talked to find out what he thought," and this experi- mental examination of every subject, with whatever light fact, or incident, or science, or philosophy may throw on it, invested his conversation with enthralling charm. His genius was so versatile as to make his personality seem inclusive of a dozen men in one, and each most deeply and absorbingly interesting. At eighty-two the poet was all aglow with interest in the movements of the day. He was as alive as he was in early life as to " What wonders time has yet to show, What unborn years shall bring ; What ship the Arctic pole shall reach, What lessons science waits to teach, What sermons there are left to preach, What poems yet to sing." 260 BOSTON DAYS To Dr. Holmes, as to all the others of the brilliant galaxy, Mr. Whipple was the friend whose sympathetic insight into his springs of thought was singularly potent in revealing each to himself. Among the voluminous mass of Mr. Whipple's correspondence that Mrs. Whipple, guarding from publication heretofore, has kindly permitted to be drawn upon for these pages, is the following letter : AsHFiELD, Mass., Sept. 19, 1869. My dear Whipple, — Your generous note makes my cheeks red and my heart warm. It covers me with con- fusion, too, that a letter to you that had been in my head and heart after reading your Bacon articles was never writ- ten because of many things. Happily your Elizabethan book has just come to me, and I shall have my swift and capital revenge of pleasure. As for the especial matter of your note, I am sure I am much better, but want some rest and am staving off press- ing invitations with both hands. Gratefully yours, Oliver Wendell Holmes. The beautiful companionship between Dr. Holmes, Lowell, and Longfellow in all those years finds expres- sion and description in numerous poems of each of the friends. The life in Elmwood was another of those high poetic lives conjoined in close sympathy with that led in Craigie House. " No qualities are really valuable save those which are transferable to another life," says some one, and the observation suggests itself in connection with James THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 26l Russell Lowell, for few characters have been more wholly made up of these transferable qualities than his. His father, Rev. Dr. Charles Lowell, is held in reverent memory for his great goodness, and only within a few years the venerable Dr. Peabody related in some reminiscences how Dr. Lowell might often have been seen at night going with a lantern in his hand into the crowded and muddy lanes and alleys of the poorer parts of his parish, seeking out those in need. He was the pastor of the old West Church, and the venerable Dr. Bartol was his junior colleague. James Russell Lowell believed that he inherited his poetic taste from his mother, who was from the Orkney Isles, with all their wild and picturesque life. Elm wood, the house where he was born and reared, has been too often described to need further picturing. Until he went abroad as Minister to the Court of St. James it was his home, and during the years of his absence was occupied by Mrs. Ole Bull. Again he returned to it, and there he died. At first Lowell was destined for a lawyer. He must have suddenly changed his mind, for on Oct. 18, 1838 (when he was nineteen years of age), he wrote : ^' I am reading Blackstone with what grace I may," and in the same month and year he writes : — * ^ I have renounced the law. I am going to settle down into a business man at last, after all I have said to the contrary. ... I am now looking for a place in a store. You may imagine that all this has not come to pass with- out a great struggle. I must expect to give up almost 262 BOSTON DAYS entirely all literary pursuits, and instead of making rhymes devote myself to making money." . . . A few days later, however, he records that on going into town to " look for a place " he stepped into court, where Webster was one of the counsel retained in a case, and he says : — " I had not been there an hour before I decided to con- tinue in my profession and study as well as I could." In this swift reversal of intention the imaginative temperament is plainly seen. For it is very difficult for one whose imagination vividly pictures this thing or that to decide, and abide by any decision ; things that the matter-of-fact temperament would never debate with itself, the artistic temperament sees in a panorama as successive pictures, and now one, and now another, captivates the judgment. Mr. Lowell was a man of exquisite tastes and culture, of a high order of talent and of true nobility, but he was never quite the hero. He never fully escaped from a certain bondage of conservatism. He sympathized with spiritual things through and by virtue of his poetic temperament, while with Emerson the reverse was true, and he sympathized with the poetic through the spiritual. The purely literary temperament is by no means neces- sarily the highest type in love and in spiritual receptivity. It may be, but it depends. Lowell, — at first hostile to the antislavery cause, — yet wrote its initial song — one that will stir and thrill through the ages — in "The Present Crisis." THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 263 Of his sojourn in Concord when suspended from Har- vard for failure in a class of studies he disliked and for which he would substitute his own line, Professor Nor- ton says: — " He was not yet prepared to know Emerson, who might have helped him ; but he had been bred in an atmosphere of conservatism in matters of the intellect and the spirit, and he shared in the then common aversion to Emerson's teaching." On meeting Thoreau Lowell wrote : — " It is exquisitely amusing to see how Thoreau imitates Emerson's tone and manner. With my eyes shut I shouldn't know them apart." Lowell had little sympathy for transcendentalism as it was in Emerson and Alcott and Margaret Fuller, and still his poems are filled with intimations of the spiritual life. As in this : — "We see but half the causes of our deeds, Seeking them wholly in the outer life. And heedless of the encircling spirit world, Which, though unseen is felt, and sows in us All germs of pure and world-wide purposes." The two interests that dominated his life reveal them- selves in his letters at nineteen and twenty, — the lean- ing toward poetry and politics. After deciding within twelve days that he would abandon law and again that he would pursue it, we find the next month that he writes : " I have quitted the law forever.'* A few months later he records that 264 BOSTON DAYS the thought of business made him unhappy, and he again turns to the law. He lectured at Concord, for which they gave him four dollars. '* I wish they 'd ask me at Cambridge, where they pay fifteen, or at Lowell, where they pay twenty- five," he writes. A literary plan that occurred to him in September of '39 was to write a series of communica- tions for some magazine in the form of Echermann and Boswell, — " imaginary conversations with an imaginary great man, in which I can put down everything of worth that occurs to me during the day." In the next De- cember he met Maria White, the beautiful and gifted girl who became his wife. Of her Professor Norton writes : ^' Miss White was a woman of unusual loveliness and of gifts of mind and heart more unusual, which enabled her to enter with complete sympathy into her lover's intellectual life and to direct his genius to its higher aims." They were married in December of 1866, and in the few years immediately following he achieved a prominent recognition of his powers as a poet. In a letter he says : — " I know that God has given me powers such as are not given to all, and I will not hide my talent in mean clay. I do not care what others will think of me or of my book, because if I am worth anything I shall one day show it. I do not fear criticism so much as I love truth. . . . Maria fills my ideal and I satisfy hers, and I mean to live as one beloved by such a woman should live." Mr. Lowell had the temperament subject to inspira- tion. He was at times peculiarly receptive to subtle THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 265 and unseen influences. He was often, he said^ " dimly aware " of the presence of spirits. Professor Norton's editing of the "Letters" is a work inviting the highest recognition. It is done with such wise selection and such delicacy that it is grateful to read them, and they offer, in themselves, almost as com- plete a biography of Lowell in the sense of interpreting his inner self, as is given by Mr. Scudder in the author- ized work which elaborates the story adding external scene and setting to the revelation of the poet's inner life as seen in the " Letters " collected and edited by Charles Eliot Norton. In Dr. Edward Everett Hale's fascinating book, called " Lowell and His Friends," the reader finds a per- fect panorama of old Boston. The early Harvard days when Josiah Quincy was the President, and on through the administrations of Sharpe and Felton, when Peirce, Channing, and Longfellow were in the college, hold charming memories. "There was not an ism but had its shrine," says Dr. Hale of the Boston of the forties, " nor a cause but had its prophet. . . . Lowell could discuss with a partner in a dance the moral significance of the ' Fifth Sym- phony ' of Beethoven in comparison with the lessons of the * Second ' or the ' Seventh.' Another partner in the next quadrille would reconcile for him the conflict of free will and foreknowledge. In Miss Peabody's foreign bookstore he could talk art for a week, procure Strauss' ' Leben Jesu/ or any evening hear Hawthorne tell the story of Parson Moody's veil, or discuss the origin 266 BOSTON DAYS of the myth of Ceres with Margaret Fuller. . . . Mr. Emerson lectured for him ; Allston's pictures were hung in galleries for him ; Fanny Elssler danced for him^ and Brahman sang for him." Lowell's early coterie of friends included Dr. Palfrey (who was the editor of the " North American Review " at that time), Sumner Hillard (who was Sumner's law partner), Felton (then Greek professor at Harvard and later the President of the University), Fields, Whipple^ and Emerson. In 1845 Thomas Starr King came to Boston, and he was at once welcomed into this brilliant circle. The eminently conservative character of Lowell's mind is indicated by a remark he made in a letter to Mrs. Howe more than thirty years ago. It was during his editorship of the " Atlantic," and she had sent him a poem which he declined with the assertion that no woman could write a poem, and that Mrs. Browning's efforts were a conspicuous illustration of her failure to be a poet. Mr. Lowell added in this note to Mrs. Howe that he would gladly accept a prose article from her. There is no question but that Mr. Lowell was always under the old order of things, believing that the woman was subservient to the man. His first wife, Maria White, was an exceedingly lovely woman of the old regime, full of love and loyalty to her hus- band, and regarding him as the superior being. She was content to merge her individuality in his, it may be ; yet the result was harmony and happiness, and nothing, certainly, can be better than that. Nothing, THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 267 indeed, can be so supremely good ; and that harmony is the final result, as it is the final ideal, of the greater independence and individuality of woman at the present time is true. Not antagonism, but unity; that unity which is the harmonious blending of two distinct chords, far richer than that which should consist of one chord and an echo. Mr. Lowell had the ethical radicalism of the moral enthusiast, and the social conservatism of his age and generation. This is revealed all through the letters that make up the two large and interesting volumes edited by Professor Norton. Most interesting read- ing these letters are, and they ofi'er great material for character-study. The incidental glimpses they give of notable people and the life of the day are delightful. Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, the great philanthropist, and his brilliant and gifted wife lived in South Boston in these early years. Their home was a Mecca of high and poetic pilgrimage, and such guests as frequented it were indeed the ornaments of a household. Mrs. Howe has always claimed for herself only the modest title of a student, but how rich are the results of that lifelong devotion to intellectual and spiritual ideals those best know who have been privileged to approach most nearly to all this wide and beautiful culture. Mrs. Howe's essential biography might almost be found in this closing stanza of her poem entitled " Philosophy : " — 268 BOSTON DAYS "I know not if I've caught the matchless mood In which impassioned Petrarch sung of thee ; But this I know — the world its plenitude May keep, so I may share thy beggary." The keynote of the life of Mrs. Howe may be dis- cerned in this stanza which suggests her poetic insight and breadth of culture. In her literary work Mrs. Howe stands pre-eminent for philosophic thought. As the author of the immortal "■ Battle Hymn of the Republic," her place in lyric art will be recognized while art shall live. In the great field of philanthropy and social and political reforms she has for half a century faced the world's passion and inertia ; she has seen glory in the depths of death. She has been one of the nobler few whose voices proclaim in the wilderness the triumphal progress of truth. Her messages to the world have always embodied the fruition of high purpose, the finest insight of thought and of generous and liberal culture. Born in New York (May 27, 1819) Mrs. Howe came in her early youth to Boston, with which city her life has been identified. Here she met with Emerson, Sum- ner, Margaret Fuller, James Freeman Clarke, Horace Mann, and others who were destined to be the friends and co-workers of her future life. There is a striking thought in one of George Eliot's novels where she speaks of the indifference with which we may view our unintroduced neighbor, while Destiny stands by, sar- castic, with the dramatis jjersonm folded in her hands. Something of this thought suggests itself as one sees, as Julia Ward Hoive THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 269 in a vision, this beautiful young woman, in all her charm and loveliness, just brought to the threshold of what was to be her future life. Julia Ward had an unusual fascination of manner, we are told, and a great enlarge- ment of life — in the line of the natural evolution of noble powers — awaited her. Among the new friends presented to her was one — a man of picturesque and magnetic manner — of a presence calculated to com- pel those around him to a more serious and thoughtful plane, a hero who held the accorded place of a leader in this galaxy of thinkers. This was Dr. Samuel Grid- ley Howe. " Accustomed to a society of learned men whose whole energy was given to thought and specula- tion, what wonder that the character of the chivalrous man, who thought and worked out his thought with an enthusiasm and steady persistence which compelled success, should attract the sensitive, romantic young girl who had lived hitherto in an atmosphere of speculative thought," wrote Maud Howe (now Mrs. John Elliott) of her father, and perhaps no words could more graphically depict the attraction between this hero of the hour and the lovely young woman. In 1 843 Miss Ward and Dr. Howe were married, and immediately sailed for Europe, remaining abroad two years. It was a charming social epoch in England at this time, as is so graphically re- vealed in the letters of Motley, who depicts London society in some of its most brilliant phases ; and Dr. and Mrs. Howe were cordially received by a host of famous people. Among these were Dickens, Monckton Milnes, afterward Lord Houghton, Carlyle, Sydney 270 BOSTON DAYS Smith, the Duchess of Sutherland, Thomas Moore, Samuel Rogers, and Lord Morpeth. Sydney Smith, alluding to Dr. Howe's work for Laura Bridgman, spoke of him as " the modern Pygmalion who had put life into a statue." A long and delightful tour followed through the Netherlands, Switzerland, the Tyrol, and Germany, and at last they approached the Eternal City. This touched the poetic heart of Mrs. Howe most deeply, and in a poem called " Rome," in her first volume, " Passion Flowers," these lines occur at the close : — " Oh, my Eome, As I have loved thee, rest God's love with thee ! " And again, in " The City of My Love " : — " She sits among the eternal hills Their crown thrice glorious and dear ; Her voice as a thousand tongues Of silver fountains, gurgling clear. "And, though it seem a childish prayer, I 've breathed it oft that when I die As thy remembrance dear in it, That heart in thee might buried lie." It was in Rome that Mrs. Howe first knew the rap- ture of the mother's bliss, for there was born her first child, Julia Romana, later Mrs. Anagnos, over whose silent rest in Mt. Auburn the roses of many summers have now bloomed and faded. Returning to Boston, Dr. and Mrs. Howe made their home in the Institution for the Blind, of which he was THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 271 the director. Happy and beautiful years, rich with the mental wealth of Boston's golden age, followed. Mrs. Howe's first distinct essay in literature was the volume of poems called " Passion Flowers/' published in 1853. One poem in this volume entitled " The Royal Guest" is at once so significant in thought and so little known to latter-day readers that it will be given here in its completeness. " They tell me, T am shrewd with other men, With thee I 'm slow and difficult of speech ; With others, I may guide the car of talk. Thou wing'st it oft to realms beyond my reach. " If other guests should come, I 'd deck my hair. And choose my newest garment from the shelf ; When thou art bidden, I would clothe my heart With holiest purpose, as for God himself. " For them, I wile the hours with tale or song, Or web of fancy, fringed with careless rhyme ; But how to find a fitting lay for thee, Who hast the harmonies of every time ? " Oh friend beloved ! I sit apart and dumb, Sometimes in sorrow, oft in joy divine ; My lip will falter, but my prison'd heart Springs forth, to measure its faint pulse with thine. " Thou art to me most like a royal guest, Whose travels bring him to some lowly roof. Where simple rustics spread their festal fare, And blushing, own it is not good enough. *' Bethink thee, then, whene'er thou com'st to mo From high emprise and noble toil to rest, M}'- thoughts are weak and trivial, matched with thine, But the poor mansion offers thee its best." 272 BOSTON DAYS From the world of scholarship and the world of spir- itual insight has Mrs. Howe always drawn her strength and her inspiration. During her entire life she has kept the habits of the student, nor is the ecstasy of the mys- tic unknown to her. In her poem entitled *' Visions " this stanza occurs : — " Then Life rises to entomb me, Waking, I am all alone ; Half I feel Christ passes from me, . Half I feel He is not gone." These lines flash a searchlight on her intellectual pro- cesses. She has been a deep student of Swedenborg, Kant, Spinoza, Fichte, and Hegel. She has made her own the entire realm of literature. As an author, she truly deserves the name of poet ; as a prose writer, she is supreme on the philosophic side of life ; as a leader in social progress, she has given to contemporary life new ideals and noble standards. Of the near and tender relations of the fireside and the more intimate circle of familiar friends, one of her daughters has well written : — ' ' To those who have lived nearest to the deep heart, its warmth has overcome the griefs and disappointments of the world. To those who from a distance can only judge of the woman by her work, the glow of her genius is a beneficent and helpful light. As poet, philosopher, reformer, she is known to the world; to her own she is dearest as woman, friend, and mother." In writing to Charlotte Cushman Mrs. Howe once said, "The grandeur of the human life is such that ^ ^^ vf NK ^'^ THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 273 advantageous circumstances do not really heighten it, though to our short- si^'ited gaze they seem to do so," and these words ma;^ stand written of her own life. The scenery of her achievements in this world has always been that of refined elegance and beauty, yet these can neither add to nor detract from the signifi- cance of the personal impress she leaves on two cen- turies. Her vocation is distinctively that of poet and prophet. In all the range of poetic literature it is difficult to find any single poet who appeals so directly to the spiritual energy alone and supreme as Mrs. Howe. Like the handwriting on the wall, we find such thought as in these lines: — " Power, reft of aspiration ; Passion, lacking inspiration ; Leisure, void of contemplation. " Thus shall danger overcome thee, Fretted luxury consume thee, All divineness vanish from thee." Any study of Mrs. Howe's life seems to reveal that she has certainly fulfilled — whether or not she has clearly recognized the special gift and grace laid upon her — a very distinctive vocation and one in which among all other great women she yet stands alone, that of speaking the highest counsel to the soul in the most concentrated and intensely vital expression. Like Dr. Holmes, Mrs. Howe has been the "poet of occasions" at a vast number of these festivities which have always numerously enlivened the Boston days. The group of 18 274 BOSTON DAYS immortals that made the golden age of Boston were never found wanting in mutual appreciation. The verses of occasion always and of necessity borrow some- thing from the immediate atmosphere and when divested of this lose somewhat of their aroma, yet they may invite the test of time. She has also, like all persons who live in more or less daily companionship with the muses, written much verse of the mere facile felicity of the moment, which has little claim to literary immor- tality. All this, of course, in any poet's life is taken for granted. There is a portion of Tennyson which, had it not the association of his name and his finer expres- sions, would be held as of little claim to consideration. But we do not judge people, even poets, by their defects and negations. The high-water mark, if touched only once in a lifetime, is the only abiding standard from which to predicate a judgment. All below that is merely of the temporary and objective world, and holds no permanent significancCo It was early in her life that Mrs. Howe became convinced of the importance of the political enfran- chisement of women. For years before, Mrs. Lucy Stone — gentle, dignified, logical, and at once winning and commanding in her silvery-voiced eloquence — had led this hope, which once seemed so forlorn, and has now acquired a political and national importance. To Mrs. Stone, Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Livermore, and Colonel Higginson the early phases of this reform owed much of its basis of social dignity. To them, as persons of noble intellect, of scholarly culture, of social elevation, THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 275 and loveliness of character, it must owe its first social prestige and its claim to higher recognition. One of the most important features in the life of Mrs. Howe has been that of her public addresses. Nothing could have seemed more remote from the probable future of the brilliant girl of society than that she should preside over conventions assembled in the name of social reforms. Yet as her spirit expanded in deepening lines of thought ; as she came into that inheritance of what Professor Harris well terms "the larger self," that infinite life which the finite life even here may begin to live, as her sympathies broadened and she came more and more into her kingdom of the intellectual world, she entered upon a new phase of the work for which she was heaven- commissioned. As Mary A. Livermore stands distinctively for spirit- uality of life ; as Lucy Stone stood distinctively for the political enfranchisement of women ; as Frances Willard stood for temperance, so Mrs. Howe stands distinctively for culture. No other woman of corresponding culture in our own country has so intimately related herself to public life. In poetic phrase she gives utterance to such keen insights as this : *' If the vain and the silly bind thee, I cannot unlock thy chain ; If sin and the senses blind thee, Thyself must endure the pain ; If the arrows of conscience find thee, Thou must conquer thy peace again." 276 BOSTON DAYS Mrs. Howe's poems are valuable as a moral breviary, a spiritual tonic. They call one to a renewal of energy, to the realization of the significant question " What is the office of modern society ? " She questions and she defines its office as the learning how to well use its resources. "No gift can make rich those who are poor in wisdom," she says; and again, "It is not good for beauty that it be a profession." And of wealth she asserts : " To me the worship of wealth means the crowning of low merit with undeserved honor ; the setting of successful villany above unsuccessful virtue. It means neglect and isolation for the few who follow a heart's high hope through want and pain, through evil report and through good report." Of the spiritual wealth of her life she herself simply says : " I have only drawn from history and philosophy some understanding of human life, some lessons in the value of thought for thought's sake, and, above all, a sense of the dignity of character above every other dignity." Of the famous Radical Club Mrs. Howe was always a leading spirit. In the history of society it is hardly probable that at any one club there were ever assembled so wonderful a galaxy of genius and high talent as at this gathering, organized by the Rev. John Sargent and Mrs. Sargent, at whose home the meetings took place. Among these were Emerson, Sumner, Dr. and Mrs. Howe, John Weiss, Theodore Parker, Dr. Hedge, Colonel Higginson, James Freeman Clarke, the Rev. Phillips Brooks, John Fiske, David Wasson, Mrs. THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 277 Cheney, the Rev. W. H. Channing, Mr. and Mrs. Edwin P. Whipple, Mrs. Moulton, Mr. Frothingham, Henry James, Miss Peabody, Professor Peirce, Professor Calvin E. Stowe, Lydia Maria Child, John G. Whittier, and many other notable people were, at one time or another, present at these remarkable gatherings. The great and gifted of this century have been the friends of Mrs. Howe. Such men as Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, Whipple, Sumner, Agassiz, Motley, Peirce, Victor Hugo, and Lieber have delighted in her society. The Radical Club was one of the intellectual land- marks of Boston between 1867-80, and a centre that radiated new energy by its discussion of problems of thought. The club met on Monday mornings at the home of the Rev. and Mrs. John Sargent, and the subjects dis- cussed were the purely ethical and transcendental. The discussions were not impractical, for nothing is so practical as ideas ; but they were not, one may say, ideas at that time practically applied. The world has now progressed to this higher realization that the bent and aim of ideas is not intellectual brilliancy or achieve- ment, per se, but the betterment of humanity. Instead of discussing the gods on Olympus, we discuss the problems that invade modern social and economic life. This is not the forsaking of intellectual and artistic ideals ; it is their fulfilment and application. " What a group these were ! " wrote a guest of the club: "Henry W. Longfellow, with his white head 278 BOSTON DAYS and patriarchal beard ; Oliver Wendell Holmes, looking, as he always does, and as, I fancy, he will to the last of his days, a boy in the midst of his white-headed contemporaries ; George William Curtis, with his refined face, whereon the work and wear of his faithful, busy life are beginning to tell visibly in the lines here and there; Frothingham of New York, with his tranquil equipoise of manner, his cultivated face, and quiet humor ; and Lydia Maria Child, with scores of others, — clergymen, literary men, and journalists." Theodore Parker read at one meeting a paper on " The Immanence of God," of which one of the members said : — " Then comes a voice from heaven. A man, one fifth flesh and four fifths flame, kindles under his inspiration into a miraculous light, and says words that can never be forgotten. I dare not try to repeat them. Who heard John Weiss can nevermore be quite as petty as his old poor self." Mrs. Howe has well characterized the work of the Radical Club as a "high congress of souls in which many noble thoughts were uttered." Boston without Edward Everett Hale would be more bereft than the play of "Hamlet" without the melan- choly Dane. According to Colonel Higginson's definition that to be truly cosmopolitan a man must be at home even in his own country, Edward Everett Hale is a cosmopoli- tan, and it is a suggestive fact that the author of ^* A Man Without a Country " is one who may almost be THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 279 said to have all countries and all generations for his own, for the chief characteristic of this noted divine is his wide relatedness to life. His personal influence has been, without a doubt, the one most potent of any single or individual influence in his native city. As a clergyman, author, journalist, lecturer, reformer, and a man of society, he meets and mingles with many circles of life more or less foreign to each other. By just what occult law of dispensation everybody who wants anything feels inspired to seek Dr. Hale is not quite clear to the average mind ; but it is unmistakably clear that if he had not a liberal inheritance of what the Yankees call '^faculty" he would have been a man without any (earthly) country long ago, whatever he might have possessed in a better world than this. Many of the young women of his parish take great de- light in assisting him in this drift of work that assails the pleasant household. The home of the Hales is in the charming suburb of Roxbury (Boston Highlands), — a commodious, cream- colored house, embowered in trees, and with a porch vine-wreathed with the woodbine. The rooms are all more or less filled with books and papers, and the hospitable rooms have an air as if they were a place where people enjoyed themselves. In the summer, if they do not go to Europe, the family betake themselves to the "red house," on the Connecticut shore, where they can live half the time out of doors. His door-bell rings from morning till night. He is sought for by everybody and for everything. He is not merely the 280 BOSTON DAYS pastor of his own parish, he is apparently the pastor of every parish, and of people who have no parish at all. He is hailed as the special patron saint of every conceivable municipal enterprise, — political, economic, literary, artistic, philanthropic, or educational. Social life rises in high tide at his door, and, withal, he lives the life of the kingdom of heaven in that he is here not to be ministered unto, but to minister. The life of Dr. Hale has stood for the greater part of this century as one of the witnesses for the power of good over evil ; for intellectual enlargement and spiritual illumination over ignorance and blindness. Edward Everett Hale is probably the most vital element of Boston : the citizen who unites the largest sympathies with the largest degree of executive power. His energy is stupendous. His power of extracting the utmost worth of a day is little less than marvellous. Not less marvellous is the power of galvanizing other people into a working mood and enabling them to get the best and the utmost out of the hour. He is a great organizer and a great inspirer of organizations. Dr. Hale can trace his descent back through almost three hundred years of notable ancestry, — the first American of this family having been Rev. John Hale, born in Charlestown, Mass., in 1636, and who died on May 9, 1700. He was a graduate of Harvard, as nearly all his descendants have been. Nathan Hale, the eminent soldier, whose statue is in Central Park, New York, was a great-uncle of Edward Everett Hale, whose father bore the same name, — Nathan. He married THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 281 Sarah Preston Everett, a sister of Edward Everett, and their children were : Nathan, born in 1818 ; Lucretia Peabody, born in 1820 ; Edward Everett (the present great divine), born April 3, 1822 ; Charles, born in 1831, and Susan, in 1838. Dr. Hale married a niece of Henry Ward Beecher and of Mrs. Stowe, and his own family consists of three or four sons and one daughter, Ellen Day Hale, who has made no little reputation as an artist. Of the sons, Philip Hale is an artist and art teacher ; Robert Beverly, who showed great promise as a writer, died at the early age of twenty-four, in October of 1895. Dr. Hale's father, Nathan Hale the second, was born in Westhampton, Mass., in 1784, and died in Boston in February of 1865. He was a graduate of Williams College, and afterward studied law and was admitted to the Boston bar in 1810. In 1814 he purchased the " Boston Advertiser," the oldest daily newspaper of this city, and was for many years its owner and editor. In this office his son, Edward Everett, learned to set type, and he has often related how he had served in every capacity on the paper from that of reporter up to the editor-in-chief. Dr. Hale had the advantage, indeed, of growing up in touch with affairs and events of im- portance. His father was the president of the Boston and Worcester Railroad Company, the first transpor- tation in New England to make use of steam. His father was also a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and served in the Legislature of his State. 282 BOSTON DAYS Edward Everett Hale graduated from Harvard in 1839 ; he studied divinity and was ordained as a minis- ter in 1842, and in 1844 was called to the Second Unitarian Church in Worcester, where he remained until 1856, when he accepted the call to the "South Congregational " Church in Boston, of which for over forty years he has remained the pastor. The best-known literary work of Dr. Hale is in the short stories entitled " The Man Without a Country " and '^My Double, and How He Undid Me." The former has taken its rightful place among American classics, and the latter ranks as inimitable comedy. " Ten Times One Is Ten " is a story that has caused the founding of clubs and which has entered intimately into more lives as a stimulating, helpful influence than perhaps any other tale ever written. Dr. Hale accomplishes his enormous amount of work by himself adhering to a plan which involves method and concentration. He often speaks of the " two hours a day," or " the three hours a day " people ; that is, those who will hold the one or the other stated time wholly and entirely to their work. He regards this as the utmost that is desirable, even, not to say possible, for he considers that social and neighborly and helpful duties are just as important to the symmetry of perfect living as is any special work. In which he is right. It is the quality of life which is of supreme importance, rather than any one special achievement. If one seeks in Dr. Hale's system of ethics for the secret of his marvellous activity and comprehensiveness, THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 283 he will find it to lie, perhaps, in Dr. Hale's mental attitude toward society. Of his religious life his simple words are : — " I always knew God loved me, and I was always grate- ful to Him for the world He placed me in. I always liked to tell Him so, and to receive His suggestions to It is hardly possible to understand how, in the tumultuously busy life of the Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale, he could ever have produced so large an amount of literary work. His life is manifold, each day. He has never had that sense of seclusion and leisure which has been held to be the author's best capital, and yet has done literary work enough for a man of letters alone. When Prof. Benjamin Peirce asserted that man is a machine for the conversion of material into spiritual power, he seemed to define Dr. Hale. He is a very spiritual dynamo. Dr. Hale has never been a transcendentalist, although he was sympathetic with its aspirations and its struggle for illumination. His sense of the humorous was always keen, and he has, too, a deep interest in the natural unfolding of life that demands no hothouse forcing. ^' You are not," he will say, " God's child on Sunday and the world's on Monday ; you are God's child all the time." The mysticism in the transcendental move- ment did not attract him. The problem he saw was this : ** How to gain the life, strength of will, character, and purposes, by which alone can the man make his 284- BOSTON DAYS bodily strength and his mental discipline to be of any real value." His conception of living is that each day shall be consecrated to body, mind, and soul, and that the man — the real man — must control with absolute sway the mind and the body. '^ Sleep/' he says, " is the first of the physical duties ; good sleep, and enough of it." He advises young people to take a certain time each day, two hours or three hours, for personal culture — mental and spiritual — but he regards two as better than three hours. " You are in a world knit in with other people/' he says. " Accept that position once for all, and do not struggle against it." Instead of counsels to avoid social life, Dr. Hale holds social duties as among the first and the most important. Dr. Hale's eightieth birthday (April 3, 1902) was celebrated in Boston with a large gathering in Symphony Hall, when ^^ troops of friends " indeed brought their tribute in music, eloquence, and friendly greeting. The occasion was a memorable one, and could not but recall a passage from Bulwer as applicable to Dr. Hale, — a passage that runs as follows : — ' ' But the final greatness of a fortunate man is rarely made by any violent effort of his own. He has sown the seed in the time foregone, and the ripe time brings up the harvest. His fate seems taken out of his own control ; greatness seems thrust upon him. He has made himself, as it were, a want to the nation, a thing necessary to it ; he has identified himself with his age, and in the wreath or the crown on his brow the age itself seems to put forth its flowers." THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 285 Dr. Hale has sown the seed of every noble and generous quality durmg his long and beautiful life, and its flowering is the natural result, — the inevitable har- vest of such sowing. In the divine sense he has per- petually lost his life ; he has forgotten all save the Master's service, and like Him who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, he has given his powers in the perfect surrender of service to humanity. Not the least of this service is in his sane and healthy mental attitude toward life. He invests it with the atmosphere of simplicity, courage, cheerfulness, and faith, — the essential elements of happy, harmonious living. As scholar, critic, translator, and editor. Prof. Charles Eliot Norton stands pre-eminent. His home on Shady Hill, Cambridge, near the college grounds, is one of peculiar charm in the treasures of art and litera- ture — especially of early Italian art, as represented in pictures from Tintoretto and Titian — by which he is surrounded. The most accomplished translator and interpreter of Dante, the friend of Ruskin, the editor of Lowell's letters, giving to the world such a portrait of his friend as will stand forever eminent in the literature of biography, — in this home does the great scholar and critic find an ideal environment. Professor Norton — whose retirement from Harvard in 1898 was an event deplored by the great University in which he had so long held the Chair of Fine Arts — is a marked figure in New England life. By tempera- ment, taste, and culture he is the exponent, facile prin- 286 BOSTON DAYS ceps, of belles-lettres in America. He is a scholar, a critic, and, though not a poet, he is an appreciator of poets, and their interpreter. Perhaps that office is even more rare. Between Lowell and Professor Norton there existed the most ideal friendship. Mr. Lowell was nine years the senior, and that Professor Norton looked up to him even more than these few years of seniority would necessarily invite is revealed in the dedication of his new (1891) translation of the "Divina Commedia" to Mr. Lowell in these words : — '' It is a happiness for me to connect this volume with the memory of my friend and master from youth. I was but a beginner in the study of the Divine Comedy when I first had his incomparable aid in the understanding of it." The friendship between them was very close and sympathetic, and it is not unfrequently related of Mr. Lowell that when asked if he would not like to meet So and So, he would reply in a kind of sensitive irrita- tion, " No ; I don't want to see anybody but Charles Norton." Prof. Charles Eliot Norton is the son of Andrews Norton, a w^ell-known Unitarian theologian of New England. Andrews Norton was born in Hingham, Mass., in 1786, and died in Newport, R. I., in 1852. He graduated at Harvard in 1804, and later became a tutor at Bowdoin College. He was afterward the libra- rian for some time at Harvard ; a lecturer on Biblical criticism, and in 1819 was appointed to the Dexter chair of sacred literature in the new Divinity School of THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 287 Cambridge, which he held until 1830, when he went into what in the parlance of the day was called " literary retirement." Dr. Andrews Norton was then but forty- six years of age, but he considered himself approaching old age. He still led the Unitarian protest, however, against Calvin, although he opposed the liberal radical- ism of Theodore Parker with equal energy. In his last years he edited the Miscellaneous Writings of Charles Eliot, after whom his son, the famous Harvard professor of this day, was named. Charles Eliot Norton was born in November of 1827, and graduated at Harvard in the class of '46. He entered a Boston counting- room, and three years later went to India as supercargo of a ship, and made a leisurely tour and studies through the country. During this time Mr. Longfellow wrote to him, under date of February, 1850, saying : — " I have been thinking how very odd and outlandish anything written on the banks of Charles River must sound when read on the banks of the Ganges, and how small we must all appear to you who are personally acquainted with the boundless Krishna, the Valiant. . . . And now, dear Charles, Namarasham Namarasham ! and whatever may be the Hindoo for I love you ! Bring home the two great epics, — the Razanama and the Mahabharata. Also from Persia Zoroaster's Zend Avesta." Mr. Norton spent some three years abroad at this time and he has always renewed and revived his Euro- pean impressions and associations by frequent revisit- ings. From 1864 to 1868 he was co-editor with Lowell of the '^ North American Review." 288 BOSTON DAYS As will be well remembered it is Professor Norton who edited the Carlyle and Emerson correspondence, and also the early letters of Carlyle. This service he again pei'formed for Lowell, editing his letters — the great mass of which were in his hands — with the most deli- cate fidelity to the sanctities of private life as distin- guished from its literary values. In 1891 appeared Professor Norton's translation — in prose — of Dante, in three volumes, devoted, respectively, to the ^' Hell," " Purgatory," and " Heaven." These were followed by " The New Life " (Vita Nuova). * As a lecturer on Dante Professor Norton is in- comparable. There is perhaps hardly another man in our country who stands so distinctively and inclusively for culture — in its rarest and highest form — as does Pro- fessor Norton. Colonel Higginson declared him to be the most cultured man in America. This is not to say that his scholarship alone is not at least equalled by many other men ; but it is that other great scholars are as a rule applying their accomplishments and resources in other directions than abstract culture alone : as James Russell Lowell, who was an author and diplomat as well as a man of wide culture ; President Eliot, who is at the head of a great university ; and so one might run on ; but Professor Norton has devoted his life exclusively to the extension of the choicest quality of literary and artistic culture. In his chair of Fine Arts at Harvard Professor Norton has impressed upon successive classes of stu- dents an understanding and a reverence for the fine arts THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 289 and for poetry and the higher literature. To attend his lectures was in itself considered by Harvard students as a liberal education. No professor in the university was more beloved and honored. His distinction of manner, his charm and graciousness, and his sincere and un- affected interest in the individual welfare and progress of the students won their entire confidence and com- manded their admiration. It is reassuring, in his lectures, to hear the Professor place poetry as the most important expression of life. The chief end of literature, he believes, is to acquire the love and the understanding of poetry. His reason for this statement, which may seem, at first, a little extreme, but will commend itself on reflection, — is this : That it is poetry that cultivates and develops the imagination, and that it is imagination which makes life worth the living. The hope and promise of mankind, he said, lie within its inspiration. Sweep- ing away the mass of minor poets, he notes the few great ones who are worthy extended study. Re- ferring to the charge that poetry is neglected and that the desires of the day are too much set on material things. Professor Norton has pointed out how that the exclusive pursuit of the material can result only in the narrowing of mental interests and resources, and thus character loses in breadth and dignity. The poet is determined from the fact that with him the imagination works more powerfully than with other men. He, alone, sees human nature clearly and inter- prets it to itself. 19 290 BOSTON DAYS A little note from Professor Norton to Mr. Whipple thus runs : — Cambkidge, April 27, 1880. Dear Mr. Whipple, — You will be pleased to know- that Wendell Holmes and Judge Lowell were chosen into the Club on Saturday. I am much obliged to you for remembering Mr. Eaton's fine sayings concerning what he learned from me ; but they give me a conviction that he must be morbidly im- pressed with the sense of having wasted his time in Ger- many ; or else be a disciple of Senator Matthews with a rooted scorn of " abroad." You will be glad to learn that the latest news from Mrs. Lowell is encouraging. She seems now in a fair way for recovery. I am very truly yours, Charles Eliot Norton. Professor Norton's comparative estimate of Homer, Shakspeare, and Dante is one of deep interest. He finds Homer depicting the human race in its early stages when its experiences were simple and few, while Shakspeare portrays complex natures, yet both Homer and Shakspeare, he noted, held the mirror up to nature without the interference of their own personalities. But Dante towered above both, — Dante, who was not ^ only a poet but a spiritual teacher. Professor Norton considers Dante as the one greatest poet of humanity in its moral aspects. Dr. Parsons, also an eminent Dantean scholar and translator, and one of the choice circle to be met at the Sunday evenings of Mrs. Whipple, was a man of rare THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 291 and exquisite gifts and called by Hawthorne " the most imhuman man of letters in America." Whether he was quite human or not, it was a circle fit though few, who knew and most prized Dr. Parsons. The power of impressing one's own personality upon the world is a unique and specific gift of itself, or, rather, it is the result of a certain definite combination of qualities. It is not invariably talent, or even genius, which is not unallied to these high qualities. It is perhaps largely the result of sympathy and of subtle, intuitive recogni- tion of the needs and desires of others, with some aid from the dramatic gift. On a lower plane this power of impressing one's personality upon the world becomes the commercial faculty. At all events, it was this quality which Dr. Parsons lacked. He had the isolation of his temperament. He could not come into touch with general life. He was not facile. A poet of rarest gifts; a student whose rewards were rich and noble in the direction he pur- sued; a man of fine and exquisite tastes, of delicate sensibilities, — was Dr. Parsons. As a literary man he ranked among the few of our greatest authors. He found his peers only with Lowell, Longfellow, and Hawthorne. As a scholar he ranked with Professor Charles Eliot Norton. His translation of Dante is one with genuine claim to perpetuate it in literature. His poems, comparatively few in number, hold the sacred fire. On his altar burned the living coal. To one familiar with the exquisite quality of his poetic art, it seems incredible that he had so little of what men call 292 BOSTON DAYS fame. He wrote poetry for the poets. Yet to a ma- jority of the intelligent readers of the day his name is almost unknown. His "Lines on a Bust of Dante" and " Paradisa Gloria " are poems to hold forever their place in literature. "There have been now and again," wrote Richard Hovey, the author of that haunting elegy," Seaward," on Dr. Parsons, " there have been certain poets who seem to have been born out of due time. They have not been opposed to their age so much as apart from it. The Hamlets of verse, for them the time has been out of joint, and they have not had the intensity or the reso- lution to set it right. Thrown back upon themselves by an environment which was distasteful to them but which they lacked either the force or the inclination to overcome, they have necessarily had little to say. But on that very account they have frequently given more thought to the purely artistic side of their work than more copious writers. Such men were Collins and Gray, and afterwards Landor ; men whom we admire more for the classic beauty of their style and for other technical qualities than for the output of their imagina- tion or the penetration of their insight. Of this class of poets, with no mean rank among them, was Thomas William Parsons." It cannot be claimed for Dr. Parsons that he was a great man in that sense of character which is calculated to leave on the age a permanent impress. Essentially was he a man born out of time and tune. His nature was an exotic planted by some fate in what was to him THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 293 an unin^^ting environment. He was artistic, but not so divinely artistic as to be heroic. He had not the infinite tenderness for humanity that so signally charac- terized Longfellow, nor the broad and noble philoso- phy of Lowell. Neither had he the perfect trust and spiritual insight of Whittier; yet none of these have written a " Paradisa Gloria." This single poem stands alone and unrivalled in lyrical perfection in all American literature, as does Tennyson's '^ Break, Break, Break," in English poetry. What stately, splendid beauty lies in its opening stanza ! — " There is a city, builded by no hand And unapproachable by sea or shore, And unassailable by any band Of storming soldiery forevermore." The remaining stanzas are : — " There we no longer shall divide our time •By acts or pleasures, — doing petty things Of work or warfare, merchandise or rhyme, But we shall sit beside the silver springs " That flow from God's own footstool, and behold Sages and martyrs, and those blessed few Who loved us once and were beloved of old. To dwell with them and walk with them anew. " In alternations of sublime repose — Musical motion — the perpetual play Of every faculty that heaven bestows, Through the bright, busy, and eternal day." 294. BOSTON DAYS A poet must always be taken for what he is and not asked for that which he is not. It would be idle to find fault with Dr. Parsons because he had not that universal message to humanity which we ask of our immortals. His was a very rich and lovable nature when touched aright. He was out of harmony with all save the choicer and rarer natures, and he was not a philosopher or a reformer or a humanitarian, but an artist who loved his art, and who loved religion through art. He was a devout Anglican Catholic. The more aesthetic form of religion in the rich sym- bolism of extreme ritualistic worship appealed to him as no less decorative form would do. His religious emo- tion was a poet's ecstasy, rapt, intense, and not the spiritual perception that characterized Lowell and Whittier. Any trace of Puritanism was peculiarly distasteful to him. His was the tropical nature ; and he was, to all intents and purposes, an Italian born in New England. He was the born translator and inter- preter of Dante, without that innate lofty nobleness of spirit, incommensurately great, of the immortal Italian. The secret of the incongruity between lofty and notable work and personal obscurity lay in his tempera- ment. He was not in touch with general life. He was indifferent to fame, indifferent to any practical contact with the literary market. A social recluse, beloved by his intimate friends, appreciated by fastidious and critical tastes, — he asked no more of life. Dr. Parsons was much better known in Italy than in America. In Florence, on his visiting that city in THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 295 1867, he was honored with an ovation, crowned with laurel, and presented with the freedom of the city. The one fellow-author and friend who could best have interpreted Dr. Parsons to the world was Mr. Whipple, in whom insight became divination, and recognition clairvoyance. But that " wand of magic power " in the pen of Edwin P. Whipple was stilled before the death of Dr. Parsons and the interested student of his unique individuality and gifts must perhaps look to his work alone to grasp the qualities of the man. Thomas William Parsons was born in Boston, Aug. 18, 1819, in the same year with Lowell, Whipple, Curtis, Prof. Benjamin Peirce, Julia Ward Howe, and others who make that year indeed a memorable date. He graduated at Harvard and took his degree at the Medical School, but curiously became a dentist which was his trade, while literature was his profession and poetry his passion. At the age of seventeen he visited Italy, and doubtless his whole nature was colored and stimulated by that experience in the direction of his Italian studies. His translation of Dante's " Inferno " was published in 1867, with Dord's illustrations. In that year he again passed some time in Europe, and the translations from Dante he had published previous to this time insured him the warmest reception at Florence. He was honored with a public reception, crowned with laurel, and presented with the freedom of the city. A f^te was given in his honor and he was drawn in a chariot about the streets by the enthusiastic Florentines. While in Boston, so quiet and secluded has been his 296 BOSTON DAYS life that half the fairly intelligent, if not the cultivated population, have perhaps hardly heard his name. The readers of the " Atlantic Monthly " will remember his occasional contributions. His best-known poem is the " Lines on a Bust of Dante." It was written from a statuette brought to Mr. Whipple by Charles Sumner as a gift, and which stands now in the library of Mrs. Whipple's home. This poem has been quoted and referred to so much that, as Mrs. Whipple relates, Dr. Parsons was fairly impatient and irritable over it because all his other work was ignored in comparison. But it is one of the noblest poems in the English language. One stanza runs : — " FaitMul if tMs wan image be, No dream his life was ■ — but a Light, Could any Beatrice see A lover in that anchorite ! To that cold Ghibelline's gloomy sight Who could have guessed the visions came Of Beauty, veiled with heavenly light, In circles of eternal flame." Dr. Parsons died in 1892 at his home by the sea in Scituate. His death was a tragic one but whether the result of accident or intention has never been absolutely known. A curious atmosphere of gloom invested the family. His sister, Mrs. Lunt, was a woman of unusual gifts and charm, but a mental malady came upon her and for all one summer she was carefully watched and guarded, in her seaside house at Scituate, by nurses and friends. Her only daughter, Francesca, Countess THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 297 d'xiulby, and the Count, her French son-in-law, were with her. Early one morning, before the dawn, the Count and Countess were both awakened, conscious of some influence or presence so depressing that they could not sleep nor remain in the room. Almost with one accord they sought the parlor, and kept — they knew not why — their vigil. Soon after daylight it was discovered that Mrs. Lunt had eluded the vigilance of the night nurse, and was not in the house. Search far and wide was made. A milkman, going on his early rounds, related that he had seen her crossing the meadow, and that she had stopped, gazing into a pool of water. At last after anxious and agonizing hours, her body was found in the well close to the house. She had been dead for hours. With the cunning of insanity she had climbed down a deep well by the stones and found barely water enough to drown herself. The shock of the death of her brother. Dr. Parsons, had been one too severe for her delicate organization and doubtless precipitated this tragedy. Mrs. Maria S. Porter, in a beautiful tribute to Mrs. Lunt, thus speaks of the family : — " Mrs. Lunt was distinctively a lady of the old school, a representative Bostonian, not of the Boston of to-day, but of the past. She was in close sympathy and touch with the stars in our literary firmament, that remarkable coterie of men and women who have made the fame of Boston. Longfellow, Holmes, Emerson, Lowell, Whip- ple, Peirce, were the intimate associates of her beloved brother, the late Thomas William Parsons, a poet known to scholars and to all lovers of poetry throughout the 298 BOSTON DAYS English-speaking world. Mrs. Lunt had great versatility and a felicitous expression of her thought, both in prose and verse. "Many of Mrs. jLunt's sonnets are very fine, and obtained recognition at once from some of the best of our poets. A few of them may be found in the well- known collections of poetry, notably in that made by Oscar Fay Adams, called ' Through the Year with the Poets ; ' also in the book of American sonnets selected by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Some years ago I sent Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes a poem of Mrs. Lunt's entitled ' The Days that Come Back,' of which he said : " ' So many beautiful lyrics have come from her brilliant pen, of which one entitled To One who Knoweth is sufficient to show her metric skill and knowledge of verse, and the philosophic feeling displayed in the beautiful thought it contains is of masculine strength. Certainly Mrs. Lunt is one, if not the foremost, of the women poets of America. . . . Her desire, as in the case of her brother (the late Thomas William Parsons) , for privacy, her dislike of anything like notoriety, has done much to narrow the circle of her influence as a verse-writer. Now that she has passed beyond the ken of this world, it is to be hoped that those who have her work intact may, before long, give a volume of such precious lines as hers to the world. You have been one of the few who were constantly in touch with her inner life, and therefore so well able to say so much more than I can of the intel- lectual work of our lamented friend.' " All this is touched upon here as illustrative of some fateful temperament that neither the poet nor his sister understood hovr to overcome. There have al- THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 299 ways been such instances of disaster and wreck and ruin in the annals of literature and art. Byron, Poe, and others that could be named furnish examples. In this more spiritual age into which we are now living, with the larger knowledge of the ways and means of controlling forces and remedying defects in character, these instances will grow less. The knowledge of the law of vibration, of the potent and all-determining power involved in a true knowledge of concentration, will exalt all the conditions of life and re-create charac- ter. But this is a matter of modern science. The supreme work of Dr. Parsons, as has already been noted, was in his translations from Dante. This work extended over a period of fifty-five years. In his early youth he visited Italy ; he walked enchanted with Dante in Florence and Ravenna, and as a youth of twenty-three he was rendering in English portions of the ^' Divina Commedia." " To render Dante properly," he^ said, " requires somewhat of Dante's moods, time and toil; fasting and solitude are not amiss." Dr. Parsons had the same temperamental sym- pathy for Dante that Edward Fitzgerald evinced for Omar Khdyy4m, yet was he not alone in his love for the Italian poet. There existed in Cambridge a Dante society of twelve members, of which Mr. Long- fellow, and later Mr. Lowell, was the president. Dr. Parsons and Charles Eliot Norton were among its illustrious members. The Dante translations of Dr. Parsons are fragment- ary, but include the " Hell " complete, the " Purgatorxo " 300 BOSTON DAYS in part, and beginnings of "The Paradise." How beautiful are these lines from the first canto ! — " The glory of him who moveth all he made Shines through the universe with piercing splendor, In one part more and elsewhere less displayed. Up in that heaven that most receives his light I was, and saw things that no mortal being Coming down thence could tell or knows to write, Because an intellect approaching so Toward its desire, to such a height is carried That back the memory hath not power to go. Truly, whatever treasure I could gain For my remembrance of that holy kingdom Shall make material now for this my strain." Among the lyrics of Dr. Parsons are several inscribed to his favorite niece, Francesca Lunt, now the Countess d'Aulby, who is a musical artist of the choicest quality. One of these closes with this stanza : — "So feel I when Francesca sings, Francesca sings ; My thoughts mount upward ; I am dead To every sense of vulgar things, And on celestial highways tread, With prophets of the olden time — Those minstrel beings, the men sublime — The men sublime." Many of his poems, like that of the Paradiso stanzas, are inspired by lines from Dante. The only true estimate of Dr. Parsons — of his higher self, the immortal self — is gained in studying his work. Outwardly his life had the uneventfulness of the scholar and the recluse. He was a man of the most brilliant gifts, of exceptionally lovely and tender qualities within THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 301 his own quiet and select circle, and he was deeply beloved as the friend and companion in high thought and poetic art by such men as Longfellow, Lowell, Whipple, and Charles Eliot Norton. " His feet are in thy courts, Lord ; his ways Are in the city of the living God. Beside the eternal sources of the days He dwells, his thoughts with tireless lightning shod ; His hours are exaltations and desires. The soul itself its only period , And life unmeasured save as it aspires. One sunset hour in the library of Dr. Holmes was in- separably associated with the memory of Dr. Parsons. The Autocrat had just returned from a call on his friend and brother poet who was ill, and to whom he had carried flowers, the narcissus, " the poet's flower," as he said, and the little talk drifted to poets and poetry. He spoke particularly of Dr. Parsons as a poet in whose handling language became exquisite art. Words, *Hhe medium vulgarized by everybody's hand- ling," made the author's art a more difficult one, he said, than that of the artist on canvas, or clay, or in music. It is as if one who would carve in wood were obliged to go out and gather rails and fence boards for his material. The question was asked why Dr. Parsons had not fame commensurate with his rare genius, and the Auto- crat replied that he had the most appreciative recog- nition of his genius among scholars and the choice few, but that he had written too little to have become 302 BOSTON DAYS widely known in the popular sense. Dr. Holmes also instanced that a great part of his literary work is in translations, and this, while perhaps it should, yet does not always gain for the writer the fame that it should command. In the intense devotion of Dr. Parsons to Dante ; in the absorbing study he has given to him ; the sympathetic interpretation he has produced of the great- est of Italian poets, — one of the three world poets, as Prof. Wm. T. Harris well classifies Dante, — to these Dr. Holmes attributed the choice felicity of style, the exquisite literary art that characterized Dr. Parsons, — an art on which the Autocrat seemed to love to linger. The name of Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton is always one to conjure with; and her cosmopolitan life united with her sympathetic and winning personality, has al- ways given her a very wide range of friends in Europe as well as in our own country, and few are the weeks in which some visiting celebrity of interest is not met at her receptions. Here will be found the most inclusive and varied assembly in Boston. There will be authors and artists, the great ecclesiastic and the struggling worker in various lines ; the noted Harvard professor, the great lecturer, the reigning beauty of the hour, the distinguished actor or opera singer, the most fashionable of portrait painters, the noblest architect, the profound philosophical writer, or the unknown undergraduate. One will meet at Mrs. Moulton's charming weekly recep- tions the notable people in every art or calling, and also those whose claim to consideration may not be less genu- ine because not generally recognized. Very interesting THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 303 in their souvenirs are Mrs. Moulton's drawing-rooms ; Vedder and Greenough, and Robert Barrett Browning are represented among artists, — all with autograph in- scriptions ; there is a choice copy of Poe's " Raven " translated into French by Stephen Mallarm^, one of the intimate friends of Mrs. Moulton's Parisian life, and it is illustrated by Manet, — the copy being the combined gift of painter and poet ; there are oil paintings from celebrated artists ; a water-color from Rollin Tilton ; a vigorous black-and-white sketch of a famous group of trees at Bordighera by Charles Caryl Coleman, presented by him; a number of excellent sketches by Winthrop Pierce, of Boston, one of the most poetic of landscapists, illustrating poems of Mrs. Moulton's, among which are " Come Back, Dear Days ; " and one of these sketches showing a brilliant sunrise, illustrates the line : '^ The morning skies were all aflame," from one of her poems. Another still of these lovely sketches of Mr. Pierce's has a group of shadow faces, with the line, " I see your gentle ghosts arise." Many are the rare books in autograph copies given to Mrs. Moulton by her friends abroad, — copies presented by Lord Houghton, George Eliot, Tennyson, Jean Inge- low, Christina Rossetti, Oswald Crawford, George Mere- dith, Robert Louis Stevenson, O'Shaughnessy, and many others. Robert Browning wrote to her when her col- lection of poems under the title of " Swallow Flights," appeared : — " I close the book only when needs I must — at page the last, with music in my ears and flowers before my 304 BOSTON DAYS eyes, not without thoughts across the brain. Pray con- tinue your ' Flights,' and be assured of the sympathetic observance of Yours, '^ Robert Browning." Mrs. Moulton's home on Rutland Square is a very literary and social Mecca on her " Fridays." Pleasant social interchange speeds the hours, and the sympathetic charm of the hostess holds its spell for each and all. Louise Chandler Moulton, born in Pomfret, Conn., came to Boston as a bride in her earliest youth. At the age of fifteen she had begun to see in print what, almost from childhood, she had written. At eighteen a volume of stories from her pen, entitled " This, That, and the Other," was published by a Boston house. Any determinate choice of literary life had not presented itself to her. She wrote as the flowers bud and bloom, as the bird sings, because it was the law of her life to write. Each individual life, like the growth of the plant-world, has within itself its own law of development to which it must conform, and to the bril- liant and imaginative young girl her songs and stories were a blossoming expression rather than a conscious achievement. In her school life in Mrs. Willard's semi- nary at Troy she appears, as Mrs. Harriet Spofford has said, " to have combined studying and writing and love- making to a rather remarkable degree, as in six weeks after leaving school she became the wife of Mr. William Moulton, the editor and publisher of a weekly journal in Boston." Years of exhilarating life and literary achievement followed. The winning hostess, the ac- THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 305 knowledged author of two successful novels, her name recognized and praised, she was fairly launched into that inspirational atmosphere to which she was so respon- sive. She contributed to "Harper's," the "Atlantic," " Galaxy," and " Scribner's," and not the least of her work has been that done for children, for whom she had a peculiar gift in writing. It was in 1876 that Mrs. Moulton first went abroad, taking with her letters of introduction to a brilliant English circle which has ever since welcomed her annual visits. Her initial introduction to the London literati was at a breakfast given in her honor by Lord Houghton, at which Robert Browning, Swinburne, George Eliot, Kingslake, Gustave Dor^, Jean Ingelow, Thomas Hardy, and other notabilities, were guests. Soon after, her first volume of poems, "Swallow Flights," was published in both London and Boston, and flashed into instant fame. This has been followed by two exquisite collections called " In the Garden of Dreams" and "At the Wind's Will" with several volumes of romance and travel. In all Mrs. Moul ton's work one finds that subtle, elusive sense of spiritual suggestion as if the poet were living between the two worlds of the seen and the unseen, and bringing, half unconsciously, strange, swift perceptions from the unknown. Yet with this spiritual outlook there is the human love and longing. Coulson Kernahan, the well-known English critic, says of Mrs. Moulton : " Hers is the sweetest woman voice which has come to us across the wide Atlantic." 20 306 BOSTON DAYS Mrs. Moulton holds, indeed, a very unique and charming- place in the twofold world of letters and of society. How a woman of letters can find so much leisure for society, or how a woman of society can achieve such pre-eminent distinction in literary art, is always an interesting study. Perhaps the secret lies in a very exceptional personality, one born to dominate and which yet conquers unconsciously, if it may be so ex- pressed, by its irresistible charm ; that need ask no aid from the strength, underlying it. For when the gods bestow their supreme gift — charm — the recipient need ask nothing more of fortune ; it is all good gifts in one. To a remarkable degree Mrs. Moulton has this gift. Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford is often to be found in the home of Mrs. Moulton, and while Boston has not been able to allure her to leave her romantic home in old Newburyport to dwell within view of the Golden Dome, she is still a frequent and charming figure in the Boston days. Among the first contributors to the ^' Atlantic " Mrs. Spoffbrd early won national recogni- tion as a poet and romancist, — a fame that widens with time. Louisa Alcott was one of the familiar spirits at the Whipples, where she was often to be found on their famous Sunday evenings. The demands of household life in Concord conflicted with that exclusive devotion required by the muse of creative literature, and she would fly to her "Gamp's Garret," as before noted in these pages, whose precise locality was concealed as far as possible in view of the endless invasions that THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 307 a more authoritative knowledge of its whereabouts would inevitably insure. Mrs. Stowe, who was a fre- quent guest of Mr. and Mrs. Fields, also came and went, and Colonel Higginson related this amusing incident of a dinner given by the Atlantic Club to Mrs. Stowe just before her first departure for Europe. It was the only dinner to which ladies were invited, and Mrs. Stowe accepted, relates Colonel Higginson, on condition that no wine should be offered. It seems, however, that only two ladies were present ; the guest of honor, Mrs. Stowe, and Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofibrd, then Miss Prescott. The ladies had been left alone together a short time, and on Colonel Higginson's inquiry of Miss Spofford as to what she and the author of " Uncle Tom " had talked of for the three-quarters of an hour, she replied : " Nothing, except that she asked me w^hat o'clock it was, and I told her I did n't know." Ernst Perabo, the great artist and musical composer, was another of the most prized friends of Mrs. Whipple's choice circle. " To hear Mr. Perabo play." This has been the half- mystic, half-reverent phrase now and then passed around among the choicest lovers of art in Boston, always uttered with the feeling: "Let us be silent, that we may hear the whisper of the gods." For Ernst Perabo is not only a great artist ; he is a great man. He has the heroic character, — a nature so generous, so noble, so exalted, and withal so tender and infinitely sympa- thetic. He has the literary appreciations and affiliations 308 BOSTON DAYS of a man of letters — a man to whom literature was his only specialty. He has the genius for friendship and those who have enjoyed the rare quality of the personal presence and companionship of Mr. Perabo feel that life is forever enriched thereby. Abroad Mr. Perabo is known as a great pianist and as the greatest living interpreter of Beethoven; but in Boston, his chosen home, he is not only recognized as the celebrated musical artist, but as friend, critic, counsellor, and inspirer. Nature was prodigal in her gifts to him, — his rare beauty and distinction of presence, his gentle dignity, his winning sweetness of manner, and exquisite courtesy, combined, too, with the overflow of immortal energies and the impressiveness of great qualities of mind and heart. To hear Mr. Perabo interpret Beethoven, Schubert, Bach, is a joy for a lifetime. His marvellous technique, his refinement of expression, the depth of significance whose inner meaning his rendering translates, — the singular exaltation of the entire atmosphere, — it is all beyond the power of words to describe. Mr. Perabo is the artist who keeps alive the coal upon the altar, — the divine flame of ideal purpose. "In music," he says, " Bach is my ideal — the most adorable spirit, and one who was worthy to set the finest passages of the Bible to music. Beethoven is very great and beau- tiful, soul-stirring, and satisfactory, but less distant, more afifectionate ; and of all the most winning and lovable, yet strong and honest, with infinite resources of richness, purity, and heavenly joy is Franz Schubert." THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 309 Ideally, a great artist should also be a great man, a noble character. This ideal is signally fulfilled in Ernst Perabo. It was somewhere in 1860 that Lowell wrote to Hawthorne a letter introducing Mr. Howells, and here is the picture he drew, forty years ago, of the well- known novelist : — " He wants to look at you," wrote Lowell, " which will do you no harm, and do him a great deal of good. His name is Howells, and he is fine young fellow, and has written several poems in the ' Atlantic,' which of course you have never read because you don't do such things yourself and are old enough to know better." Mr. Howells, then a young poet of twenty-three, had already given hostages to fortune in the guise of two or three poems contributed to the " Atlantic " and he came as a passionate pilgrim to the modern Athens. At this time he was yet standing, however uncon- sciously, on the threshold of his kingdom; but the literary tribunal that had already pledged him recog- nition of his power and their convictions that he had a future, could yet have little dreamed of that latent power in the young man which was destined later to enter into American literature as a transforming and almost as a revolutionary force. Still — such is the power of the unconscious in life to assume rhythmic and fitting form — this new era of literary activity, undreamed of by the actors, was ap- propriately ushered in. 310 BOSTON DAYS Mr. Lowell gave a dinner in honor of the young poet, with Dr. Holmes and James T. Fields as the only other guests, and in the postprandial conversation the host remarked : ^^ This is the laying on of hands ; it is our literary apostolic succession." More deeply true than Mr. Lowell could have dreamed were his words. They were deeply prophetic, and that pictorial hour is enshrined in literary history. " Out of the quiet ways Into the world's broad track," had the young poet wandered : out from a Western country home of refined sweetness and simplicity ; a home of high thinking and plain living ; a home fur- nished with ideals rather than with bric-k-brac and virtu, — from this, led by the unconscious illumination of his genius, he had come to test his powers in the light of the public square. The prince and potentate are not more regally born than the children of some of the families settled in the Middle West. Especially was the ^^ Western Reserve " of Ohio a locality of the gently bred and refined people. It was here that Nathan Cook Meeker, afterward associated with Horace Greeley on the editorial stafi* of the ^^ New York Tribune," and who was the founder of Greeley, Colorado, lived in the early years of his married life ; and here was born his son, Ralph Meeker, now an eminent journalist in New York and the author of some of the most charming magazine papers, whose poetic touch lays upon the reader the spell of enchantment. Winifred Howells THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 311 In this " Western Reserve " Mr. Howells was born, into an atmosphere of high ideals, and the story of his life reminds one of Emerson's words : ^' Give a youth manners and accomplishments, and he need not take the trouble to earn palaces ; they will open and entreat him to enter." Mr. Howells had these gifts and accomplishments, and it is perhaps not too much to say that his temperament has been his fortune. His poise, his sweetness of spirit, his gentle and courteous dignity, his fastidious delicacy, have inevitably opened to him the best that life contains. It is a curious little fact that at the early age of twenty- nine Mr. Howells had entered into the noblest and greatest companionships that this world can offer. As a youth he had started out on that Wanderjahre whose story he so exquisitely tells in his ^^New England Pilgrimage." He was first received and then beloved. After that came his first residence abroad. In Paris he met a girl art student. Miss Eleanor Mead, a sister of the distinguished sculptor, Larkin G. Mead, and wooed and won her away and carried her as a fair bride to an old ducal palace in Venice where their first wedded life was passed. Here was born their eldest child, Winifred, — the child of poetry and dreams, whose brief and beautiful life has left its sweet records in the poems written by her girlish hand. A beautiful picture of this poetic and lovely girl painted by Helen M. Knowlton, of Boston, is in the library of their home, — an ideal face against a golden back- ground. Miss Knowlton has the genius of color, and 312 BOSTON DAYS this work is one of the most interesting among all her paintings. When, after the first period of Mr. Howells' residence abroad he returned at the age of twenty-nine, taking up his residence in Cambridge, he was welcomed into the close companionship of Longfellow, Lowell, Charles Eliot Norton, and Henry James, pere. To enter the mere conventional and fashionable society is a matter of external accident ; but spiritual fitness alone could enter within this circle of choice spirits. Mr. Longfellow was then translating Dante, and one evening a week this little group met at his home for an evening of listening to the work, with comments on its progress which was discussed over an informal supper. Li later years Mr. Howells, with his family, returned to Boston^ and lived variously for some years in Belmont — a beautiful town six miles out, where they had a charming villa on a pine hill — and on Beacon Street, only one or two doors from the house of Dr. Holmes. During their latest sojourn in Boston, for a winter only, they had an apartment on Common- wealth Avenue, where they looked out upon that magnificent thoroughfare with its double boulevard and esplanade of trees and statues. From their drawing- room windows they could catch an enchanting view of the sunset over the blue line of the Brookline Hills far away over the park, with the romantic statue of Leif Ericson — the work of Anne Whitney — silhou- etted against the western sky. Nothing more simple and sweet than the home life of the Howells family THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 313 can be imagined. It is full of charm and gayety, and if, at an informal tea on Sunday evening, a guest or two may drop in, and some glancing allusion occurs to poem or passage which perhaps at the moment no one can place, the book is brought in, the elusive phrase captured, and all details of outward living are held flexible and plastic to this ideal and responsive spirit. To lose Mr. Howells from Boston was to lose one of the most ideal home centres of the present literary life. Interesting souvenirs were scattered through the rooms. In one there was an original water-color by Fortuny presented to Mr. Howells, with a special little history of its own ; a picture by Rossetti, and one by Alma-Tadema, with " To My Dear Howells " in the artist's writing in the corner, and many other bits of artistic value and association. In an adjoining room some old pictures from Florence were displayed, and out of the larger room was a delightful little alcove furnished with a sofa and a writing-desk. At this time Mr. and Mrs. Howells had returned to Boston from New York to be near their only sou, John Howells, who graduated from Harvard that year, and went later to Paris to study art and architecture. The family now includes only this son and a daughter, Mildred, so pleasantly known to the reading world as the " Little Girl among the Old Masters," in that most unique of art books bearing this title. The " little girl " is a tall, slender maiden now, and while she is called a beauty and a belle, she is more, — a brilliant girl intellectually, with cultivated artistic and literary 314 BOSTON DAYS tastes, and with much of that atmosphere of poetic enchantment about her. Mrs. Howells is always in delicate health, but she is so spirituelle, so captivating, so full of charm, that one forgets to inquire how she is feeling. Was it Hannah More's physician who was so beguiled by her conversation during one of his pro- fessional calls that he forgot to inquire for the health of his patient. Mrs. Howells goes out very little, but is usually able to see her friends who come in, and an hour with her is one of the utmost enchantment. She has tasted the fine flavors of art and literature and society, and is the truly cultivated woman, for cultiva- tion and mere acquirement are two very different things. Mrs. Howells has divination, esprit, and that nameless sympathy for which we have no adequate term, and which the Italians call simpatica. Mr. Howells has that very rare gift — and one seldom defined — of taking impressions. "' We will go together to an entertainment," once said Mrs. Howells laugh- ingly, "and I will talk it over when we get home and then forget all about it; but twenty years later Mr. Howells, who has not even spoken of the occasion, will write it all out with perfect accuracy of detail and of complete presentation." To be able to take an impression is of itself a supreme gift. More than that, it is the very rarest of gifts. It is produced by an exquisite balance of imaginative perception, of sensitiveness, of delicacy, of poise. The mind of Mr. Howells is like a sensitive plate, or like a mirror on which the reflection falls and is retained. THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 315 Few of the great men have been more fortunate in their domestic life than has Mr. Howells. If he impresses and enchains, what shall one say of Mrs. Howells, the most responsive, the most sympathetic, the most spontaneous of women ? She is a veritable en- chantress. She has read everything, seen everything, taken in the most subtle significance of the latest play, the new novel, the new movement in art, literature, what you will. She is many-faceted, and sparkles at every turn. She is the artist in temperament, as well as in taste and study. In the early eighties, Mr. Howells began reproducing certain salient phases of Boston life dramatized in his novel, " The Rise of Silas Lapham," and in others. Dur- ing a part of this time he was also the editor of the '' Atlantic," in which office he was succeeded by Mr. Aldrich. Novel-writing, Mr. Howells believes, should be a work of later life in order that the work may have any value. A youug person reproduces his reading, not his life. " It is easy to do the fanciful. It is difficult to get the reality," he says. Of course, there are those who believe in imagination as truer than fact and who say that reality lies in the ideal, and not in the actual occurrence. Unquestionably Mr. Howells now stands as the lead- ing man in American literature ; as our first and most representative man of letters. This is not to say that his specific work as novelist and poet transcends the poems and novels of other authors, but that, since the pass- 316 BOSTON DAYS ing of Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell, he is the most conspicuous figure. He stands for much. He unites two things that are not seldom regarded as incompat- ible, — fastidious culture and the deepest sympathy for humanity. Lowell's love for humanity was largely in the abstract, in high poetic moods. He loved the Southern slaves as an idea when he might not, perhaps, be over-gracious to the Philistine encountered in a street car. Longfellow was overflowing with love and sweet- ness, but it had not developed into the thoughtful philosophy for the bettering of humanity as has that same tenderness of nature in Mr. Howells. In short, Mr. Howells is not only a great writer, but a great man. " Howells is the only one of us who has been the favor- ite of Fortune uniformly," remarked a literary friend, but it may be a question as to whether Fortune is arbitrary in her favors. " Deep in the man sits fast his fate, To mould his fortune rich or great," says Emerson. Mr. Howells is a great man, for he not only writes, but lives; and his charm of manner, his genial humor, his sincere and exquisite courtesy and delicate tact make him the most interesting of conver- sationalists and delightful of friends. He talks freely when asked of his own work and literary aims and beliefs. His range of selection in the series of vivid and almost photographic presentations of certain marked phases of society is determined by the special idea to be illustrated by means of this grouping. As a novelist he may be said to be the prophet of the THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 317 present ; he is intensely modern ; he is an earnest student of conditions and their tendencies ; he is look- ing deeply into life on every side ; nothing escapes him ; nothing is trivial to him. His novels form a gallery of portraiture almost presenting the comMie humaine of American life. A poet born, Mr. Howells made himself the novelist. Twoscore of years ago his keen literary instincts told him that prose romance was the coming literature. He believed in his star and followed the oracle. It is they who have the strength to follow this higher vision who succeed ; those who do not fail. It is the law and the prophets. Mr. Howells has now forsaken Boston for New York, but his life in the modern Athens was a factor of importance in its most brilliant literary period. Mr. Francis Parkman was one of the most remark- able men in the Boston group that made the Nineteenth century so marked an epoch in the history of letters, and his character and relation to his time invite as well as baffle scrutiny. His nature was a curious mingling of sympathy and frankness and of reserve even to the degree of isolation. He held his personal life and his expression in literature to be entirely separate, and, too, he lived largely in a lofty world of thought companioned in some inscrutable way by response and inspiration from other sources than those of the visible world. " Who loves the music of the spheres And lives on earth, must close his ears To many voices that he hears." - 318 BOSTON DAYS Mr. Parkman loved the music of the spheres. And a key to his character may be found in these words from his own writings. "There is," he says, "a universal law of growth and achievement. The man who knows himself, understands his own powers and aptitudes, forms purposes in accord with them and pur- sues these purposes steadily, is the man of success." Mr. Parkman's early aims were those revealed to him by the unconscious attraction of genius; but soon, even in his undergraduate days, he became consciously aware of them, and from that time until his death he pursued them with that intelligent and inflexible pur- pose which compels success. His biographer, Mr. Farnham, says of Mr. Parkman that his ^'physical organism was strangely compounded of strength and weakness. It lacked that equilibrium of forces which secures health and makes consecutive labor possible," he continues, and he notes that as his eyes failed him while in college his brain suffered from this cause that limited and sometimes prevented intellectual work; that his senses were not developed to a degree that allowed him to receive acute impressions from sound, color, odors, taste, or touch ; and this range of limitation resulted in producing a character '^marked by a few simple and elementary powers rather than by delicacy, subtlety, and variety of sensibilities and emotions. His entire personality was moulded by the master quality of manliness. Impetuosity, courage, honesty, energy, reserve, a practical turn of mind, and an iron will were his chief forces." His life owed little to scenic effect. THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 319 He was bora in 1823, the eldest son of Rev. Francis Parkman, D.D. ; he graduated from Harvard in the class of '44, one of his classmates being the celebrated astronomer, Dr. Benjamin Apthorp Gould. In college vacations he visited the White Mountain regions and Lake George, and while at Ticonderoga his imagination was fascinated by historic facts and traditions which took possession of him and initiated that dramatic presentation of history with which his name was destined to be resplendently identified. It would almost seem as if Mr. Parkman read inscriptions traced on air amid the scenes of the Old French War, or where the Conspiracy of Pontiac was devised. During his life he made occasional trips to Europe where his time was passed mainly in Paris, and he visited Canada more than once, and also made expeditions to Florida and to the Rocky Mountain regions and the far West in search of and verification of his historic material. He was one of the founders, and served as the first president, of the St. Botolph Club in Boston. Mr. Parkman died in 1893 lea^dng the world enriched by the results of more than forty years of the most pains- taking, accurate, and thorough historic research vivified by a dramatic vein of power that fairly re-created scene, actors, and circumstance before the eye of the reader. One of the most impressive things in the literary production of the entire Nineteenth century is the process by which Mr. Parkman arrived at his pictu- resque, vital and pictorial transcriptions of historic events. He was the magician who had devised the 320 BOSTON DAYS secret spell by which to conjure up the entire living panorama out of the buried past. Deprived of the use of his eyes, he was compelled to be companioned in his library researches by an educated man who read aloud to him the varied documents that he needed to consult. Could he have read for himself, a glance would often have been sufficient to reveal the worth or worthlessness, of any given paper ; but as he must get its contents through the medium of hearing, the entire matter must be read. There was great drudgery of work in the extended copying essential to his plans. In London, Paris, and in Canada he had literary experts at work transcribing and verifying his- toric data. Mr. Farnham quotes a letter which Mr. Parkman wrote (in June of '68) to his classmate, Dr. Gould, the eminent astronomer, which reveals the reli- able accuracy which underlies all his work : — " I believe there is a difference [writes Mr. Parkman to Dr. Gould] between the way of estimating latitude in the Seventeenth century and now. Can you without much trouble tell me how this is ? In 1685 La Salle calculated a certain point on the Gulf of Mexico at 28° 18'. What would this correspond with on a modern map ? How can I ascertain if a comet — a somewhat remarkable one -^ was visible from the site of Peoria, Illinois, in January, 1681? Also, how can I ascertain on what day of the month Easter Monday, 1680, occurred? I want the information to test the accuracy of certain journals in my possession." The supreme value of Mr. Parkman's historical works, however, is not limited to his faithful, accurate, and vivid THE GOLDEN AGE OF GENIUS 321 reproductions of the past, in a moving panorama, before the eyes of the reader ; but he carried his work into the realm of philosophic and spiritual insight and demanded of each phase of civilization the results it produced in humanity. Mr. Parkman's series of works dealing with France and England in North America (" Pioneers of France in the New World," " The Jesuits in North America," "La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West," " The Old Regime," " Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV.," "Montcalm and Wolfe," and " A Half Century of Conflict ") are a contribution to permanent literature that is indispensable to scholarly knowledge, to that culture of thought based on data and information and, as well, also, these works are indispensable to a true intellectual grasp of the relations of events to the general trend and the progress of civili- zation. The literary quality of Mr. Parkman's style is so fine as to make his works an education in belles-lettres ; and he remains a spiritual hero of the Nineteenth century amid the choice group who made that wonder- ful period when " The total air was fame." 21 TV THE DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY In the years tliat shall be ye shall harness the Powers of the ether, And drive them with reins as a steed. Ye shall ride as a Power of the air, on a Force that is bridled, On a saddled Element leap. And the dead whom ye loved ye shall walk with, and speak with the lost. The delusion of Death shall pass, The delusion of mounded earth, the apparent withdrawal; Ye shall shed your bodies, and upward flutter to freedom. Stephen Phillips. THE DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY " Eternal process moving on : From state to state the spirit walks." ORTY years ago, when I was an under- graduate at Oxford," said Matthew Arnold, " there were voices in the air which haunt my memory still. Happy the man who in the suscep- tible period of youth hears such voices ! They are a possession to him forever." In the Boston air for more than the two decades of 1870-90, there sounded a wonderful voice with its thrilling and prophetic message, — the voice of Phillips Brooks, who preached his first sermon as the rector of Trinity Church on Oct. 31, 1869, and over whose lifeless form the funeral rites were read in his beloved church on Jan. 26, 1893. Between these dates lies the story of the most profound and significant ministry of the Nineteenth century. The work of Dr. Brooks as the Bishop of Massachusetts covered but fifteen months ; his ministry as rector of Trinity Church was but little more than two decades, and the eleven years of his previous ministerial service in Philadelphia must be viewed largely as a preparatory period ; yet out of this comparatively brief time of work, his sudden death S26 BOSTON DAYS on the morning of Jan. 23, 1893, stirred and thrilled Boston and the entire commonwealth as no event had done before since the death of Daniel Webster, and it will easily be realized how much less of both city and State there was to be thrilled and stirred in 1852 than in 1893. Not alone, either, to city or State, or even to New England, was the phenomenal out- pouring of sorrow limited. From Boston to Calcutta, from San Francisco to London, from Chicago to Paris, one cry of lament arose. The daily press, never too largely given over to spiritual contemplation, declared, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Northern pine to the Southern palm, that the death of Bishop Brooks was a national calamity. Well may one pause and question as to what element or characteristic in the personality of Phillips Brooks thus touched "the electric chain with which we are darkly bound " in so unprecedented a manner ? The Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks, S.T.D., LL.D., late Bishop of Massachusetts, was a cultivated and scholarly and courteous gentleman ; but there is nothing re- markably distinctive in that characterization. All around him were other men equally or even more scholarly, perhaps of more extended culture and of far greater experience were experience to be measured by duration of time, although its true measurement is rather by depth than length of life. In his exquisite courtesy — in a manner that a prince might have en- vied — no one could surpass him ; but in the polished circles of Boston and Cambridge it would go hard to DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 327 affirm that even in this exquisite courtesy he was un- rivalled. Side by side with him stood a group of sin- gularly exalted and remarkable men, of whom the venerable Rev. Dr. Andrew P. Peabody, Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale, Rev. George A. Gordon, Rev. Dr. Philip Moxom, Rev. Minot Judson Savage, James Freeman Clarke (and, after Dr. Clarke's death, his no less remarkable successor, Rev. Dr. Charles Gordon Ames, one of the most exalted and spiritual of men), — these names and others of fame and greatness will readily recur to all as men who brought to mankind messages that are advancing the entire general life to a higher plane. Their work is so marked a feature of the time that, even though we may regard special prophecies as vain and idle, it cannot be denied that certain ten- dencies belong to this period which may well arrest attention and denote that the world is coming to Christ — that He through spiritual agencies is again coming to the world — in a manner not less real because not characterized by outward sign or phenomenon. No con- templation of Bishop Brooks could approach complete- ness without the largest recognition of the rich atmos- phere and remarkable contemporary associations amid which he was so exalted a figure. The quality which defined his life and work so dis- tinctively was his power of relating the divinest thought to the ordinary occurrences of life ; of investing them with spiritual significance. He contemplated reli- gion, — not so much as an ornament to life as com- pletely identified with life itself. He believed the 328 BOSTON DAYS redeemed life — that which has caught the vision and the glory — to be the only life, and only in the degree to which man lives the life of the spirit, does he live at all. " This is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith," he would quote, and add that only by belief in something higher could man master the lower. " Oh, the necessity of loving purity and great thoughts about great themes," he would say, — " not merely being driven to them." His gospel was essentially that of achieving the life more abundant. While he loved nature, he preferred town to country because there centre the interests of human life. His biographer, Rev. Dr. Alexander V. G. Allen, relates that once when Dr. Brooks was calling on a friend at the Hotel Bruns- wick some one spoke of the beauties of nature, and that Dr. Brooks rose, looked out of the window over the wide view of homes and church spires and towers, and said, "' Oh, no ! not nature, but this beautiful view. Give me this, for it stands for life, for humanity, and that is what attracts me and makes life worth the living." He saw Christ as the divine illustration of human perfection ; the revelation in himself of the highest ideal possibilities. We find him saying : ^' Through the divine humanity of Jesus, God was manifest in the flesh, and therefore all that Jesus taught and ever teaches, whether by word or action, is the consummation and fulfilment of that presentation of Himself which God is ever making through humanity to man. And the great teachers of religion who have done the most Christ-like DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 329 work have always been those whose personality has been most complete, and who have been in truest human relation to the souls they taught." This theory of Dr. Brooks was realized in a remarkable degree in his own life. He was in the widest related- ness to humanity. Whether it was preaching before the Queen by the special invitation of her Majesty in the Chapel Royal at Windsor Castle, or caring for the infant child of a poor colored woman that she might go out in the open air, his personal sympathy went out in the most vital and — reverently let it be said — in the most Christ-like way, to man or woman who needed his thought or aid, at the moment. This was the secret regarding the remarkable impress made upon life by Phillips Brooks, — a secret eluding the mind but haunting the heart ; the secret that defies intellectual analysis but reveals itself to the intuition. He was not only " the friend and aider of those who would live in the Spirit/' — he was the friend and aider to discover to itself the imprisoned spirit, and reveal to it gleams of light and sweetness heretofore undreamed of, and communicate to it, through the magnetism of sympathy, new vitality and hope. His magical power over men lay in appeal to the higher self, the better self, of each individual. He did not conceive of Christians and men ; but he said, virtually : The only real manhood, the only genuine womanhood, is Christian manhood or womanhood. To be a Christian is not an abnormal, but the normal state. It is simply the human being entering into his heritage. You are a child of God. 330 BOSTON DAYS Claim your birthright. He took the eternal truths of the gospel of Jesus and put them into modern circulation. It was sometimes questioned as to the consistency of such a minister in remaining the rector of what it pleased many people to call a "rich and fashionable church." Jesus said leave all, — all, not a part, — and follow me, the questioner would say, adding, "But Dr. Brooks lives in and amid luxury. He preaches to rich people. Is that the highest Christianity ? " Now if any enterprising sociologist has yet discovered that rich people do not possess souls, or that their souls are not worth saving, there might be a modicum of force in this arraignment. But at all events, Phillips Brooks' charity was wide enough to include in his love and care even the millionaires. For he saw in this field a remarkable opportunity. When he was called, in 1869, from Philadelphia, to be the rector of Trinity Church, he came to a peculiar field of labor. He was then thirty-four years of age. He was Boston born and bred and educated. He was well descended, Rev. John Cotton being among his paternal ancestors, while his mother was a Phillips, of the noted family who founded the two Phillips Academies, — at Andover and Exeter. He graduated from the Boston Latin School at sixteen ; from Harvard at twenty, in the class of '55, which included Rev. Alexander McKenzie, D.D., Robert Treat Paine, and Frank B. Sanborn, the eminent social scientist ; he had studied theology at Alexandria, Va., where his classmate and nearest friend was Henry DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 331 C. Potter, now the distinguished Bishop of New York ; he had taken holy orders at twenty-four and had gone as assistant minister to his beloved and revered friend and former pastor, Rev. Dr. Vinton, in the Church of the Advent, Philadelphia, from which later, he accepted a call to be the rector of Holy Trinity in that city; all these activities had occupied his time up to that memo- rable December of 1869, when he entered on what was to prove the real work of his life, -;- the rectorship of Trinity Church, Boston. He came to a most unique and remarkable field. The congregation of Trinity was composed of people of fastidious culture and critical demands ; and they held, perhaps, largely, the general conception of the day, that the Christian life was to observe with due decorum the ritual of the church, to give aid in food, or clothing, or money to " the poor ; " but to give close personal sympathy, to give themselves^ was undreamed of, — in a word, the churches of the day were largely composed of people who, after the witti- cism of Mr. Ho wells, ^^ hoped that their souls were im- mortal, but knew that they were cultivated ! " Of course this must not be taken too literally, nor, indeed, to re- flect in any way upon the individuals of Trinity Church. But the prevailing ideals of that time were after this order. People were to be moral, kind, and observe the church calendar. The poor were to be fed; the sick were to be nursed ; but that any actual personal sym- pathy could exist between the carers and the cared for, save that of kind condescension on the one hand and meek gratitude on the other, had less generally dawned 332 BOSTON DAYS upon the public mind than at the present time, and had not entered so closely into the public heart. The young rector had the especial qualifications as a missionary to the rich and the cultivated. He was well born (was he not Boston born ? what would you more ?), he was well-bred ; he was in touch with polite society and elegant culture. He was eloquent; he had even then begun to be famous, and he reflected credit upon the fastidious taste of Trinity parish. The young rector was all these, — but he was a great deal beside. He had a heart, and a great one. He had sympathies, he had certain very noble ideals, but even all these were, at that period of his life, somewhat nebulous in com- parison with the marvellous richness of his spiritual life in later years. Yet one element of his nature was in bold relief always, — his absolute sincerity. That is the foundation on which his great character was based. It would not have been too difficult for a young minister in his place to have become the fashionable clergyman of a fashionable church. But there was in Phillips Brooks that stuff which scorned any approach to being " the idle singer of an empty day." He im- mediately began to exert a direct and positive influence upon his hearers, and to achieve, on his own side, higher spirituality. If we may hope to surprise the secret of the remark- able power of Dr. Brooks, is it not that by some magic of spiritual alchemy he was able to create a magnetic union between the inner and the outer worlds, in which invisible realm lies the germ of all DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 333 great deeds ? To enter into this magnetic union ; to come into the conditions of swift receptivity to its forces and to a knowledge of its laws is to achieve the true secret of life. For were humanity to adjust itself in perfect har- mony with the spiritual laws, it would be able to command the powers of earth and air. Right purpose is power ; and so, in the depressed periods of dark days one has but to cling unfalteringly to a pure purpose and demand his union with the divine energy. The most intense spiritual potencies may be generated during such seasons. *^He restoreth the soul." The soul has lapsed into doubt, depression, into the nega- tive region. God restoreth it. Never were the preaching and the personality of a minister more widely discussed than were those of Phillips Brooks. His was one of those many-faceted personalities that flash a new and a different angle of vision to every onlooker. He was inscrutable in his nature ; not con intentione, but inevitably. More- over, he was full of surprises, for he was very human, as well as very full of the divine uplifting, and he was at all times and under all circumstances singularly impressive, however unconsciously so. His work was so endowed with vitality that its growth was its perpetual change, — not by revolutionary epochs but by evolutionary advancement. By all these spiritual epochs in the life of Phillips Brooks the contemporary world was profoundly moved. With the appearance of the greatest simplicity, his character was 334, BOSTON DAYS really one of the greatest complexity. The key to much that Dr. Brooks would do, at any one time, would be found in some future — perhaps far future — time. This fact suggests one profound truth of human life. Just in proportion to its spiritual development, life is twofold. And it is not only that one phase of it is lived constantly on the plane of the spiritual and in contact with unseen forces and unseen companion- ships ; but, what adds to the complexity of this most curious and often most baffling problem of life is, that the life in the unseen and in the seen are not con- temporaneous, but that the one precedes the other, and determines and constrains the individual often to do that which, at the moment, he himself knows not why he does ; the action, while perfectly conscious, yet being, at the moment, almost automatic. There were two qualities of almost equal potency in the character of Dr. Brooks, — patriotism and piety. The latter, it ^ight be thought, would go without saying regarding a man in his sacred office, yet the piety of Phillips Brooks was so entirely the life of the spirit lived out in practical every- day afikirs that it had little in common with that more formal religion — "... scrimped and iced, In the name of a cautious, statistical Christ." It was the piety that said : " Come, live in the spirit. That is the only life. Not a life of sacrifice and sad- ness and seclusion, but the life of all fulness of purpose, all greatness of achievement, all gladness and joy. Do DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 335 not forsake your business, your profession, but be by so much more the better merchant, engineer, lawyer. Christian manhood is only manhood developed to its utmost capacity. Manhood has not attained its normal possibilities until it is Christian manhood." This was the same spirit with which Phillips Brooks galvanized into living power truths too often held as abstract as a proposition of Euclid. The life of Phillips Brooks fell naturally into three periods, — that of preparation, that of the rector of a great and notable parish, and that of the Episcopate. In each of these periods we see those two determining qualities, patriotism and piety, alike pre-eminent. As rector, the work of Phillips Brooks was never bounded by the limits of Trinity parish. His church, the community, and the general progress of the day are the threefold points from which his work must be estimated. Nor can the ministry of this great preacher be exclusively claimed even by the Episcopal Church. His work was in those deeper regions of life and thought where varying opinions find a common basis of truth and rest on the universal. The catholicity of Phillips Brooks was a positive force which impressed itself marvellously upon the age. When he entered upon the pastorate of Trinity Church, he found his field to lie in one of the most conservative and intensely aristocratic parishes of America. He resolved that, although by the parish laws the church must still be one of rented pews rather than free, it must still rise to the true spirit of 336 BOSTON DAYS Christian courtesy and hospitality. Nor were his efforts in vain, for Trinity became noted for its marked courtesy and generous hospitality, — a hospitality, in- deed, that so overflowed all considerations of the right of possession that it came to be laughingly remarked that the unfortunate pew-owners seemed to be the only persons who could not be accommodated in the church, and who had no rights that the public were bound to respect. By the rector's desire a row of chairs was placed around the chancel, and several long seats added in rows on either side, all free to the occupants, " and as many as can come and sit in ray pulpit with me are welcome," characteristically asserted the rector. It came, indeed, to be a great problem at Trinity as to the possible accommodation of the throngs that crowded the church — aisles and corridors and the very steps of the altar — to hear Phillips Brooks. A large propor- tion of these would gladly have purchased seats could they have been obtained, and there was, on the part of many, great hesitation about crowding into a church where they must, perforce, depend upon hos- pitality or chance for seats. But whenever Phillips Brooks was to be heard, the people must go. Whether in the luxurious and beautiful interior of Trinity, or in the bare, if venerable and historic, precincts of Faneuil Hall, or a south end " opera " house, — it mattered little. The large proportion of women over men, which is a feature of Boston, obliged the great preacher to exclude them entirely when he gave courses of Lenten lectures to business men, or the women would have DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 337 entirely pre-empted the church. The Boston woman usually asserts her "rights," to say nothing of her privileges; but on these memorable occasions she was remanded to feminine seclusion. Perhaps no man has ever more truly and faithfully fulfilled the duty of speaking the truth in love than Phillips Brooks. In a remarkable degree he combined the widest and tenderest charity towards human nature, and a power of holding before it the divine ideal by which its conduct must be measured. The true realism of life, he would say, is not that base realism which only records the failures and limitations of man, but that which also takes into account his higher possibil- ities. A man's life is committed to the world, and here two intensely vital things come together. " It is the meeting of these two intensely living things," Dr. Brooks would say, "this meeting of the universe of facts and truths and of this living nature of man, with his conscience and intellect, that makes the complica- tions of life, and it is out of these, too, that the dangers of life must proceed." The lessons that he presented in this remarkable discourse were, first, that " there is no condition in this world, no matter what privileges and safeguards are thrown around it, that can liberate a man from the constant watching of his own integrity and the truthfulness of his soul." And, again, he taught that the man who knows the danger by which he is surrounded must be filled of tenderest charity, of deep consideration, and of the largest possible indul- gence for the nature of those who, surrounded by the 338 BOSTON DAYS same danger, have fallen into the depths from which he happily has saved himself. Dr. Brooks was eminently social in his nature. He had a fund of humor which reveals itself in his letters, of which a volume has been published, and he was swift in epigram and repartee. He was the most ac- cessible of men. After he became bishop, his private secretary, the Rev. Dr. William Henry Brooks (who, though bearing the same name, was not related to him), suggested that he must have office hours, in order to secure any time for himself. He replied that a clergyman or layman " when leaving his business to consult with me, not knowing of the observance of office hours (should there be such), might find his time wasted, and be disappointed of the desired interview. No, I am not willing to have office hours. If people wish to see me, I ought to and will see them," he concluded. Dr. William Henry Brooks notes that '^ on another occasion, when some one spoke to him of the great con- sumption of his time in receiving the almost number- less calls of persons who desired his counsel and assistance, and the wear and tear of his strength which must follow in consequence, he replied with great emphasis, ^God save the day when they won't come to me.' " In February of 1891, Bishop Paddock of Massachu- setts died, and the clamor which arose that he should be succeeded by Dr. Brooks has not yet faded from the public memory. At the diocesan convention in the DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 339 following May he was elected by so large a majority that it was made unanimous ; during the ensuing summer the choice was confirmed by the House of Bishops, and on Oct. 14, 1891, Dr. Brooks was con- secrated bishop in Trinity Church, in all the splendor of that elaborate and brilliant ceremonial. When the rector of Trinity became the bishop of the diocese, the only change was seen in the constant deepening and broadening of his consecrated power. His eloquence, his fervor, his profound spirituality, were conjoined with the same simplicity of manner, directness of purpose, zeal for humanity, and love for his country, that always made his teaching so im- pressive. He kept his faith in the divine element in man. He could arouse and inspire because he brought to bear that eternal force of positive affirmation. It is the force to which humanity responds. " It is the belief in the redeemable qualities of man which is the most potent spell in the University of Christ," said Bishop Potter in his personal address to Dr. Brooks on the occasion of his consecration as bishop, ^'and," added Bishop Potter, ^^as it seems to me, you have never lost it out of yours." In his work as bishop. Dr. Brooks was faithful, earnest, and thorough, rather, perhaps, than methodical. He was very careful in keeping appointments, and absolutely sincere in his expression. The response '^ I will do it if I can," from Bishop Brooks, did not mean " I will do it if, at the time, I feel inclined," but con- veyed the literal significance of the w^ords. He was 340 BOSTON DAYS too imaginative, too spontaneous a man to be given over wholly to routine, and he was apt to write his sermons when the spell came upon him, rather than in any specific hours. The morning was usually his best time to write, — the time when he felt his thought the clearest and deepest. Before entering on the duties of the Episcopate he attended personally to his large correspondence. Every letter, note, or request, no matter how ill-timed it might be, received its adequate reply in his clear, concise chi- rography, characterized by his marked courtesy. It is a study in human nature to know some of the extraor- dinary things on which Bishop Brooks was consulted. A woman in Minnesota who wanted a pension, a man in India who desired some information regarding a registry in a church in Montreal, are but specimens of the requests, foreign to his province, that rained down upon him. "So far as is possible," remarked the bishop's secretary, " Dr. Brooks fulfils all the things asked of him. We spent a good deal of time to get the registry matter at Montreal traced up, and multitudes of things that a man less busy — less great — than the bishop would refuse or ignore, he gives attention to. It is all the w^ork of humanity." His personal service was as untiring as his courtesy was infinite. At one time a poor clergyman from abroad was in Boston and, beside his limited resources, he was also in ill health. Bishop Brooks entertained him in his own home, went with him to New York, and saw him safely aboard the steamer, and this to a stran- "S DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 341 ger who had no claim on him, as many would have said, and was not even of his own denomination. Bishop Brooks lived that brotherhood of man that the most advanced thought of to-day holds as its ideal. To the Episcopate of Massachusetts Bishop Brooks brought such spiritual vitality as to regenerate and re- create it. He was always joyful in his work. His meat was to do the will of Him who sent him. He rejoiced in the inestimable privilege of bringing sym- pathy and uplifting and a larger sense of duty to man. His messages were delivered with a magnetism and a force that proved them heaven sent. His personal holi- ness of character was felt in all the community and it served as an object lesson to teach that the Redeemer liveth — liveth as an ever-present force in the affairs and the purposes of life. The teaching of Phillips Brooks was one full of hope and spiritual energy be- cause, while recognizing the sinfulness of sin, he saw always the divine possibilities in humanity and God's purpose in its development. " Never be afraid," he would say, "to bring the sublimest ideal to the most insignificant act." While Trinity parish was the beloved centre of the work of Dr. Brooks, it radiated over the entire city. It was so vital, so pervasive, it so diffused itself like the sunlight, it touched life at so many points, and every- body's life at some point, that it is no exaggeration to say that his sudden death left Boston empty and dark without his presence. Every one felt that he had lost a personal friend. " Those who trust us educate us," 542 BOSTON DAYS said George Eliot. Phillips Brooks trusted humanity. He believed iu it ; and because he appealed to that which is best and noblest in every man, he never appealed in vain. Press and pulpit poured out their utterances over the uplifting example of Phillips Brooks. The best ethical thought of the day was inspired by his life and work ; and of all there was perhaps no expression more price- less than that in the sermon preached on Bishop Brooks by the Rev. Dr. Charles Gordon Ames, in the Church of the Disciples, who, in this memorable discourse, said : — " The best is yet to come. All that Bishop Brooks has done for good during his thirty-four years of public service is small compared with the cumulative effect and growing outcome of his word and his life. The spiritual power which he received from a hidden source he has transmitted to the world ; and that power is here to stay. It is to be a permanent and continuous working force in human hearts and in human affairs. Every man's influ- ence is just like himself, and it flows on like a widening stream, mingling with other influences, and modified in its effects by time and circumstances, yet ever holding the same general direction and working to the same general result." Bishop Brooks was no mystic or visionary by nature. He had far less of that tendency to see visions and to dream dreams than might have naturally been looked for in one whose life was consecrated to spiritual pur- suits. Yet he was an omnivorous reader of occult and mystic lore, and the mysticism of Emerson had no more DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 343 appreciative devotee than himself. Dr. Allen records that in his college days Dr. Brooks was deeply interested in the Sibylline Oracles, and that he '^ became fascinated by that moment in ancient history when Alexandria led the world of thought." This tendency to mystic thought was developed in Dr. Brooks to the higher expression of that spirituality which relates itself to practical life in guiding and controlling its issues. There is every reason that the name of Phillips Brooks should be invested with moral magic, as it stands pre-eminently for the practical power of ideal purposes. Spiritual force is the supreme potency, — a force as much greater than electricity in its creative power as electricity is more potent than the dullest clod, — and out of the life of Bishop Brooks was struck the electric spark that lighted a thousand watchfires. "When in human experience the psychic life is wholly given up to its supreme office of suggestion and radiation," says Professor John H. Denison in his very remarkable work on " Christ's Idea of the Supernatural," " it not only feeds the spirit with visions, but, exalted in turn by the spirit and surcharged with spirit force, it acts upon matter in a direct, causative way ; it radiates the creative causative spirit." All the great work of humanity is an example of this truth, that spiritual energy creates its visible expressions. The entire envi- ronment of the universe is calculated in unerring cor- respondence with moral perfection. To the degree in which this truth is realized, life is successful and happy ; and he who thus lives is upborne by invincible powers. 344 BOSTON DAYS The stars in their courses fight for him. The winds are his messengers, and the clouds his chariot. To the degree in which he falls below the moral standard, he encounters friction and trial. We talk of this life and the next, but there is only one life; and, as Bishop Brooks once said, " Death is not the end of life, but an event in life." Spirituality of life is a condition, not a creed ; a ser- vice, and not a spectacle ; a life and not a litany. The great problem of life to all is : How shall one grow in sympathy, and tenderness, in generosity, and in consider- ation ? How shall one feed on high thought and noble aims ? How shall one be swift to discern and to avail himself of those opportunities for usefulness to others which are the best channels of , his own growth ? How shall one hold clear and close relation with the divine energy ? " Be one of the conquerors ! " said Balzac. " The uni- verse belongs to him who wills and loves and prays ; but he must will, he mjist love, he must pray — in a word, he must possess wisdom, force, and faith ! " All phases of progress — art, painting, sculpture, architecture, and poetry, the mysticism of Emerson, the speculation of to-day — had no more sympathetic sharer than Phillips Brooks. His attitude toward all modern phenomena was respectful in its questioning and in its readiness to accept any real genuine aid. He saw that the dominant note of the age was touched in its search for spiritual truth. " Learning may have its traditional dangers^" he would say, "but their cure lies not in DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 345 ignorance ; life itself has its dangers, but their cure lies not in suicide." Dr. Brooks had served in his office as bishop of the diocese but fifteen months when he was called to the Unseen World. On the day of the burial (Jan. 26, 1893) the people were astir from six in the morning until the shadows of the early winter twilight fell over the lily-laden mound in Mount Auburn where all that was mortal of the dead prelate was reverently laid. During the ceremonies at the church business was sus- pended, stores and offices generally closed, and the busy streets bore a deserted look. Within Trinity the services were as beautiful as they were simple. The chancel was a dream of Paradise in its great cross of Annunciation lilies against a full back- ground of palms and greenery. The masses of flowers, — lilies, roses, and one wreath of scarlet carnations (for the Harvard colors, the crimson), included a book of w^hite rose-buds with " The Light of the World " writ- ten across in purple immortelles. The casket, covered with lilies and palm branches tied with royal purple, was borne by eight Harvard men, — young athletes chosen for the sacred honor. It was followed by the honorary pall-bearers from among the most distin- guished men of Boston. The long procession of sur- pliced priests, comprising all the clergy of the diocese and visiting clergy, marched through the cloisters and down the broad aisle to the chancel, while within the altar waited a group of bishops, and the scene strangely like that of the consecration of Dr. Brooks as 346 BOSTON DAYS bishop, fifteen months before. During this service memorial services were also held in a neighboring Baptist church by its pastor, the Rev. Dr. Philip Moxom, and in the new " Old South " Congregational Church by the Rev. George A. Gordon. All distinctions of creed and sect were obliterated, and ^^ Our Bishop " was the expression on the lips of those of all denomi- nations and of those of no denomination at all. The last service seemed to be a sacred festival of life rather than lamentation for death. As the casket under its royal purple pall laden with lilies and palms was borne from Trinity on the shoulders of the young Harvard men, the sun suddenly shone out from the clouds of a gray day, lighting up the pictured windows in radiant glory, while the triumphal music of the immortal hymn filled the air : — " For all. Thy saints that in Thy glory rest." Outside in Copley Square thirty thousand people waited for hours and reverently united in repeating the Lord's Prayer. Thirty thousand voices joined in singing : — " God, our help in ages past, Our hope in years to come." Amid the great assemblage there was a general recognition of the truth so forcibly expressed by the beloved bishop that " Death is not tlie end of life but an event in life." The funeral cortege to Mount Auburn numbered six hundred carriages, and on its way made a detour DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 347 through the grounds of Harvard, where two thousand undergraduates stood on either side with bared and bowed heads as the long procession passed. When Dr. Brooks resigned his rectorship to accept the work of the Episcopate, Trinity Church invited the Rev. Dr. E. Winchester Donald, of New York, to be- come his successor. Dr. Donald's ministry has been of a noble order, and one phase of his thought has found literary expression in a book called '^ The Expansion of Religion," — a collection of the notable lectures which he delivered before the Ijowell Institute. The succession of Dr. Donald to the rectorship has been rendered the more tender in ties between people and pastor in that Dr. Donald was the beloved friend of Dr. Brooks, who earnestly hoped he would accept the invitation to Trinity. Fortunate, indeed, is the church in securing the noble ministry of its present rector, so splendidly endowed, not only with learning, culture, and profound intellectual genius, but also with those still rarer qualities of insight, sympathy, and vision. In his commemorative address on Bishop Brooks, Dr. Donald thus finely presented the results of the great work of his predecessor : — ''Phillips Brooks opened the doors of the Episcopal Church to thousands who had long and honestly regarded her as too stiff and formal and foreign an ecclesiasticism for a genuinely alert, spiritual nature to live in. The years, as they go by, only reveal more clearly how great were his services to our church, simply as an ecclesiastic. He made the Church American in her essential charac- 348 BOSTON DAYS ter, and stripped off the last remaining semblance of an exotic. It will never be thought wonderful that his spirit lives in Trinity Church, and it would be a reversal of all spiritual history if the grave in Mount Auburn treasured all of him that was ever vital. No ! His great example still stimulates emulation, his faith in Christ as his Saviour — the only faith once for all delivered to the saints — has been transmitted, and we find it easier to believe because he once lived." The life of the great and beloved bishop stood con- spicuously for the great truth, — that the life of the spirit is the only life v^orth living ; that it may be as truly lived in the midst of the restless activities of the day, in the busy haunts of men, as in a monk's cell/'or on the lonely heights of Mt. Carmel. Furthermore, the life of Phillips Brooks is an unanswerable testimony that this life of the spirit may be so lived as to be in touch with the world's activities, to be in familiar and friendly relations with men of business and affairs, and to maintain nmtual respect. His life speaks with a thousand tongues to tell us the more spiritually ideal life is, the more truly practical and helpful it may be. An interesting feature in the Boston life of the last decades of the Nineteenth century was the organization of the " Society to Encourage Study at Home," founded by Anna Eliot Ticknor, the daughter of George Ticknor, the Spanish professor at Harvard and the author of a history of Spanish literature. In 1830 Professor Ticknor bought the house at the corner of Beacon and Park streets, which already had a history, one association of DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 349 it being that it was the house where Lafayette was entertained during his visit to Boston. Here Professor Ticknor lived until his death, in 1871. The march of trade pre-empted the house and forced his daughter to transfer her household gods to a new home on Marl- borough Street. The life in the Ticknor home was that of literary and social prominence. The narratives that come down of that leisurely life of the first half of the century in Boston reveal its forcible contrast with the rush of the present. These were the years when people still held to somewhat primitive customs ; when there was leisure for culture and for the real companionship which " society " does not always supply. The art of conversation flourished — one which is not invariably among the fine arts of the pres- ent. New books were events, and were much talked over. In this atmosphere of leisurely thought Miss Ticknor grew up and to her exquisite literary culture she added something of the passion of the philanthro- pist. " The Society for the Encouragement of Study at Home " was founded in June of 1873. Its nature can best be described as an ideal university, one having no material form, no visible expression, no location, no codes or restrictions. Virtually, it said to every person who wished to study and improve : " Begin ; I will loan books to you ; I will correspond with you ; I will teach you all that may be taught by letters." Here was a gentlewoman of the highest social recog- nition, a woman of large wealth, of liberal tastes and of leisure, who wished to contribute her share of aid to the 350 BOSTON DAYS world. Far better than to merely give money, she gave her thouglit, her time, her cultm-c. No conceivable amount of checks donated to organized charities could begin to equal the good that Miss Ticknor did through this extended reaching out to whomsoever desired to enjoy these privileges. The plan, too, was self-limiting, self-distributive. It did not offer benefits where they were not appreciated. It gave to all who responded. It was offered freely like the kingdom of heaven, and it is a question if ever there were a more heave aly benefi- cence. With the death of Miss Ticknor, the society ceased to exist and its collection of books was presented to the Public Library. The literary fame inseparable from the name of Ticknor is pleasantly continued by a young and gifted writer^ Caroline Ticknor, the granddaughter of the noted pub- lisher. Miss Ticknor's stories abound in humor and are full of a sunshiny charm that fascinates every reader. One of the great works done during the last quar- ter of the Nineteenth century in higher education for women, was that of Elizabeth Gary Agassiz, the wife of the great naturalist. Mrs. Agassiz has always been so deeply occupied in the essentials of the work itself that she has not encouraged any public comment ; but it is to her that Radcliffe College practically owes its exist- ence. There was organized in Boston and Cambridge, in the seventies, a society for the collegiate instruction of women, of which Mrs. Agassiz was the president. It was this society that prevailed upon Harvard profes- sors to give instruction to women students, and thus DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 351 led to the establishment of what was so long known as the Harvard "Annex." Step by step the innovation went forward. It gained by excellence and not by exhortation. Finally, in 1894, a charter was obtained, and the " Annex " became a woman's college, — Mrs. Agassiz, President Eliot, Prof. Chas. Eliot Norton, Pro- fessor Goodwin, Professor Childs, and others leading the movement. Many thought at the time that it should bear the name of Agassiz College. Mrs. Agassiz pre- ferred the present name, which was suggested in a curious way. Anne RadclilFe, of England, — afterward Lady Moulson, — had given to Harvard the first scholar- ship the college had ever received from a woman. The fact came to light accidentally (only that such accidents are doubtless due to direction and not to chance) in papers that disclosed the fact to a student who was searching in the library for something quite different. Radclifib will become to women what Johns Hopkins is to men, — a special place for post-graduate work, with every facility for the most advanced research into astron- omy, physics, art, literature, and languages. RadcliiFe will, in time, and in no very distant future, inaugurate a new standard of culture for American women, one whose influence will be national and all-pervading. The companionship and influence of such a woman as Mrs. Agassiz is of inestimable advantage to the students of Radcliflfe, and indeed the finer forces and finer influ- ences everywhere prevail. The culture is symmetrical, and not the least of the advantages of this college is the 352 BOSTON DAYS habit of good society which the young women acquire from the prevailing associations. Boston, like Paris, has her Quartier Latin, where the most interesting things happen. There is a semi- Bohemian region in which are located several studio buildings and other artistic or semi-literary headquarters, which is a part of the city that is very much alive. On the new land, the buildings all new, it is yet adjacent to and adjoining the old part of the city. It is not far distant, geographically, from the fashionable portion ; it is within a half dozen blocks of Commonwealth Avenue, of Beacon Street ; but while these thoroughfares are monotonously quiet, with the decorous rows of private residences, broken now and then by an apartment hotel that vies with palaces in luxurious fitting-up, this artistic Latin-like quarter abounds in students who pour out of its clubrooms or restaurants in great numbers ; with artists, men and women, who perhaps live in their studios, make their matutinal coffee over a gas stove, and dine at a restaurant; it abounds in lecturers; in the followers and practitioners of occult science and mental healing ; in spiritual mediums — what you will. You will perhaps be accosted on the sidewalk by a neatly dressed woman with refined courtesy of manner, who offers you a card bearing the legend, "Divine Science Home." You may be favored with a gratuitous copy of " The Prophetic Star-gazer ; " you may be gently entreated to attend a lecture on the " Science of Creation from the Standpoint of Vibration ; " or invited to a course on " Psycho-Physics ; " you may DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 253 be asked if you understand " mental cliemistry ; " you may be invited to the home of "Rest, Recuperation, and Regeneration ; " you may be informed of the private lectures given by Siddi Mohammed Tabier ; you may be privileged to enter into the mystic atmos- phere of the " Oriental Circle," where you listen to discourses on the " Gods of Egypt and the Book of the Dead," " The Mahabharata and the Ramayana," or the " Reincarnation of the Vedas." Lecturers in this region discuss such topics as " Primal Force," "■ The Bondage of Mortal Sense/' and " The Elimination of Death. " A daintily gowned young woman sitting in a club parlor in this region was asked if she believed in thought-transference. " Oh, I am far beyond that," she replied airily ; " I am in the sphere of intense vibrations." There is one house where its fair mistress proclaims herself a " Daughter of the Druids," and where she gathers a circle of the faithful about her on afternoons and lectures to them on "Symbolism." She has a room fitted up with maps and charts of the most ex- traordinary description, — the signs of the zodiac ; the supposed aspect of the universe at different periods of creation ; the representation of man in various evolu- tionary stages, and other strange figures whose signifi- cance eludes the ordinary observer. " I feel, indeed, that I am in Boston again," remarked a Bostonian who had just returned from a long residence abroad. "Think of being stopped on the street by an epigram. I met Mr. Alger, and he said to me, ' I have an original epigram I will give you : 23 354> BOSTON DAYS Justice is the highest human virtue ; but disinterested- ness is not a virtue, it is the highest delight of a noble order of mind.' Now when I am stopped on the street by a man who desires to give me an epigram, I know that I am in Boston." The mere incidental conversation of the moment is not unfrequentlj bewildering to the un-Bostonian mind. At the theatre one night, in a pause between two acts, the question was asked by a friend : — " Do you know So-and-so ? " " Only by name," was the reply ; " I have never met him." " I saw him to-day," he rejoined ; '^ we chanced to meet on Temple Place, and I asked him if he believed in the personality of God ? He said he never had, but he had thought more about it of late, and I feel that he is coming into the higher thought." There was nothing unusual about this interlude, and one is not at all sure that if he had not been absent from Boston for a long time it would even have im- pressed itself enough to have been recorded in memory. When constantly steeped in Boston life one becomes so accustomed to having theological enigmas propounded in any chance meeting on the street, or profound prob- lems of sociology, art, ethics — as may be — discussed on a street car, at a party, or in the interludes of play or opera, that one takes it all for granted. At all events, Boston is Boston, unique, unparalleled in its social flavor. There is a humorous tradition that Motley and Mrs. Howe, in the interludes of a waltz. DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 355 discussed (and very ably) the problem of original sin and election, but to what degree this anecdote is due to invention rather than fact is open to speculation. With better claim to authenticity is the narration that Emerson and Margaret Fuller went together to the old Boston Museum to see Fanny Elssler dance, and that the sibylline Margaret remarked, "Waldo, this is poetry;" to which the seer of Concord solemnly rejoined, " Margaret, it is religion." There is indeed a keynote to Boston life touched in these little anecdotes which illustrates one of the cur- rents of speculative thought. '' If a Trappist monk should come to this city, Boston would utilize him as a lion," remarked the poet and novelist, Katherine E. Conway, alluding to the momentary enthusiasm aroused by Father Ignatius in the garb of a mediaeval monk, who added to the ascetic life the zeal of a Methodist exhorter, and who, with his closely shaven head, his monk robe and knotted cord, his beads and crucifix, and sandalled feet, made a striking figure as he preached to the crowds that gathered to hear him. Boston is the paradise of cranks, albeit there may not be wanting among them some of those who are not wholly devoid of some device to turn the universe. Palmistry, astrology, card-reading, crystal-gazing, and every sort and condition of soothsayer receives a greater or less degree of patronage, from the fashionable palmist at ten dollars for an half hour's consultation, to a *' South End" card-reader at twenty-five cents an hour. At one time " Cheiro " appeared, establishing himself in 356 BOSTON DAYS a suite in the fashionable Hotel Brunswick, where he fitted up a room with Egyptian hangings and mystic emblems into which all Boston poured, eager to pay its ten dollars for twenty minutes with the seer who volun- teered to lift the veil from futurity, — while many were turned away, daily, forced to await a future appointment ; and through all degrees of life, social and financial, the interest in the occult is manifested. Theosophy was first introduced into Boston by a well-known woman of letters and society who, on her return from a period of foreign travel, brought with her as her guest for the winter Mr, Mohini Mohun Chatterji; the noted Hindoo. A limited number of invited friends met on three evenings a week in her library, to whom Mr. Mohini explained the Bhagavad Gita and other sacred writers in the Sanscrit. A little later public societies were formed for the study of Oriental religion and the Theosophists became a frankly avowed cult. Mrs. Annie Besant arrived from London, inspiring great zeal and an increasing following of this trend of specu- lation. Meantime, Mr. Sinnett's " Esoteric Buddhism " and "The Occult. World" appeared, fairly creating a furore in the universal greeting and discussion that fol- lowed. Mrs. Anna Kingsford's books, "The Perfect Way" and " Clothed with the Sun," deepened and ex- tended the impress made by the sudden awakening to Oriental study and speculation. Mrs. Besant was the avowed disciple of Madame Blavatsky, who, with impartial fervor, was both wor- shipped as a prophetess and denounced as an impostor ; DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 357 yet happy was occult Boston when it crowded a hall to listen to Annie Besant, arrayed in a flowing white robe as unique as that of an Egyptian seeress. Mrs. Besant gave courses of lectures on ^^ Theosophy and Christi- anity," "Theosophy and Social Problems/' and "The- osophy and Present Social Conditions." Apart from any acceptance of these special doctrines there was always a great interest in hearing Mrs. Besant. She is a speaker of strong power, intellectual, logical, and with a finely trained mind. On other occasions Mrs. Besant fasci- nated Boston by describing to her audience their auras and their astral bodies, and initiating them into practical ways and means of making sublunary excursions into the astral world. The subject was apparently invested with fascination, and profound attention characterized the hearers. Another of these festive occasions was a night when "Swami Yivakananda" was to hold forth upon the Karma Yogi, — a subject that absolutely dominated the attention of a certain cult of the Bostonians. That night presented a curious scene. The crowds of people that had lined the sidewalk hastening to the Procopeia Club were greater than its rooms could hold. So the Allen Gymnasium across the street was hastily engaged, and the people thronged in. The interior was unfinished, the roof sloping up with the bare rafters and beams ; the walls of boards un planed and unplas- tered, and from the rafters were depended ropes and chains and pulleys hastily pulled up above the heads of the audience and dangling from the roof. The platform 358 BOSTON DAYS was high, and on it was a primitive desk and one or two chairs. The camp-chairs with which the room was seated were instantly pre-empted, and the remainder of the crowd bestowed itself as best it might, around the walls in the spaces left. It overflowed into the corridor and sat upon the stairs, the flight being simply packed from the lower step to the top, with people who could see nothing, but who could, perhaps, if sufficient silence prevailed, hear the speaker. For an hour, at least, be- fore the meeting was announced to open, the crowd swept in, thronging the place to sufibcation. All who were at the Chicago Exposition in 1893 and who attended the Parliament of Religions, will recall the Hindoo monk who came as a delegate, Swami Vivekananda. He became at once a favorite, socially and otherwise, and in the years immediately follow- ing he was occupied in giving courses of lectures in Chicago, Washington, New York and Boston. In the latter city he gave a series of four lectures before the Procopeia Club on Bhakti Yoga, Realization, The Ideal of a Universal Religion, and Readings from the Sanscrit. The eager following which anything occult always finds in Boston is edifying. It is, too, one of the signs of the times. So much of that present trend of speculative inquiry and discussion which is in the air to-day and is not infrequently designated as the "new" truth, is simply the truth as old as Christianity, as old as the Vedas, translated into new terms. The phrase very much in use, — " going into the silence," — which repre- sents a very real and vital spiritual experience, is, after DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 359 all, only another term for what the church knows as " communion with God." There is no real antagonism between the church as it has always existed, — as it exists to-day, — and the utmost spirituality of thought and inquiry, although it is perhaps true that the new terms into which the very teaching of the church has been translated do serve to popularize those truths and bring them in a more vital way before the people. Nothing, however, is more to be deprecated than that there should spring up the slightest approach to the attitude of considering the church merely as a formal institution, and life, in the higher spiritual sense, as outside it ; to speak of " outgrowing " the church ! Who is there, indeed, who has even grown to the full stature, the infinite possibilities ofibred in any church of whatever name, sect, or form ? If all this larger interest which includes much genuine and vital thought, would pour itself into the church, finding there its leadership and its strength, we might have, indeed, another '^ new awakening," not less searching than that of the day of Jonathan Edwards. The special teaching for which the work of Swami Vivekananda stands is the explanation and interpreta- tion of the Yedantic philosophy. His teaching included such passages as the following, taken from one of his lectures : — "The Karma Yogi asks why should you require any motive to work ? Be beyond motives. ' To work you have the right, but not to the fruits thereof.' Man can train himself to that, says the Karma Y'ogi. Any work 360 BOSTON DAYS that is done with a motive, instead of making us free, which is the goal, makes one more chain for our feet. So the only way is to give up all fruits of the work ; be non- attached. Know that this world is not ourselves or ourselves this world ; that we are really not the body ; that we really do not work. We are the self eternally at peace. Why should we be bound by anything? We must not weep. There is no weeping for the soul. . . . He works best who works without any motive power, neither for money nor anything else, and when a man can do that he will be a Buddha, and out of him will come the power to work in such a manner as to transform the world. This is the very ideal of Karma Yogi." The great movement under the general name of Christian Science was inaugurated in Boston and had its chief growth and development during the last quar- ter of the Nineteenth century. It is one that comprises many remarkable features. A very scholarly and important work was initiated in the modern Athens by the Society of Psychical Research under the direction of its accomplished secretary, Dr. Richard Hodgson, Professor William James, who has been one of the Presidents of the society ; Rev. Dr. Minot Judson Savage, and a large number of scholars and thinkers, including many of the most distinguished men and women in the country, have become active members of this society, which may be said to have scientifically demonstrated the actual nature of life after the change we call death. Of this work Dr. Hodgson says : — DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 361 " My interest in psychical research is greater than ever, and it seems to me highly probable that before many years have elapsed there will be much new and valuable testimony before the world as the result of the labors of our society in favor of the spiritualistic claim that it is possible for our departed friends, under special condi- tions, to make their continued existence known to us. It is my own conviction that such communication is possible, though I hold that it is not nearly as frequent as most spiritualists suppose." Professor Dolbear of Tufts College, whose study in the nature of the ether has resulted in discoveries most important to science, has demonstrated a great range of new possibilities, contributing incidentally to the com- prehension of psychic problems. Of the possibilities of the ether we find Professor Dolbear saying : — " However large is the physical universe, and however exact such relations as we have established may be, it is daily becoming more certain that we have to do with a factor — the ether — the properties of which we vainly strive to interpret in terms of matter, the undiscovered properties of which ought to warn every one against the danger of strongly asserting what is possible and what is impossible in the nature of things. With the electro- magnetic theory of light now just established, and the vortex-ring theory of matter still sub-judice but with daily increasing evidence in its favor, one may now be sure that matter itself is more wonderful than any philosopher ever thought. Its possibilities may have been vastly underrated." In reference to certain psychic phenomena Dr. Wil- liam James has said : — ^ 362 BOSTON DAYS " In all these cases we are, it seems to me, fairly forced to choose between a physical and a moral miracle. The physical miracle is that knowledge may come to a person otherwise than by the usual use of eyes and ears. The moral-miracle kind of deceit is so perverse and successful as to find no parallel in usual experience. In the medium- ship of Mrs. Piper, the medium who has for some years been under the auspices and control of the Society, there are constantly in evidence facts of experience that leave the most critical investigator without any conceivable hypothesis to fall back upon other than the genuineness of communication from the life beyond." It has been the province of psychic science to project its discoveries of the nature of the life beyond this. Religion, in its usual teaching, gives the great truths in mystical and figurative phrase. To recognize the Divine Father and Jesus the Christ, and to know that He is the way, the truth, and the life ; to accept the truth of the im- mortal nature of the soul, — this is the supremely im- portant matter ; but, as intelligent beings, who, by the law of evolution, are developing into constantly higher states, it may be as much a part of the true province of knowledge to extend the domain of investigation into the forces of spirit, as well as into those of nature. It is no less reverent, surely, to inquire into the nature and destiny of the soul than it is to inquire into the nature and use of the divine creation. The intelligent and faithful student of psychic science is working toward the discovery of the new immaterial world, as Columbus was toward the discovery of a new continent. In fact, as the two hemispheres of the East and the DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 363 West correspond, so are this world and that just beyond death in correspondence. The infinite progression of the soul is in states or series of lives. The one lying just beyond this does not differ from ours so greatly as has been believed. It is not a vague region somewhere in inconceivable space, where inconceivable beings wave palm branches ; but a world differing from this only in degree, and by a difference hardly more marked than that which lies between the New England of 1620 and of 1900. If one should dwell for a moment upon this land as the Pilgrims found it and on the meagre resources up to 1800 and later, as compared with the resources and activities of the past half century and more especially of those of the present decade, he will realize how the constantly growing control of higher forces of nature transforms the life of man. Psychic science demonstrates that those who have been liberated into that larger life by the process we name death find themselves in a realm where will and thought are forces. To will is to accomplish. The ethereal body is no longer subject to the law of gravita- tion. It is under the law of attraction. Communica- tion is carried on by that subtle and swift spiritual process of thought transference, or telepathy, which is the spirit language and of which those in this world are already gaining some knowledge. In this ethereal world a life similar to the present only higher in degree, is lived. There are libraries, temples of worship, halls of music, and art. There are the occupations of reading, writing, study, invention. The law of service prevails. 364 BOSTON DAYS Dr. John Fiske was one of the most important and distinguished thinkers whose influence was a determin- ing one during the last quarter of the Nineteenth century. His literary life falls easily into two " states " as dis- tinct from each other as a painter's — that of a com- mentator on ethical philosophy which occupied him for the twenty years between 1860-1880, and that of an historical and political ^vriter in the remaining years of his life. It is by the latter work that he is the more widely known, because he brought to bear an origi- nality, an initiative, and an assured energy on the latter that is less evident in the former. Dr. Fiske had an affinity for concrete facts. He was much more at home in the realm of the visible than, in that of the invisible, and while his intellect was of too clear and fine an order for him ever to deny or ignore the cloud of wit- nesses, he was still more easily in touch with things seen than with those unseen. Three of the most brilliant men in modern philosophy are Dr. William James, Prof. Josiah Royce, and (the late) Frederic W. H. Myers. Mr. Myers was also en- dowed with the poetic gift, and he had, pre-eminently, the scientific imagination, with a charm of mind and manner that always wrought its spell. These three men are all of the intuitive order. They have divination. With Dr. Fiske, his power was that of honest labor, of study and research, — intense persistence, — industry rather than inspiration, and one remembers : " All aspiration is a toil ; but inspiration cometh from above, And is no labor." DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 365 There can be no question, however, but that Dr. Fiske rendered valuable service to philosophy and even to some phases of spiritual truth, of whose claim to ac- ceptance he was by no means assured. His mind was singularly free from prejudice, open to truth wherever he might find it, and his profound and extensive scholarship gave him the splendid force of his perfectly trained faculties. The philosophical work of Dr. Fiske is deeply in- teresting. Involving no original discovery — as Mr. Frederic Myers made, for instance, in regard to the ^' subliminal " nature of man — it offers a series of creative interpretation of Darwin and Spencer and Huxley that has, perhaps, contributed more to popu- larize philosophy than has the work of any other single writer. Dr. Fiske took the discoveries formulated by Darwin, Spencer, and Huxley, breathed into them a still higher and deeper truth, stamped it with the impress of his own vigorous thought, and put it into general circulation. Is not this one of the greatest of services to con- temporary progress? One of the fine passages from Dr. Fiske is as follows : — "One of the greatest contributions ever made to scientific knowledge is Herbert Spencer's profound and luminous exposition of life as the continuous adjustment of inner relations to outer relations. The extreme sim- plicity of the subject in its earliest illustrations is such that the student at first hardly suspects the wealth of 366 BOSTON DAYS knowledge toward which it is pointing the way. . . . All life upon the globe, whether physical or psychical, repre- sents the continuous adjustment of inner to outer relations. The degree of life is low or high, according as the corre- spondence between internal or external relations is simple or complex, limited or extensive, partial or complete, perfect or imperfect." There are other passages, however, in the context with which the idealist would hardly agree, as when Dr. Fiske says that " a true theory is an adjustment of one's ideas to the external facts and that such adjust- ments are helps to successful living." Where would progress lie if one merely adjusted his ideas to the external facts? That is mediaeval. If America had adjusted her ideas to external facts we should still be travelling by stage-coach and canals. It is only as external facts are adjusted to our ideas that man advances. Thought must shape life. The idea must work outward and externalize and incarnate itself. The following paragraph from Dr. Fiske embodies his fine creative interpretation of evolution : — " So far as our knowledge of nature goes, the whole momentum of it carries us onward to the conclusion that the unseen world, as the objective term in a relation of fundamental importance that has co-existed with the whole career of mankind, has a real existence, and it is but following out the analogy to regard that unseen world as the theatre where the ethical process is destined to reach its full consummation. The lesson of evolution is that through all these weary ages the human soul has not been cherishing in religion a delusive phantom, but, in i DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 367 spite of seemingly endless groping and stumbling, it has been rising to the recognition of its essential kinship with the ever-living God. Of all the implications of the doc- trine of evolution with regard to man, I believe the very deepest and strongest to be that which asserts the ever- lasting reality of religion." There is a vast amount of original discovery that is not so valuable a contribution to social progress as is this carrying the theory of evolution on to higher planes by Dr. Fiske, and it may be that in this single respect lies the highest, the most useful, and the most perma- nent value of his honored life. Through an unforeseen circumstance Dr. Fiske was lead into the field of historical inquiry. In his early life when engaged in rather miscellaneous work as tutor in Harvard, and delighting his friends socially with his musical talent, Mr. Fiske one day called on Mrs. Hemenway for a confidential talk regarding ways and means. How many of the aspirants after nobler achievement went to this remarkable woman for counsel and suggestion only the recording angel could tell. " To live — to have spiritual force — is the great thing" was one of her favorite sayings; and another which she made a guiding rule of her life was : " God thinks of all beings, so should we ; a lovely spirit radiates." She was herself always hospitable to all genuine effort and aspiration; and in her talk with Mr. Fiske she sought the keynote of his interest and of his ability. She discussed with him his ethical ideas, — at which Harvard then looked askance, — his views 368 BOSTON DAYS of society and its betterment, his general outlook on life. Finally she told him of her deep interest in the " Old South " work, — its courses of lectures and general activity in promoting and diflPusing historical knowledge, and invited him to write and deliver an historical lecture, adding that he should receive $500 for it. Mr. Fiske instantly declined — declined perforce, he said; assuring her that he had neither taste nor inclina- tion toward historic themes, that history was entirely out of his line, and that, in short, such a work was too foreign to his nature to be possible. But Mrs. Hemen- way always believed in the great truth that there should be faith in the possibility of impressing others with the highest views. She was patient because she had the vision. She caught the outlook because she lived always on the heights. So she urged the young man to go home and try his hand at the historical lecture. Still protesting that he could not, he took his departure. But he did try; he succeeded to Mrs. Hemenway's satisfaction if not to his own, and she urged him to follow this effort with a second one. From this time he set forth on his excursions into this new field of litera- ture with the result that he achieved an unqualified success. Dr. Fiske will perhaps be most permanently remem- bered as the thinker who has bridged the gulf between the Darwinian theory of evolution and the spiritual philosophy of Hegel, Kant, and Emerson. In one lec- ture he said : " If the cosmic force of the universe were DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 369 placed on one side and the psychic force of man on the other, the latter would outweigh the former." The home of Mrs. Mary Hemenway was in Mount Vernon Street, on Beacon Hill, — a large, old-fashioned house of a half century ago, with spacious, sunny rooms, in which were gathered many rare and beauti- ful treasures of art in paintings, sculpture, and bric-a- brac. The family keep her rooms very much as she left them, and her beautiful presence still seems to pervade the house. She is among those who, though vanished into the unknown, are held in daily remembrance in Boston. Many of the perpetual benefactions that go on quietly and regularly year after year, with as little parade about them as the movement of the solar system, are due to Mrs. Hemenway. One of these is the system of " Old South " lectures, as they are locally known — a series given each summer, in the Old South Church. Mrs. Hemenway founded these lectures, making them free to all, — the necessary restriction of the audience being that each applicant apply, in his own handwriting with a stamped and addressed envelope for a course ticket, which is sent by return post. If ever there was literally a power behind a throne it was Mrs. Hemen- way. The throne was her multitude of good works ; the power was herself. She had a very potent rather than prominent individuality. She possessed the art of detaching her personality from her philanthropies to a singular degree. How she contrived during long years of such active participation in public work to elude the 24 370 BOSTON DAYS omnipresent interviewer and personal paragraph er is a mystery. Her name is less widely or less generally known, than that of multitudes of trivial and insig- nificant people who contrive some way to be always flaunting themselves in public view. The character of Mrs. Hemenway offers a most interesting study. She was a gentlewoman of an older day. She had a quiet and gentle dignity of manner, a refinement and a certain impressiveness of the good sense that distin- guished her. She would not have been called a brilliant woman, yet to this great natural poise and solidity of intellect she added a symmetry of culture in literature, art, and social life that would have graced society in any part of the world. In personal ap- pearance she was plain, although no one could ever fail to recognize the stamp of the '' dame of high degree " about her. Her face was rather long and thin, and this aspect was emphasized by the way she wore her hair, combed down in plain bands over the ears in the fashion of a bygone age, albeit a little revived at present. Her costuming had always a certain air of quiet elegance, and her presence on any social occasion was one to inspire an interest in learning her views of life and affairs. She had the presence that inspired one with a feeling that he would like to talk with her — or to hear her talk — more freely than the time or place would allow. To her more intimate circle she was a most interesting woman. She entered sympathetically into many phases of life, and whether one saw her as the grande dame, giving the most elaborate ball of the DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 371 season for her granddaughter, or as the philanthropist, she was always the central figure. One very marked trait in her character was the eminent balance of judgment with which she justly appreciated, but never over or under estimated, her wealth. Mrs. Hemenway had virtual control of a large fortune. She was the daughter of a wealthy New York merchant — a Mr. Tileston from whom she inherited large estates, and her hue : :.ad, the late Augustus Hemenway, of Boston, made a large fortune in South American silver mines. While she appreciated at its value and held as a responsibilitj her great fortune, she never failed to estimate quali!:ie3 of cl: racter as values far above money. She might shower material blessings as a friend or neighbor in all conceivable ways of delicate and valuable gifts, important aid, and benefactions in general ; but if the friend gave he- in return the com- panionship that she prized, she held herself to be the debtor, the person who was under special obligation. This was a very marked as well as beautiful trait in her character, and illustrates the refined quality of her mind. If she gave one bread and salt, and he gave her thought, suggestion, sympathetic companionship, she counted herself the person who received favors and benefits, not the one conferring them. Mrs. Hemenway 's philanthropies were very extended and took largely an educational form. History and ethnology enlisted her profound interest. It was she who enabled Mr. Gushing to pursue his studies of the 372 BOSTON DAYS Zuni Indians, and it was she, also, who made pos- sible the preservation of that venerable historic relic, the "Old South," donating, herself, half the sum — $200,000 — required for saving it, and she alone es- tablished it as an institute of history with its present system of mid-summer lectures. The visit of Matthew Arnold, the distinguished poet and critic, to Boston in the early eighties was an event of profound interest. He delivered the three lectures (which are now published in the volume entitled ^' Dis- courses in America ") before large and attentive audiences ; and in his incomparable critique on Emer- son he sought to approach truth by the law of ex- clusion. Emerson was not a great philosopher, he asserted ; he was not, as judged by Milton's test, a great poet ; he was not even a great man of letters. The hearers listened — could one ever forget that hour ? — in breathless amazement. There sat the majestic form of Phillips Brooks ; a little farther on, and the keen, delicate, searching countenance of Dr. Holmes was seen in profile ; Mrs. Howe's uplifted face with luminous eyes; all around sat men and women of world- renowned fame, and all — perhaps without a single ex- ception — ■ worshippers of Boston's idol — Ralph Waldo Emerson. What would happen to Mr. Arnold ? one inwardly questioned. Would they fall upon him and rend him — these embodiments of Boston's finest culture ? One was not half sure that he did not long that they should, for Emerson was the universal idol, the star of devotion. But one waited. What would DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 373 Mr. Arnold say? What did he say? He said that Emerson was " the friend and the aider of those who would live in the spirit." There was the magnificent affirmative at last, whose force and splendor of signifi- cance overbore a thousand denials and negatives about men of letters, or even poets. For the life of the spirit is the one supreme end for which all live, — the end toward which all creation travelleth ; nay, it is the only life ; for when one does not live in the spirit, he does not live at all ; he merely — exists. The Lowell Institute, which is always the theatre of great thought, has always been peculiarly fortunate in securing among its lecturers the great specialists in modern science, as well as the most thoughtful critics of literature and life. Among the great lectures of recent years must be noted that of Dr. Albert A. Michelson, the inventor of the " echelon spectroscope," by which the measurement of a beam of light may be obtained, — a new achievement in science. Dr. Michel- son is one of the younger men who are already leading authorities on physics. He has made discoveries which give him the first rank in science. German by lineage and birth, be passed his boyhood in California and, entering the Naval Academy at Annapolis, was in the navy for eleven years after graduating. Before he was twenty-three he had made original discoveries which rendered his name familiar to European savants. As the years passed it became evident that he had work to do requiring freedom and entire devotion, and he left the navy for the laboratory. Later be was for three 374 BOSTON DAYS years professor in Clark University at Worcester, Mass., and from thence accepted a chair in the University of Chicago. His lectures before the Lowell Institute discussed "Light Waves and their Application," in- cluding wave-motion, the spectrum analysis, the ap- plications of light waves to astronomical measurements, the measurement of double stars, of diameters of satellites, the possibility of determining the size of stars, and the effects of magnetism on light. Professor Michelson has devised an exact and verifi- able system of measurement by means of light waves. For this, and for the invention of a still more intricate apparatus called the echelon spectroscope, the French government awarded to him a medal, and the exposi- tion authorities have given him pre-eminence in the science department. The instrument measuring light is called the ^' interferometer." It was found that the length of a wave of light of a certain color is always the same under similar conditions of temperature. There is no spot on the globe where the interferometer may not be used to measure off the length of a metre in light. The red light in a shaft of white sunshine may be singled out and its progress measured in wave lengths, and a million and a half of these are found equal to the length of the metre. Professor Michelson's interferometer consists of a set of prisms which divide light into these wave lengths. He counted fifteen hundred of these waves and found that it required exactly a thousand times that number to make the length of the Paris metre. DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 375 His device of the echelon spectroscope, for which he received the pre-eminence, is the most delicate optical instrument ever made. It enables science to divide light ten times more minutely than ever before, and it is the most important work done in physics in many years. Professor Michelson demonstrated the practicability of his spectroscope months before he succeeded in getting a lensmaker to undertake the work of constructing the new instrument. In the scientific museum at Sevres is this interfero- meter, invented by Dr. Michelson. In his early youth he was in Heidelberg, Berlin, and Paris for scientific study, and enjoyed a range of privileges open only to great scholars. The distinguished Von Helmholtz called upon him, — an honor enjoyed by few. Noted savants in Paris gave him the most cordial recogni- tion. Dr. Michelson's lectures before the Lowell In- stitute discussed light waves and their interference and measurement; the utilization of these waves by microscope and telescope ; the outline of spectrum analysis ; the determination of the standard miles and the measurements of double stars, of the diameters of satellites and smaller planets, the possibility of determining the size of stars, the effect of mag- netism on light, the ether, and the evidence for the existence of a medium which propagates the light waves. Modern science is not only the fairyland of the poet, but it is the great living fountain of truth out of which spiritual as well as physical laws are discovered. 376 BOSTON DAYS It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that there is nothing in the modern development of science that is not more or less clearly prophesied in the prose or the poetry of Emerson. He was the great spiritual seer, greater than even his most devoted disciple has yet conceived. It will require the progress of another century to adequately realize how lofty and far- discern- ing was Emerson's quality of mind. He was evidently in spiritual rapport with unseen forces and high intelli- gences. His works are full of vital hints and rich suggestions, which are more and more emerging from a nebulous state into the practical actualities of daily experience. For instance, in the discovery of liquid air we have a transparent, sparkling fluid that boils on ice, freezes pure alcohol, and burns steel ; one cannot but recall the prophetic intimation of this in Emerson's line, " Makes flame to freeze and ice to boil," in a line in his poem entitled " Spiritual Laws," a part of which runs : — » " Sole and self-commanded works Fears not undermining days ; Grows by decays, And by the famous might that lurks In reaction and recoil. Makes flame to freeze and ice to boil." Another of the remarkable courses of scientific lec- tures before the Lowell Institute was that by Prof. T. J. J. See, on "Sidereal Astronomy," in which he announced a new nebular theory. This lecture was an event in contemporary scientific progress. Dr. DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 377 See is one of the eminent body of astronomers who made prominent the work at Flagstaff, Arizona, the Observatory established by Prof. Percival Lowell, and which is in some respects the most important centre of late of astronomical activities. Recently Dr. See was appointed Director of the Naval University in Washington. He has announced a new discovery in astronomical physics which gives to science an absolutely new law, one that supersedes and, indeed, negatives the famous nebular hypothesis of La Place, which was that the luminous bodies are now cooling from a heated and in- candescent state. Professor See's hypothesis is just the opposite of this, his theory being that all the starry, planetary, and nebulous bodies are growing hotter, and that their temperatures vary inversely to the radii, — that is, the less the radius, the greater the heat ; the greater the radius, the less the heat. It is a tremendous event if a man has now arisen who discovers a new theory that completely revolution- izes the astronomical hypothesis that has heretofore been accepted and held since its first promulgation by La Place. His conception, as finally elaborated, is that all the celestial bodies first existed in disconnected matter, which, under the law of gravitation, became gradually resolved into nebulae and is now on its way to become solid bodies. La Place conceived that all matter in its nebulous and pre-nebulous stage is in- tensely hot, becoming incandescent ; then appearing in a state of white heat, like Sirius ; then red, like Aide- 378 BOSTON DAYS baran, and still later becoming black, non-luminous, and invisible. During his researches at Flagstaff, Dr. See found discrepancies in this theory which refused to fit existing facts. He was making a specialty of the study of multiple stars; he was engaged in profound mathe- matical calculations, especially in reference to the dark twin companion of Sirius, and it was during this pro- longed period of research that it first occurred to him that the fundamental idea itself, which he, in com- mon with all the astronomers since La Place, had accepted as the foundation of all work, — that this hypothesis was, in itself, wrong ; and that the true theory might be that all the attenuated nebulae was in a gaseous, but not heated, state. Experimenting, then, on this basis, he found that it fitted in with a constantly increasing array of facts. He began to believe that the tenuous nebulae, instead of being in a state of intense heat, is instead very near the '^ absolute zero " of physics, which is some 500 degrees below the zero of the Fahrenheit scale. Subsequently, the stages of these bodies were of increasing heat; and Dr. See pointed out that very bright stars, as Sirius and Vega, are approaching the end of their cosmic life, and are on the way to become dark and invisible. The sun is approaching the state where it will give off less heat ; but as the change is yet some millions of years in the future, this fact will not affect the market price of coal. One statement made by Dr. See peculiarly appeals to the imagination — DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 379 the assertion that the heavens are probably full of dark bodies that, having outlived their luminous stages, are not visible, and also of far grander and more vast bodies of nebulse than have been yet discovered. If this hypothesis shall prove to be one that is accepted by modern science and adopted as the working basis for all future speculative research in astro-physics, the date of its announcement in Boston, before the choice and critical audience inseparably associated with the Lowell Institute, was on the evening of Jan. 10, 1899, a very memorable date in scientific history. Not since the lectures of Prof. Benjamin Pierce in 1879 — twenty years before — had there been given under the distinguished auspices of the Lowell Institute a course of scientific lectures so important as that on " Sidereal Astronomy " by Dr. See. Thomas Jefferson Jackson See was born near Mont- gomery City, Mo., in 1866. His father, Noah See, is a descendant of an old German family, the name being originally Zhee. His ancestors came to America before the War of the Revolution, and some members of the family did good service in that war. The elder See was a civil engineer, a man of great intelligence, and ^ lover of books. The son was a quiet, thoughtful lad, who was temperamentally attracted to the intense observation of natural phenomena. His mathematical instincts dominated him. He would lie on the ground and watch the tops of waving trees and try to see in them a rhythmic harmony. He instinctively counted every- thing. He lost himself in Humboldt's " Cosmos" with 380 BOSTON DAYS the most absorbed attention, and he became fascinated with the work of Helmholtz — who was afterward to be his instructor, little as the lad could then have dreamed of the privilege. Yet he did dream of things as won- derful. The world outside his horizon line haunted his imagination. In his early teens he decided that he would go to Germany to study. " The attractions are pro- portional to the destinies," says Emerson, and Mr. See proved the truth of this. It is related tliat an old Quaker replied to a man who was describing the admirable system of activities, by means of which every moment of his time was filled " And, friend, when does thee think ? " Mr. See found time to think. It is a privilege that college or uni- versity cannot invariably insure to its students. The early opportunities offered to him were meagre, and still this very lack of outward fulness facilitated in his case the inner progress. His nature required solitude and leisure rather than society and exacting demand. He entered the University of Missouri taking the clas- sical and scientific courses united, and graduated in four years with brilliant triumphs. He had made a constant companion of La Place's " Mechanique Celeste," and he then adopted the nebular hypothesis of this astronomer, with much enthusiasm, little divining that within ten years his own work would negative its meaning and prove that its reverse were true. During his last two years at the university he spent his vacations at work in its Observatory, and it was there that he initiated the special interest of his life and began DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 381 to observe and study the problems of double stars. It occurred to him that no one had ever made research into their development, and his thesis (which gained for him the Missouri astronomical medal) took for its subject " The Origin of Binary Stars." His dream of entering the University of Berlin was fulfilled in 1889, and setting out for that city, alone, without friends, and carrying with him only a letter of introduction from the Governor of Missouri to the authorities at Berlin, he was yet admitted to all the rich resources. During four years he studied under Helmholtz, Zoller, and others of the great German masters. During the vacations he travelled in Egypt, Greece, Italy, and England, and not only familiarized himself with the noted places of antiquity, but became acquainted with many celebrated men, among whom was the younger Darwin. One of the memorable nights in Boston was that when the Viking hero. Dr. Nansen, appeared, to describe the marvellous effects of life in the Polar regions. A great reception had been given in his honor and all the enthusiasts of the town who could by any possibility crowd into Music Hall and its adjoining corridors, were in evidence. For that moment, at least, Dr. Nansen was considered to be in many respects the greatest man of the Nineteenth century. " His tongue was framed to music, And his hand was armed with skill ; His face was the mould of beauty, And his heart the throne of will." 382 BOSTON DAYS These lines of Emerson's seemed written to describe the tall, fair sea-king ; the typical Viking — blond, slender, tall, and well-built as a pine-tree from his native northland, with those brilliant, sapphire-blue eyes, flashing and all-comprehensive, that indicate the electric temperament which is born to conquer and prevail. " There are men," says Emerson, " who, by their sympathetic attractions, carry nations with them and lead the activity of the human race. Wherever the mind of such a man goes nature will accompany him ; perhaps there are men whose magnetisms are of that force to draw material and elemental powers, and where they appear immense instrumentalities organize around them." This elixir of power, distilled, who shall say how or where by some alchemy of mind and soul, seemed the gracious and lavish dower of Dr. Nan sen. The man was still more fascinatingly interesting than the achieve- ment. This electric temperament that dominates all it meets as inevitably as the stone falls by the law of gravitation ; that magnetizes toward it event and cir- cumstance and the aid of men and organizes all these forces into one aim, is a deeply interesting study. One recalls William Watson's wonderful lines : — " Spirits, with whom the stars connive To work their will." Napoleon once said : " All the great captains have performed vast achievements by conforming with the rules of the art — by adjusting efforts to obstacles." DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 383 This describes Dr. Nansen's method. The special idea on which he based his entire Polar expedition has hardly been emphasized as yet. It was precisely on this great truth — to conform with the prevailing laws — to " adjust efforts to obstacles " that Dr. Nansen confronted the fact of the ice drift in the polar regions. Heretofore all explorers had encountered it as an ob- stacle. Dr. Nansen proposed to take advantage of it as an assistance. It was merely the decision to row with the tide and not against it ; to conform with the law of gravitation, and not oppose it ; to saw with the grain of the wood and not across it. In its various applications this law is the key of all successful en- deavor, and of all happiness. Most people are born with some predetermined bias of inclination and tempera- ment, and he is the successful man who follows this through good report or through evil report, as may be, through ease or through hardship ; but, in any case, with fidelity to his star. Whether it " pays " — in the cant of the world — is of no consequence. That which is of consequence is that one should develop the best that is in him as it is for this cause that he comes into the world. " I can live At least my soul's life, without alms from men, And if it be in heaven instead of earth, Let heaven look to it — I am not afraid." Mrs. Browning's noble words are the most practicable of counsels. The unhappiness and the misfortunes of life are largely those that spring from not keeping faith "with one's ideals. 384 BOSTON DAYS Certainly Dr. Nansen kept faith with his. He pondered over this fact of the ice drift, and that which has been the chief and insurmountable obstacle to previous explorers became to him ways and means, an ally of nature's. This is the secret of all successful achievement, — to discern the laws of nature and put one's self in harmony with them. Men are now learn- ing to harness the lightning, to make the cataract of Niagara do labor in New York, and as these natural forces are taken advantage of, in that proportion does life become useful, beautiful, and enjoyable. Dr. Nansen conceived the plan of building a ship that should with- stand ice pressure and thus float with the tide in that current that leads to the open polar sea. Navigators said it could not be done ; that the grind of the ice in winter, at all events, when the huge masses are like mountains of granite, would crush any ship ever built. His reply was to build the " Fram," which withstood the pressure, and after three years' voyaging safely returned. The story of this voyage and the explorations by sledge after leaving the ship held spellbound the large and brilliant audience that assembled to assist at the appearance of the great explorer. Of the experience when they entered into the frozen silence of the winter night Dr. Nansen said : — '^ Among our scientific pursuits may also be mentioned the determining of the temperature of water and its degree of saltness at varying depths ; the collection and examination of such animals as are to be found in these DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 385 northern seas; the ascertaining of the amount of elec- tricity in the air and other things. One salient feature in all the voyage was the exquisite purity of the air and the consequent freedom from illness or even lassitude, which indicates that the human body is far more depend- ent on good air than has ever been realized." Describing the scene he gave this vivid picture : — "Nothing more beautiful can exist than the arctic night. It is dreamland painted in the imagination's most delicate tints. It is color etherealized. One shade melts into the other so you cannot tell where one ends and the other begins, and yet they are all there. No forms — it is all faint, dreamy color music. A far-away, long-drawn art melody on united strings. Is not all life's beauty high and delicate and pure like this night? Give it colors and it is no longer so beautiful. The sky is like an enormous cupola, blue at the zenith, shading down into green, and then into lilac and violet at the edges. Over the ice fields there are cold, violet-blue shadows, with lighter pink tints where a ridge here and there catches the last reflection of the vanished day. Up in the blue of the cupola shine the stars, speaking peace as they always do, those unchanging friends. In the south stands a large, red-yellow moon, encircled by a yellow ring and light golden clouds floating on a blue back- ground. Presently the aurora borealis shakes over the vault of heaven its veil of glittering silver, changing now to yellow, now to green, now to red. It spreads, it con- tracts again in restless change ; next it breaks into waving, many- folded bands of shining silver, over which shoot billows of glittering rays, and then the glory van- ishes. Presently it shimmers in tongues of flame over the very zenith, and then again it shoots a bright ray 25 386 BOSTON DAYS right up from the horizon, until the whole melts away in the moonlight, and it is as though one heard the sigh of a departing spirit. Here and there are left a few waving streamers of light, vague as a foreboding — they are the dust from the aurora's glittering cloak. But now it is growing again ; now lightnings shoot up, and the endless game begins afresh. And all the time this utter stillness, impressive as the symphony of infinitude." Prof. Percival Lowell, the graDdson of the founder of the Lowell Institute, is an eminent scholar and traveller. Passing many years in the Orient he wrote a valuable book called "The Soul of the Far East," a fine interpretation of its inner life, and when it was announced that he would give a course of four lectures on " Japanese Occultism " before the Lowell Institute a wide interest was aroused. Of late years Professor Lowell has assumed the directorship of his own Observatory in Arizona, w^here he has contributed to Astronomy many valuable observations. Another of the great courses of Lowell Institute lectures was that of Rev. G. Frederick Wright, D.D., LL.D., professor of the Harmony of Science and Reve- lation in Oberlin. His series of lectures on the *^ Scien- tific Aspect of Christian Evidences " was one of the most notable features of the intellectual life of Boston, and they were indeed of so unusual a character as to be only described as epoch-making. The scientist who is a theologian, the theologian who is a scientist, are united in Dr. Wright. His course was one so exceptional in its character, not only in a DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 387 peculiarly vital and suggestive and stimulating effect on the mind of the hearer but also in its great fund of information, as to leave a profound impression on the audiences. Dr. Wright was born in Whitehall, N. Y., in the romantic Lake George region, whose scenery, doubtless, fostered his inclination to study nature. With two of his brothers he graduated at Oberlin, and he filled the chair of Christian Evidences in his Alma Mater for twelve years, before the creation of his present professorship, — the chair of Harmony of Science and Revelation. Before this, however, he had been settled in his first ministry in a small town in Vermont, where, in the intervals of pastoral work, he began studying the geological formation, and there formulated the theory of the terminal moraine which he was destined afterward to verify and to record with such scholarly detail and scientific authority. Later he was called to Andover, and a friend condoled with him as being settled in a place where there was no opportunity for his geological re- search. ^^But the opportunity I found in my own backyard," he said smilingly, "in the rifts of sand." Dr. Wright's discovery of the terminal moraine (the limit of the glacial drift) brought him into note among scientists. Called to Oberlin, he was a distinguished figure in the Society for Historical Research of the Western Reserve, and from 1883-86 was occupied in scientific work for the government. He visited Alaska in 1886 — just before the tourist period began — and passed a month encamped at the foot of the Muir 388 BOSTON DAYS glacier. The sublimity of the scenery there surpasses all description, he has said. Constantly there resounds the deafening crash as huge masses of the glacier break and fall. It will be remembered that the noted book, " The Ice Age in America," is by Dr. Wright, and it is one whose interest rivals that of romance. In the summer of 1896 he visited Greenland, one of the scientists on board the ill-starred " Miranda," and in a work called *^ Greenland Ice Fields and Life in North America," are embodied the observations of that momentous journey. The death of Prof. Benjamin Apthorp Gould of Harvard, the distinguished astronomer, which occurred in 1896, removed another of the great lecturers associated with the Lowell Institute. It may be remembered that it was Dr. Gould who founded the Observatory at Cordova, in the Argen- tine Republic, and devoted forty years to the work of studying the Southern heavens. The story of his life is one of singular interest. He was born in Boston (in 1826), and was one of those precocious children of the earlier New England life. A child who read at the age of three, who was translating Horace at five, and writing essays upon electricity and other scientific topics at the age of ten, graduating from Harvard at nineteen, and enjoying the friendships of such men as Humboldt and Gauss before he was twenty-five, — it will be seen that his was an unusual individuality. In Paris he studied astronomy under Arago, and returning to America he entered into work with an energy of vigor and a power of original insight that wrought new DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 389 results. For instance, it was Dr. Gould who first thought of using electricity to determine longitudinal distances. He founded (in 1867) the first astronomical journal ever published in this country, carrying it on some fifteen years at his own expense. He organized the Dudley Observatory. But the great and distinctive work of his life was that done in South America. At Cordova he founded an Observatory which has grown to be one of the most superbly appointed of the world. He has contributed largely to the literature of astronom- ical science, his most significant work being entitled *^ Urananetry of the Southern Heavens." For sixteen years he devoted himself to studying the Southern heavens by night and recording by day. He made four dififerent independent observations of each star before deciding on the result. Dr. Gould took his family with him to South America, and they shared patiently the long exile from home and friends. On his return (in 1885) Dr. Holmes was the poet at a banquet given to hira, and some stanzas of this post-prandial greeting run : — " Science has kept her midnight taper burning To greet thy coming with its vestal flame ; Friendship has murmured, ' When art thou returning 1 ' ' Not yet ! Not yet ! ' the answering message came. *' Thine was unstinted zeal, unchilled devotion. While the blue realm had kingdoms to explore — Patience, like his who ploughed the unfurrowed ocean, Till o'er its margin loomed San Salvador." 390 BOSTON DAYS Dr. Gould held an important place among American astronomers, in that his work has been of the largest scope and involving discoveries and corroboration of important theories. His work in mapping the Southern heavens corresponds, indeed, to that of the famous Argelander in exploring and recording the stars of the Northern heavens. He w^as the great pioneer in the astronomical work of this country ; and his voluntary exile and unwearied work, amid deprivations and loss and discomforts, revealed a quality of spirit unusually brave and heroic. Prof. Rhys Davids, Ph.D., LL.D., the secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society in London, gave a course of six lectures on ^' Buddhism " before the Lowell Insti- tute. The special topics to be considered are " Evolu- tion of Religious Thought in India," " Buddhist Books," "The Life of the Buddha," "The Secret of Buddha in the Circle of Life and the Four Truths," "Mystic Trance and Arahatship," and " The Ideal of the Later Buddhism." Professor Davids is a profound Oriental scholar and a man of unquestionable authority ; but he expounded Buddhism as a man would expound Christianity who judged it exclusively from the time of the early Chris- tian Fathers. Still another of the great lecture courses of the Lowell Institute was that of Prof. Hugo Munster- berg of Harvard on "The Results of Experimental Psychology," and the Lowell Institute was as crowded as if the issues of life and death were involved in hear- DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 391 ing the popular German professor with the fascinating foreign accent. Professor Mtinsterberg declared that this science stands now about where physics did in the Seventeenth century, — that is to say, that in the true sense there are as yet no "results." Its chief result he finds in the fact that we know our mental states are endlessly more complex, and oifer more difficulties to the understanding than any former psychology imagined. Such statements as this from a learned foreigner capti- vated Boston, which is everlastingly sure that its own mental states are far more complex, more profound, and more vitally important than those of any other com- munity. Boston was, indeed, so engaged in this fasci- nating problem of its own mental condition that it experienced a rapturous joy in hearing them so ably analyzed from the very latest and most approved scien- tific point of view. A course given by Professor James of Harvard on "Exceptional Mental States" produced a profound impression, a course whose specific subjects were "Dreams and Hypnotism," "Hysteria,*' "Automatism," "Multiple Personality," "Demoniacal Possessions," "Witchcraft," "Degeneration," and "Genius," and which excited the deepest interest on the part of all interested in metaphysical speculation and psychical phenomena. Under its present curator. Prof. William E. Sedgwick, the Lowell Institute has entered on a still greater scope of power and splendor, and its platform represents the highest results of modern thought in literature, history. 392 BOSTON DAYS political and social economy, art, jurisprudence, science, and ethics. Boston has always been the most sympathetic and hospitable of cities to both the lyric and dramatic stage, and the critical appreciation given to Rachel, Edwin Forrest, Fechter, Edwin Booth, and Adelaide ISTeilson repeated itself during the last two decades of the Nine- teenth century when the greatest stars of the latter day drama, Madame Sarah Bernhardt, Mrs. Agnes Booth (now Mrs. John Schoeffel), Sir Henry Irving and Miss Ellen Terry, and Signora Duse appeared from time to time. Other actors of importance and authentic claim to histrionic greatness were also seen during this period, and Boston has been singularly fortunate in having in her midst a great critic of the drama, Mr. Henry A. Clapp, whose faithful and brilliant work as one of the most critical interpreters known to the modern stage, has been further extended by many courses of his lectures on the Shakspearian drama that have been in the nature of an educational illumination on dramatic art. Mr. Clapp's finely discriminating work, both as the critic on the more important presen- tation of each season, and as the lecturer before the Lowell Institute and on other platforms, has contributed immeasurably both to the higher progress of the drama and to the general enlightenment of the people. The appearance of Signora Duse in Boston was an event of moment; considering that her language was far less familiar than that of French to the average audience, and that her plays were neither great nor new, the DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 393 interest registered tlie remarkable power of her person- ality and the force of her art Her repertoire was limited to " Camille," " Fedora," and the Uvo short plays " Cavalleria Rusticana " and ^' La Locandrera " played as a double bill at one performance. The play of " Camille/' though a perennial favorite, has long since lost the charm of novelty, and ^^ Fedora" is not an attractive play as a whole, while the two brief plays were transcriptions of Italian peasant life offering no charm of scenery or dress, but portraying with match- less art that phase of Italy. The contrast of temperament between Signora Duse and Madame Bernhardt is, if not as wide as a barn- door, or as deep as a well, at least one to impress itself. Madame Bernhardt, electric, vivacious, and Parisienne to her finger-tips, overflows with observation and com- ment. She is sympathetic ; she. is attuned by tempera- ment and training to be en evidence. Signora Duse is remote by temperament. The currents are not in play, and she is, too, far less cosmopolitan than Bernhardt. Speaking no English, she finds it difficult to enter into the life around her. The French feel far less any bar- rier of language than do the Italians or Russians. The French language is so universally that of educated people the world over that the difibrence of race is hardly felt. In Madame Duse one saw a tall, slender woman, yet not characterized by the willowy grace of Madame Bern- hardt: with an interesting presence, but not one of 394 BOSTON DAYS beauty or even charm ; with a countenance strong, mobile, and capable of the most subtle gradations of expression; black, abundant hair, and dark, luminous eyes, — eyes that would redeem even positive plainness into something not unlike beauty. She has the most expressive face that one may see on the stage to-day. But all this that is studied at first is forgotten after all, as the play proceeds. Never was there an artist of such marvellous, such incredible self-effacement. Her own personality disappears from her creation as that of a painter from an ideal figure he had painted on canvas. Her " Camille " offers, virtually, an original creation, and has little in common with that of Bernhardt or of Modjeska. The character is less accented and is held to a perfectly consistent conception. There is a per- ceptible shade less of the delicacy and modesty that characterizes women of the monde rather than of the demi-monde, though never degenerating into any posi- tive repulsiveness ; but a suggestion of Bohemianism which would not be seen in refined life. There is also a touch of business shrewdness, finally conquered by love, in her relations with Armand. The death scene is per- fectly quiet, and the entire efiect from first to last is eminently natural. Her dressing is dainty, rich, and beautiful, but her gowns are the costumes of the draw- ing-room and not of the stage. They are artistic, and not theatrical. The great seasons of Wagner opera in Boston under the conduct of Walter Damrosch were events of magni- tude and of far-reaching importance. Aside from their DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 395 enjoyment, they offered such store of culture, of stimu- lus, of imaginative development as only can be gained from the operas of Wagner. Walter Damrosch himself is a remarkable person- ality. Notwithstanding the claim that Alvary, Sucher, Marie Brema, Rothmuhl, Klafsky, Lilli Lehrnann, Hen Schott, and Fraulein Gadski made the most wonder- ful group of Wagner artists the world has known, it could almost be said that the star of an opera was Walter Damrosch. Promptly to the minute he was in his place in the orchestra grasping his baton. From this moment — 7-30 p. m. — until 12, and in the longer operas until half or three-quarters of an hour later, he fulfilled his arduous duties with a perfection of preci- sion, a universal perception of the movements of each member of his orchestra and of everything on the stage, that was extraordinary. Did the fairies bend over his cradle and lay upon him the spell of rhythmic charmed success ? Was it as unique in its nature as the magic fire that surrounds Briinhilde when she is left to her long sleep on the mountain ? For this ability to always be ready, to always fill one's place and do one's work and be in perfect rhythmic accord with the occasion, is far more a matter of psychic than of physical power. It was interesting to watch the conductor as he wielded the baton. A skilled student in physiognomy says that Mr. Damrosch has the Beethoven mouth and the Napoleonic nose. His brow is broad and square and of an almost classic perfection of outline. His countenance has the glow and fineness of the in- 396 BOSTON DAYS spirational, and the firmness and purpose of the execu- tive power. A New York critic says that Walter Damrosch was born with a golden spoon in his mouth. He was born "with something better, of which perhaps the golden spoon may be typical, — a fund of psychic energy which manifests itself in persistence of purpose. When the elder Damrosch died, it seemed incredible that the son should take up the baton. He was young ; he was inexperienced ; and to be the leader of an orchestra of seventy-five musicians demanded something more than the musical ability alone. It means the ability to get along well, as the phrase goes, with his artists ; to preserve discipline among a large body of men, many of whom were greatly his senior in years ; it meant, too, preserving artistic enthusiasm and inspir- ing their personal loyalty. Anton Seidl was in the field, a formidable rival. Yet conditions are always conquerable to the conquerors. Walter Damrosch is the conqueror born. He is a natural leader. He wins, he pleases, he inspires, he compels. He has great magnetism and bonhomie. He is generous, ardent, enthusiastic, and high-souled. He has also a remarkable balance of judgment ; he is artistic in his ardor, discriminating in his enthusiasm. He is not carried away by a whim or a fantasy. He has a large endowment of that common sense which Guizot pronounces the ^' genius of humanity." All this successful accomplishment of a purpose has its springs in that intense psychical energy whose mani- festation is persistence. Herbert Spencer discovered DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 397 that the secret of the universe lies in persistence of en- ergy ; no less does the secret of individual success. This persistence of energy characterizes Mr. Damrosch. If he undertakes anything he achieves it. It may be the im- possible — but it is conquered all the same. Ways and means are to him a mere detail. He was born to arrive. On a night still within the memory of Boston opera- goers when " Lohengrin " was to be presented and the Boston Theatre was resplendent with an audience that thronged its interior even to standing room, there was an inexplicable delay. Finally, it was rumored that the hero of the evening had been sud- denly taken ill, and a substitute was being sought. The great Alvary, regarding himself as free that night, had chosen the evening for a pedestrian excursion in regions where his discovery was hopeless. Four thousand people were awaiting — not too patiently — the Knight of the Holy Grail, when Mr. Damrosch, with the inspiration of his temperament, dashed in a cab to the Castle Square Theatre, procured at great financial sacrifice a singer who had familiarized himself with the role, and the performance was saved. It was entirely characteristic of Mr. Damrosch's daily experi- ences. He expects the impossible and finds it. He is not a conjurer or magician (though the results often seem to indicate a species of magic), but he uses, con- sciously or unconsciously, as may be, this intense quality of psychic energy which creates its own results. It is a potency that has its right of way all through the universe. 398 BOSTON DAYS On another memorable night of a Damrosch opera season, the house was resplendent with beauty, fashion, and fame. It was thronged from orchestra to upper gallery by one of those critical and notable audiences that the Wagner opera always draws in musical Boston. The curtain rolled up on the stage scene of " Tristan and Isolde," and a strong cast, with Paul Kalisch and that great artist, Lilli Lehmann, in the title r51es ; with Riza Ebenschuetz, a new singer, as Brangene, and that signal public favorite, Emil Fischer, as King Mark. Mr. Damrosch looked up with that swift, electric glance of his which seems to reveal the perfect rapport that exists between himself and the singers on the stage as well as between him and his orchestra, and the great music-drama began. Mme. Lilli Lehmann did not need to add the charm of novelty to her other attractions, but as it had been seven years since she was last seen here there was, to some extent, a new public for her, — a new audience, who came to see and hear, and who departed conquered, as she has always conquered her audiences. She is a remarkable artist, perhaps the greatest in German opera of any one now living. She has the traditional colossal figure of Wagner's heroines, but her art is so all- prevailing that one accepts her Isolde as the ideal one and asks not that the impassioned princess should be more youthful and slender. Such presentations of Wagner's music-dramas are not merely nor even mostly an amusement. They afford the most exceptional opportunity for a serious study of DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 399 the latest school of musical art. It does not seem necessary to pave the path of glory for Wagner with the slain Italian and French composers. One star difFereth from another in its glory, but to extinguish all save one would be to efface the constellation. Richard Wagner had a mind that seized, as by intui- tion, on a poetic or a pictorial idea, and then used it as the nucleus from which imaginative creation pro- ceeded. In his earliest childhood he revealed his creative tendency. " At the age of five, instead of learning to draw eyes, he began painting life-size portraits of kings ; at thirteen he began translating Homer's Odyssey, and accomplished half of it." As a youth he wrote to a friend that he had no objection to being attacked for musical theories. " I bring no reconciliation to worthlessness," he said, "but war to the knife." Like most prophets, he was stoned metaphorically ; like all poets and artists, he ex- perienced the deep truth in the lines : — " Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate, Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours Weeping upon his bed he sate ; He knows ye not, ye Heavenly Powers." Of the production of " Tristan and Isolde," that im- passioned tragedy of love and death, what words can ever picture one especial performance given of it under Mr. Damrosch with Klafsky and Alvary in the title roles and Marie Brema as "Brangene." Herr Alvary was as unsurpassed as a great tenor and a dramatic actor could well be ; but it was in the new revelation 400 BOSTON DAYS of the lyric and dramatic possibilities of the character of Isolde, made by Katherine Klafsky, that a higher note was struck in the lyric drama, and qualities un- dreamed of were revealed. Madame Klafsky — whose early death was a signal loss to lyric art — had that indescribable magnetism and power of a great artist who creates new ideals of an exacting rdle. On the day preceding this great triumphal occasion, she had kept herself in silence and seclusion in her rooms in the Hotel Brunswick, gathering as it were her forces from the atmosphere. Of all great operatic rdles that of Isolde is perhaps the most exacting in its demand on both lyric and dramatic art. In Madame Klafsky this rare combination of twofold power existed. Her poses recalled those of Rachel, of whom her friends said, "Elle pose toujours." Never was a crowded house more entirely beside itself in enthusiasm than in the storm of ovation that spent itself on this superb, im- passioned Isolde in her white and gold robes in the pictorial scenes of this opera. "Tristan and Isolde" with Lilli Lehmann as the heroine lingers in memory. The curtain rises: Isolde is seen at the left of the stage, with bowed head con- cealed in her arms. The very pose tells its own story. It is the abandon of grief and despair. Madame Lehmann strikes the note of tragedy in a high key and holds it firmly all through. This Isolde is, indeed, worth daring and dying for ; this intense, impassioned being, all color and flame and energy, whose potent will must transform for her the entire world. Every DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 401 glance and gesture is instinct with this electric energy, this indefinable and all-potent magnetism. It sweeps one on, irresistibly, into the very heart of the tragedy. Studying Madame Lehmann's conception of the charac- ter on this occasion, when all the world about faded away and one only lived in the impassioned art of the great singer, it almost seemed as if her face and figure accorded better, perhaps, with the character than would more slender and girlish grace. For here was no coy maiden, shrinking even from the lover she adored, but a woman and a princess, royal by both rights, demanding that love should be all in all, whether for life or for death. In the garden scene Madame Leh- mann infused far more of the electric intensity and less of the languorous yielding than any Isolde save Madame Klafsky. The exalte note was held from first to last. And a night of " Tannhauser " — that drama of love and death ! Wagner tells a friend that he wrote this opera " with such consuming ardor " that the nearer he approached the end the more he was haunted by the idea that sudden death would prevent him from com- pleting it. " It acted on me like real magic," he said. " Whenever and wherever I took up my theme I was all aglow and trembling with excitement." '' Tannhauser " and the vocal contest is a legend of the thirteenth century. The title role, as taken by Herr Rothmuhl ; Elizabeth, as impersonated by Frau Gadski, offer pictures to remember for a lifetime. Elizabeth, white-robed, with falling hair, kneeling in prayer at the wayside shrine ; Tannhauser, returning 26 402 BOSTON DAYS in sorrow from his pilgrimage to Rome ; Wolfram, singing his song to the evening star ; Venus and her nymphs in the grotto ; the chorus of monks chanting the funeral dirge of Elizabeth whose dead body is borne on a bier ; the funeral procession with the landgrave, the knight, the singers, the pilgrims, and the Pope's staff covered with fresh green, — evidence of Tann- hauser's salvation because a maiden loved him and died for him, and thus wrought the miracle, — how impressive it was in its solemn beauty. It is with especial pride that Boston always welcomes Madame Lillian Nordica. It is a far cry, measured by achievement rather than years, from the charming Boston girl, Lillian Norton, who went to Paris with her wonderful voice and her own simple sweetness and energy of purpose, to the great prima donna, Madame ISTordica. Into these years she has concentrated work, and in them she has achieved a phenomenal develop- ment. But the secret of it lies not only in gifts, but in grace. Lillian Nordica is a woman of the most beautiful temperament in the world. She is sweet, sunny, serene. She is generous and loving and noble in every thought and purpose. She never misses an opportunity to say the kind and encouraging word, to do the help- ful act, to diffuse sunny stimulus about her. And this force of character has, one must needs believe, as much to do with her phenomenal success as her genius and her untiring study. An audience feels the force of all this sweet and noble and harmonious character DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 403 whenever she appears on the stage. It may not be analyzed or even consciously recognized, but all the same it makes its impress. It is a force of immeasu- rable aid and all her associate artists are helped by her gladness in their success. A "Nordica night" is a red-letter night in the opera season. Always a student is Madame Nordica. It is not surprising that she has achieved so brilliant a triumph at Beireuth, and in all the leading cities, in the Wagner music which she interprets with such marvellous art and impassioned devotion. The presentation of Mr. Damrosch's own opera, ^' The Scarlet Letter/' founded on Hawthorne's im- mortal romance, the libretto by George Parsons Lathrop, the son-in-law of Hawthorne, and the music by Mr. Damrosch himself, was a memorable event in Boston ; and the theatre was crowded with the beauty and genius, fashion and fame, learning and loveliness of Boston and Cambridge. The performance had an inevitable intensity of in- terest due to the fact that the scene of Hawthorne's greatest romance was laid in this city ; that his name is one to conjure with ; that the scenery was that which should bid the dead past rise, as if touched by an enchanter's wand, and reveal the Boston of two hundred and fifty years ago. The entire action of the story of ^' The Scarlet Letter " takes place within a small district of Boston — lying between Cornhill and Temple Place, on the north and south, between Tremont Street and the harbor on the west and east. 404 BOSTON DAYS The house of the "worshipful Governor Bellingham " stood on the site now occupied by a dry-goods house on the corner of Beacon and Tremont streets ; the old jail, where Hawthorne pictured Hester as imprisoned, was on Cornhill ; the old market place down near the harbor. At that time (1636) there were two hundred and fifty inhabitants in Boston, the beautiful harbor was in sight from every house in the settlement, — certainly a vast scenic advantage over the present, — and the hut supposed to be occupied by Hester Prynne, on the edge of the forest, was on " the Neck/' now in the heart of the city. It was a number of years ago when Mr. Damrosch first read the story of " The Scarlet Letter " that the idea of translating it into opera began to haunt his imagination. For Walter Damrosch is not merely a man of talent and the finest musical culture ; but he is a great original genius ; his mind is of that imaginative and exquisitely touched quality which renders him capable of vast creative achievements, and in Mr. Damrosch there is one of the most marked and im- pressive characters that the world has seen during the past three centuries. " Spirits are not finely touched But to fine issues." The spirit of Walter Damrosch is indeed of that order of the " finely touched," the divinely commissioned. " Gradually," says Mr. Damrosch, in speaking the first stirring intimations of his work, " gradually, while DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 405 readiug the story, I began to divide it into acts ; and as I read and reread Hawthorne's great creation, musical themes suggested themselves to me. But I could do nothing definite, as I looked in vain for a poet sufficiently sympathetic to collaborate with the require- ments of music." " The Scarlet Letter " did not score a popular success as an opera, yet its production in Hawthorne's city was an event of no little interest. The scenes of the dress- rehearsal linger in the memory of those present. The great auditorium of the Boston Theatre was but fitfully lighted with chance gleams from the stage. The high tiers of boxes looked ghostly and wraithlike in their white linen shroudings, that fell from the ceiling to the floor. The great musical critics from Philadelphia and New York and Boston were all present, with a sprinkling of press-correspondents, and a few friends, especially invited. The little audience of the most intensely inter- ested people bestowed themselves here and there with subdued whisperings and a thrill of expectancy. The scene that met their eyes was truly edifying. The background of the first scene in the opera is a view of the blue waters and sailing craft of Boston Harbor, but the sea was hanging midway in the air, and the dislocated ships seemed about to be precipitated upon the fair head of Madame Gadski. The pillory on which Hester was to stand was placed tentatively on the stage, and the rosebush that blossomed by the old market place lopped sadly on one side. However, the sea was soon pulled down by cords 406 BOSTON DAYS into its appropriate place, where the blue waters met the eye in their accustomed relations of space ; the rosebush was restored to its original intention ; the pretty figure of Johanna Gadski was no longer in dan- ger from the ships in the air, and Mr. Damrosch grasped the baton, which in his hands is a magician's wand. There is a beautiful experiment in physics where, when a note in music is struck, the particles of sand on a tray arrange themselves in crystals. One is always reminded of this when Mr. Damrosch ascends the conductor's stand and grasps the baton. Instantly life begins. Everything falls into order. To see him conduct a rehearsal was a new experience. If a singer was out of tune Mr. Damrosch could sing the bar and restore the key; if a player failed, on whatever instrument, the conductor could put him right again. In the acting, the orchestration, the singing, — there was no phase of operatic art that he could not personally direct with the unanswerable authority that comes of absolute mastery of every branch of the work. For three consecutive times the chorus would be sent trooping back to make their entrance again; to his orchestra Mr. Damrosch spoke entirely in German, as few of them understood English. The premiere came ; the curtain went up on the first scene with the harbor in its rightful place rather than hanging in the air, and the rosebush growing according to the due laws of nature. Prof. Charles Eliot Norton, with his guest, Prince Wolkonsky, President Eliot, Mrs. Leopold Damrosch, Clayton Johns, Mrs. Julia DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 407 Ward Howe, and Madame Melba were among those in the audience. The story of " The Scarlet Letter " was represented in three acts, in which, from beginning to end, there was not a dull moment, — not a moment, indeed, that is not intense in interest. The child Pearl is supposed to have died in prison. This point is told in the words of Rev. John Wilson to Hester : — " Hester Prynne, hearken ! Thy husband absent Far beyond the sea, A child to thee was born, Bringing disgrace and scorn. Heaven's wise decree Hath taken thy daughter away, Wafted on wings of death." Then the venerable minister implored his young col- league, Arthur Dimmesdale, to strive with Hester, and as the partner of her guilt is about to speak, the terrible sarcasm of the chorus wafts these words regarding Dimmesdale : — " wise and childlike, Simple and pure. With words of an angel he speaks." Then come the words of Arthur to Hester : " If peace to thee it would give. And thy spirit make whole Or hope of salvation insure. Tell his name who with thee now suffers, Though hiding his guilty heart. High or low, spare him not from the ban. 408 BOSTON DAYS Eemember, he is not exempted From the doom that shadows thee. Think ere thou repliest, For if the truth thou deniest. Oh, Hester, Hester ! His soul with thine condemned may be." Again, the terrible mockery of the chorus is heard : — " Too sharp the stress Of grief that he feels for the wanton's woe." And Arthur : — "Ay, tell them who tempted thee." And Hester, in a voice of the saddest sweetness : — " From me the world shall never know his name." The terrible Roger Chillingworth then shouts from the crowd : — "Ay, woman, speak," Hester recognizes his voice, and, in startled agitation sings : — " Ha, that voice ! No ! No ! Thrice no to thee ! My child hath found A heavenly father. Ye shall never know his earthly one." The first scene is one of the most beautiful in scenic perfection. Irving himself, that master of stage art, never devised a more beautiful pictorial effect. In the forest (as told in the romance) Hester and Arthur meet, and he says : — DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 409 " Ah, better, far better, To wear that raiment Woe unto me ! My letter in secret still doth burn With a pain that never and never dies. I hear the accusing voice ; * Thou, consecrate and placed O'er men to teach them purity, False art thou to thy trust I ' Had I one friend Or a foe — the worst — To whom I might bend Each day and be known as a sinner vile, E'en so much of truth might reconcile. My soul to life. ..." Then Hester : — " Such a friend thou hast, Behold, in me, O'er the bitter present, the vanished past, Of thy sin and mine To weep with thee." The orchestration is Wagnerian in that it has all that fulness and richness of the master, after whom, indeed, all else seems as water after wine, and as moonlight after sunlight. Walter Damrosch is far more than a disciple of Wagner. His genius is of the same immortal type. As the curtain fell the picture was memorable. The stage was set with the forest scene, — a wild, deep glade, when a glow of sunshine fell in the middle distance^ 410 BOSTON DAYS and mossy rocks and a fallen tree and exquisite group- ing and glancing lights gave the background to the slight, youthful, scliolarly-looking artist as he responded to the enthusiasm and stood before the footlights. Mrs. Leopold Damrosch (the mother of the artist), in a black gown with diamonds and sapphires at her throat, looked down from her box on the scene of four thousand people applauding her son. The orchestra waited, instruments in hand, looking proudly on their leader. Fraulein Gadski, in her amethyst and white robes, her fair hair flowing to her waist, Herr Berthold, the Arthur Dimmesdale of the cast, Herr Mertens, whose Roger Chillingworth will rank as one of the great impersona- tions of the lyric stage, — all stood grouped about. Mr. Damrosch's speech was very simple and adequate, expressing the debt of gratitude due first of all to Haw- thorne ; then to his talented son-in-law, George Parsons Lathrop, who had composed the libretto, and to his singers and his fellow-artists, the orchestra. At the close Mr. Damrosch was'presented with laurel wreaths enough to decorate all the crowned heads of Europe or the great masters of music, and at the end of the opera more laurel wreaths and a silver vase filled with American Beauty roses. The death of the poet Whittier in September of 1892 came on a morning that dawned in a splendor of rose and pearl and gold ; and it seemed a fitting hour for the soul of our saintliest poet to be set free from its earthly tabernacle to live wholly in that spiritual world which his eye had seen, and his heart conceived, and DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 411 his pen portrayed during his long and beautiful life. There was something significant — something one loves to dwell upon — in Mr. Whittier's going forth from the earthly to heavenly in this earliest hint of dawn. It was not yet sunrise, but the world was flooded with light, — so pure, so beautiful, so quivering with faint, opalescent gleams of the dawn, that it was a wonder- world — a miracle world. One looked out upon it and thought of Paradise Gloria. It must remain a picture enshrined in memory, — that morning when, with the earliest dawn, the poet Whittier put off* the mortal and put on immortality. One could not but think of the expression of being ^^ clothed with light as with a garment, " of being " clothed with glory," so fair in its hush of dawning splendor were the early hours of that day, so beautiful was the scene, in the glory of sea and of sky, on which his soul went forth. Who may tell us what dawned upon his spiritual vision ? " It is beautiful," Mrs. Browning said in her last moment as she went. If ever the heavenly vision shone around a life it attended that of John Greenleaf Whittier. The entire world has been left " the better for his being And gladder for his human speech." Mr. Whittier never journeyed far from his native "New England, yet his life could in no sense be called a nar- row one, for sympathy and imagination are wings, and with their magic, though one may not go to all the world, all the world comes to him. Without that which we 412 BOSTON DAYS are accustomed to call the culture of art, society, and travel ; without a university education, or any of the more obvious channels, he was yet largely in touch with the world. He did not grasp it through the appointed means, but all the same he possessed its best results. The winged nature need not tread every step of the path ; it can fly. The world in which Mr. Whittier lived transcended even the best that this world can offer, and still those who think of him as in any sense dreamy, unpractical, and impracticable, would fail to grasp his character. He was intensely practical, but he was not material. There is a difference. His life dealt with actualities. He had the manly, vigorous fibre of New England, and the prominent and active part he took in all the aboli- tion movements and antislavery work proved him no formless dreamer. It is the idealist who is most truly practical, or at least practicable ; it is he who lives in spiritual realities who most truly lives. Mr. Whittier was no stranger to manly indignation at corruption and wrong, though he was meek and lowly of heart. His was not a nature to ever allow itself to be "melted down for the benefit of the tallow trade." That is not the New England fibre. He was a poet. He was dowered with the poet's " Hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, the love of love." He not only had the vision, but the practical cast of thought to apply his ideals as tests of life — to raise all life to a purer plane. He was a fervent patriot, and DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 413 was always deeply interested in national and inter- national politics, in affairs at large, in events, and in movements. The reformer and the idealist, in the best sense of each, are always united. If Mr. Whittier's life were to be summed up in the significance of one word, that word would be influence. Wendell Phillips was pre-eminently the agitator, Mr. AVhittier as pre-eminently the influencer if one may coin the word. It is the singer " Who lives forever, While the toiler dies in a day," and Mr. Whittier's life would quite fulfil the tradi- tional power over a nation held by one who writes its songs rather than by one who makes its laws. Whittier was a prolific letter-writer, and while he had not the classic polish of Longfellow or the wit of Holmes, his letters are full of quaint humor, of tender and noble feeling, of charm of allusion that make them pleasant reading. In 1888 he writes to Mrs. James T. Fields in reply to her tidings that she was convalesc- ing from an illness, and that Lowell was reading to her. In reply to this Whittier says : " Sitting by the peat fire listening to Lowell's reading of his own verses ! A convalescent princess with her minstrel in attendance." To Dr. Holmes, under date of Nov. 9, 1891, he writes: " Dear Holmes, — The last and noblest word has been spoken by thy lines on Lowell. As a work of artistic beauty and fitness it has no equal in our literature. It 414 BOSTON DAYS will last as loDg as his Ode on Lincoln, and that is saying much. Thanks to our heavenly Father that he has been given the power to write it." Letters to Lydia Maria Child, to Lowell, Whipple, Holmes, Longfellow, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and all the familiar Boston circle of letters offer much of in- terest and insight into the literary life of the city between 1840-90. A characteristic letter of Whittier's to Whipple is as follows : Oak Knoll, Danvers, Nov. 25, 1880. My Dear Whipple, — I am always glad to hear from thee and I gave thy letter a hearty welcome. I hope when the summer comes that thou and Mrs. Whipple will run out here and see me, for I am admonished by many tokens that the time is short, and that I must make the most of the present time and the friends who are left me. I would be happy to meet the wonderful violinist at thy house. If I am able — just now I am suffering too much with my head and eyes to listen even with any satisfaction to the harp of Orpheus — I will try to arrange it. I am greatly obliged to him for thinking of me and volunteering to play for me. I missed thee at the Holmes breakfast. It was a nice tribute. I was only able to stay an hour or so. Give my kindest regards to Mrs. Whipple, and believe me always most truly thy friend, John G. Whittier. Among American poets that universal recognition which, for want of a better term, we call popularity, would lie between Mr. Longfellow and Mr. Whittier. i DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 415 It is, perhaps, true that the Quaker poet exerted a dh-ect moral influence over his country that has never in any age or any country been equalled. He was as potent in the realm of spirituality as Goethe was in that of intellect. Until we view his remarkable influ- ence in its wholeness its totally unrivalled character could not be adequately appreciated, yet this power of influence when analyzed presents anomalies. Mr. Whit- tier was devoid of collegiate culture ; he grew up in the scenery of provincial, of rustic life ; he did not draw from the sources of travel, of contact with great men or great literatures, — all this cosmopolitan culture of travel, art, society, was outside his life; and still he was not provincial ; his interests were as wide as the world of events and of humanity. Probably no one of the greater poets have ever owed so little to what we ordinarily term sources of culture as Mr. Whittier, and the reason lies in the simple fact that he drew strength and vision directly from the spiritual world, which to him was ever present and real. " Ah, I have friends in spirit land," he wrote : " Not shadows, in a shadowy band, Not others, but themselves are they." And again the poet would have us — " stretch our hands in darkness And call our loved ones o'er and o'er ; Some day their arms shall close about us And the old voices speak once more." 416 BOSTON DAYS His vision of the invisible world is always clear, simple, and direct. It was the world in which he lived, although this manly, vigorous, earnest nature was no cloistered and ascetic saint ; he was a re- former, a man with ever-active interest in politics, with ever-present sympathy in all the movements that make for progress. After the heroic days of the Antislavery Crusade, his active sympathies were with temperance, with labor reform, with the higher educa- tion and political enfranchisement of women, with all the forces that are evolving the higher issues of hu- manity. His life has stood for all that is most typically noble in American manhood. As a poet, he combines the rarest excellences. To flexible and musical form, to the spontaneous lyric gift, he has added the vigorous and noble outlook in life, the tenderly helpful and uplifting spiritual vision. It is more than an open question whether all the sermons of this century have done so much to spiritualize life as have Whittier's "Our Master" and ''The Eternal Goodness." Mr. Stedman, in an estimate of Mr. Whittier as one " who left to silence his personal experience," and who, " like a celibate priest, was the consoler of the hearts of others and the keeper of his own," adds : "His traits, moreover, have begotten a sentiment of public affection which, from its constant manifestation, is not to be overlooked in any judgment of his career. In recognition of a beautiful character, critics have not found it needful to measure the native bard with tape DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 417 and calipers. His service and the spirit of it offset the blemishes which it is their wont to condemn in poets whose exploits are merely technical. A life is on his written page ; these are the chants of a soldier, and anon the hymnal of a saint. Contemporary honor is not the final test, but it has its proper bearing, — as in the case of Mrs. Browning, whom I have called the most beloved of English poets." Whittier's audience has been won by unaffected pic- tures of the scenes to which he was bred, by the purity of his nature, and even more by the earnestness audible in his songs, injurious as it sometimes is to their ar- tistic purpose. Like the English sibyl, he has obeyed the heavenly vision, and the verse of poets who still trust their inspiration has its material, as well as spirit- ual, ebb and flow. It must be owned that Goethe's calm distinction between the poetry of humanity and poetry of a high ideal is fully illustrated in Whittier's reform verse. Yet even his failings have '^ leaned to virtue's side." Those who gained strength from his music to en- dure defeat and obloquy cherish him with a devotion beyond measure. For his righteous and tender heart they would draw him with their own hands, over paths strewed with lilies, to a shrine of peace and remembrance. One of the pleasant social occasions in the life of Mr. Whittier was a reception given for him by ex- Governor and Mrs. William Claflin at their spacious home in Mt. Vernon Street. This was almost or quite 27 418 BOSTON DAYS the last meeting of many of the old antislavery work- ers ; and beside the guest of honor, Mr. Whittier, there were present Rev. Samuel J. May, Dr. Henry B. Black- well and Mrs. Lucy Stone, Miss Anne Whitney, Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz, Mrs. Cheney, Mrs. Howe, Mr. Frank B. Sanborn, and others. After nearly all the guests had gone, Mrs. Claflin, with Mr. Whittier at her side, Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz, and a few others, were seated at the informal tea-table. Mrs. Claflin turned to Mr. Whittier and said, playfully, in allusion to a remark he had made (with his char- acteristic modesty, that these people she had invited would not come merely to meet him, or something to that effect) : '^ Mr. Whittier, you see they did come." '^Ah, but every one would be glad to come to see thee," he rejoined, with graceful chivalry. Hon. William Claflin served two or three terms as governor of the Commonwealth and held a worthy place among a long line of famous men from "the worshipful Governor Bradford" to the present execu- tive. Governor Crane, — a line including the great war-governor, John A. Andrew, and the well-beloved Roger Wolcott. Mrs. Claflin, whose death in 1896 left vacant a place in social and philanthropic inter- ests, was a graceful hostess who made a fine art of entertaining. Mr. and Mrs. Claflin were of that typi- cal New England quality which our country recognizes as its best citizenship, whether it be found in Maine or Texas. They began their married life with scanty means, and 4 DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 419 lived in a simple way, near Framingham, rich only in love and happiness. By his own integrity and good management Mr. Claflin amassed a large fortune, and they established a beautiful home in Newton, calling their estate " The Old Elms." They also had a town house, which still remains one of the most pleasant of the spacious old mansions of an earlier day. Their houses became the scenes of the most charming hospi- tality. Mr. Whittier was deeply attached to them, and always made his home with the Claflin s when in Boston. Mrs. Stowe was a frequent guest, as were also Henry Ward Beecher, Charles Sumner, Hon. Salmon P. Chase, Longfellow, Dr. Holmes, ex-President and Mrs. Hayes, Miss Edna Dean Proctor, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and a host of others. It was at their country house, " The Old Elms," that the seventieth birthday of Mrs. Stowe was celebrated by one of the most brilliant literary com- panies ever assembled. Among those present were Henry Ward Beecher, Dr. Holmes, Mr. Trowbridge, Colonel Higginson, Miss Phelps (now Mrs. Ward), Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, Mr. Howells, and Mr. Aldrich. It vv^as on that occasion that Mrs. Stowe remarked, as she stood on the raised dais to respond to all the felici- tations offered her : " My friends, always believe this : Everything that ought to happen is always going to happen." Mr. Claflin has known many notable men and brings them vividly before the listener when speaking of them. The long life of more than eighty years which the ex-governor has seen has included the 420 BOSTON DAYS most eventful period of the century, and almost, per- haps, of the world's history. The Boston of 1818 and the Boston of the Twentieth century have little in com- mon with each other ; and he has seen the introduction of railroads, the invention of the steamships and of the telegraph, the progress of the Civil War, the accession of Queen Victoria and Edward VII. to the throne, the exploration and civilization of all the country west of the Mississippi River, the overthrow of slavery, to say nothing of all the later great electric inventions and the changes in politics and society. If the ex-governor were to write his memoirs they would be deeply inter- esting. There are few of the famous folk, of our own country or of visiting foreigners, statesmen, authors, artists, actors, reformers, inventors, or great scholars, who have not been entertained by Governor and Mrs. Claflin. Any remembrance of Mr. Whittier recalls vividly his lifelong friend and co-worker, Lydia Maria Child, to whom he refers as " The worthiest of our narrowing circle," in a poem addressed to her on reading her lines on Ellis Gray Loring, published in a journal of the time. This is one of Mr. Whittier's sweetest lyrics. The opening stanzas run : — " The sweet spring day is glad with music, But through it. sounds a sadder strain ; The worthiest of our narrowing circle Sings Loring's dirges o'er again. DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 421 " woman greatly loved ! I join thee In tender memories of oar friend ; With thee across the awful spaces The greeting of a soul I send ! " What cheer hath he ? How is it with him ? Where lingers he this weary while ? Over what pleasant fields of Heaven Dawns the sweet sunrise of his smile ? " After her death (on Oct. 20, 1880) he wrote of her a memorial poem, entitled " Within the Gate," in which occur the lines : — " Not for brief days thy generous sympathies, Thy scorn of selfish ease ; Not for the poor prize of an earthly goal Thy strong uplift of soul." There is a rhythmic completeness in the life of Mr. Whittier that appeals to the imagination, and it is for- ever beautiful to remember that the last work of his hand was the birthday poem to Dr. Holmes, just nine days before his death, the poem closing with these lines : — " The hour draws near, howe'er delayed and late. When at the Eternal Gate, We leave the words and works we call our own And lift void hands alone " For love to fill. Our nakedness of soul Brings to that Gate no toll ; Giftless we come to Him, who all things gives, And live because He lives." Among Mrs. Claflin's guests on this occasion of her reception for Mr. Whittier, Mrs. Diaz was a very inter- 422 BOSTON DAYS esting figure. A native of Plymouth and one who entered on literary life by the most approved strait gate, if not the narrow way, of the " Atlantic Monthly," her work broadened into something that came to include literature rather than to be exclusively absorbed in it. Her early stories that appeared in the "Atlantic Monthly " have been followed by the " William Henry Letters," " Bybury to Beacon Street," " Domestic Prob- lems," and " The John Spicer Letters," and a number of stories and sketches contributed to various periodi- cals have won for her wide literary fame. Yet far beyond any conceivable prestige of fame in literary pro- duction, is the simple, direct, sympathetic, and sparkling presence of Mrs. Diaz. She might have been an artist, a danseuse, a stage manager, a singer, quite as well as a writer, a lecturer, an organizer of philanthropic and economic work, and the mistress of a home whose atmosphere is all sunshine. It is related that Prof. Charles Eliot Norton was so charmed with the spirit of the "William Henry Letters" that he inquired as to the identity of the author, and soon after secured her aid in educating his own children. The opening of the new Public Library in Copley Square was an epoch-making event in the nineties, — an event the more significant in the installation of so remarkable a librarian as Mr. Herbert Putnam, who, on his resignation to accept the office of Librarian of the Congressional Library, was succeeded by the present able and learned man who administers it so wisely, — James W. Whitney, LL.D. DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 423 Mr. Whitney shares Mr. Putnam's ideal in conceiving of his office as an active and not as a passive one. The true work of a public library is not merely to offer — however freely and easily — supplies to those who ask, to meet the demands that are made ; but, beyond this, to increase the number who will ask ; to constantly extend and multiply the demands. This is a new de- parture in the conduct of great libraries. Mr. Whitney is accessible personally; he does away with all use- less rubbish of red tape; he has the people's interest thoroughly at heart ; he discriminates swiftly and clearly between the essential and the non-essential. The mural art of the Library, representing the im- mortal work of Puvis de Chavannes, John S. Sargent, and Edwin A. Abbey, with one ceiling of unique beauty by John Elliott, is among the finest in the modern world. These paintings rival in interest the art in the galleries of the Museum of Fine Arts. The stately and noble reading-rooms — Bates Hall, the periodical-room, the newspaper-room, the fine-arts room, and other depart- ments and specialties; the active hospitality of the Library, its beauty, glow, and charm, are simply mag- netic. Too much could hardly be said of the unweary- ing courtesy, the helpful kindness of Mr. Bierstadt, the Curator of Bates Hall, and of the heads of the other departments in the delivery-room, the periodical and the newspaper rooms. The atmosphere of the most gener- ous helpfulness and gracious courtesy is simply ideal, and it renders the Library that which every town and city library should be, — an educational centre, using the 424 BOSTON DAYS term in the larger sense of liberal culture as well as of education alone. Yet with every recognition of the very rare quality of Mr. Whitney's staff, in their various responsible positions ; — with every recognition of the spacious, stately, splendid building — a dream of beauty without and within — one must come back to the centre of it all, to him whose fine, firm touch upon the main- spring holds its elaborate mechanism true to its course, the Librarian. The splendid building, wdth all its treas- ures of literature and art, might almost relapse into a mere literary mausoleum were it not for the spirit that informs it with life and light and irresistible energy. The opening of the Library on Sunday afternoons, and the extension of the evening hours from the former closing hour of nine until ten o'clock, the present hour, is an incalculable blessing to those whose occupa- tions hold them closely all day. The number of persons visiting the Library on Sunday afternoons is usually large; and not unfrequently Bates Hall is crowded with eager readers at every table. Fortunate in its magnificent site on Copley Square ; facing the Museum of Fine Arts, Trinity Church, and the Brunswick; fortunate in its architects, its artists, and its great corps of assistants, the library is most of all fortunate in the wise administrative policy that con- ducts the institution. The basic principle appears to be the conviction that the Library is made for the people, and not the people for the Library. The first effort is to afford the largest number of people the larg- est possible facilities for reading, study, and culture. I DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 425 To have such a centre for students and literary workers as the Public Library has made itself in Boston is a liberal education in larger social sympathies. The architecture has been adversely criticised on account of the distance of the book-stacks from the reading- rooms. The building has a large central court in which a fountain throws out its perpetual spray over the verdant grass, and the four sides of which are sur- rounded by a colonnade where, in time, will be busts and statues of the immortals. The book-stacks occupy the entire west end of the building ; but the distance is practically annihilated by a pneumatic tube and electric railway. The entire time between making out the slip and receiving the book is often within four minutes, so that when distance can thus be annihilated by modern conveniences it is not objectionable. In the British Museum the time required for procuring books is so great that a busy worker usually sends for those he re- quires the day before he needs to use them, in order to have them at hand without wasting untold hours. The habitues of Bates Hall hold in affectionate remembrance the former curator, Mr. Arthur Mason Knapp, who, for more than twenty years, had literally radiated sweetness and light to every one who came within the sphere of his work. Mr. Knapp's vast stores of knowledge, and his infinite patience and sym- pathetic kindness, were at the service of every one, and the value of his aid which he freely placed at the use of any one who asked was simply beyond computation. For the Public Library in Boston is not a mere building stored 426 BOSTON DAYS with books and mechanical conveniences. It is a centre of life, of unselfish endeavor, of social sympathies, of mutual interests. Another ceutre which, like the Public Library, has radiated high influences throughout the entire commu- nity, is the Museum of Fine Arts, which was so fortunate as to have for its director, over a long number of years, that most accomplished and learned connoisseur of art, Gen. Charles A. Loring, whose death, in the summer of 1902, came as a profound personal and artistic loss to the entire community whose interests he had so faithfully and ably served with the most endearing courtesy and generous goodness, as well as by his wide culture and unerring judgment of both ancient and modern art. The Museum has been for- tunate in securing for his successor one of the most distinguished of living savants, Prof. Edward Robinson. The progress of art in Boston has been in an accelerated ratio during the last half of the Nineteenth century. Allston left his name written among the immortals. William Hunt, George Fuller, and Dr. Rimmer have title to imperishable fame. Of contemporary artists there is a constellation of genius. Elizabeth Peabody has recorded of Allston that '' his every conversation had the beauty of a work of art, though it was always the unaffected and spontaneous outflow of a nature in which no faculty had been left to grow rank, but all were cultivated harmoniously and faithfully." From the exhibition of Allston's paintings in 1839, which made so deep an impression upon Margaret < DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 427 Fuller, to the present time Boston has been hos- pitable, ardent, and finely appreciative of special col- lections. Allston, whom the Italians well called the " Titian of America," can be studied in the " Allston rooms " of the Museum of Fine Arts, where many of his sublimest works are exposed. In " Belchazzar's Feast," "The Dead Man Restored to Life," "The Witch of Endor," " Rosalie," and others, his art can be adequately studied. Miss Peabody used to say that intercourse with Allston was always of a singular freshness. " He was very retired in his habits," she continues, " and his hours of work, whether with the pencil or the pen, were always passed in absolute solitude ; also his hours of lassitude or weariness. But when he came into the company of even his most intimate friends, he was in full presence. He always went round and shook hands with each, in deliglited recognition, and whenever he parted, even with members of the family, and for the night, it was done with so much sensibility that it would do well for the last time." The great exposition of the works of John S. Sargent, given by the Copley Society, was a memorable event in art. One cannot study so representative a collection of Sargent's work without applying to him the lines of Emerson : — " Born and nourished in miracles, His feet were shod with golden bells. " Born in Florence, cradled in art, companioned with beauty from his infancy, steeped in the glorious im- 428 BOSTON DAYS pressions of the great masters whose work made the golden atmosphere of his youth — in these portraits is seen the result of such an atmosphere. His portraits reveal a series of psychological impressions. One can- not but suspect him of entertaining private judgments of his own which it would not invariably be discreet to impart. In Sargent's earlier work there was, indeed, an occasional departure into absolute eccentricity — as when he painted a well-known society woman of Boston with a ring of light, a la St. Cecilia, around her head. Just what was intended by this, no one, so far as is currently known, has ever discovered. At all events that portrait did not figure in this collection, albeit its owner is a liberal patron of art. To the Sargent exhibition was added about the same time that of Boutet de Monvel, who is the most famous French artist of the day in the portraiture of children, and who, as an illustrator, has a dramatic quality of graphic depiction that renders his pictorial interpreta- tion almost as perfect a manner of telling a story as is literary narration. For instance, his series of illustrations from the life of Jeanne d'Arc. In thirty-eight pictures (in water-color) the entire story is told. The peasant girl at Domremy ; the girl standing hushed and awed before the vision of St. Michael that has risen before her, half-hidden in the shrubbery, which is all lighted up with the sudden glory; the girl listening in rapt, wondering ecstasy to " the voices ; " the scenes show- ing Jeanne on the road ; her recognition of the King, who tested her by wearing a plainer costume than his DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 429 courtiers ; her entrance into Orleans ; the taking of the Bastille ; the reception of Jeanne by the King after the victory ; Jeanne laying down her armor on the altar of St. Denis kneeling in the dim, historic interior ; the scene of her capture under the walls of Compiegne ; her fall from the fortress of Beaurevoir in the effort to escape ; her imprisonment at Rouen ; the appearance to her of the saints in her cell at night, and the final scene of the burning of the Maid alive in the square at Rouen, — all these and other scenes are so vividly represented as to fairly suggest the story, even to one who had never heard of the most marvellous train of events in history. The St. Botolph Club have given in their galleries a series of important exhibitions, among which was that of works of Zorn, — not a large exhibition, some forty pictures in all ; not too large to study at leisure without bewilderment, and sufficiently extensive to offer a representative estimate of the ability of this remarkable artist. Mr. Sargent — who can well afford to be generous, and would be, whether he could afford it or not — asserts that Zorn is the greatest painter of modern times. Boston does not hold him so high as it does Mr. Sargent himself ; but it must be felt that he has a kind of electric power, a verve, an instantaneous, creative ability, and a genius for handling light that is all peculiarly his own. His methods and those of Mr. Sargent are wholly different, and praise or appreciation of the one does not by any means detract from the other. The subjects of these portraits included some persons who are widely known, among whom was Prof. 430 BOSTON DAYS Halsey G. Ives, director of the Museum of Fine Arts of St. Louis, and the man who so pre-eminently dis- tinguished himself as the head of the entire art depart- ment of the exposition in 1893 at Chicago. The exhibition of the work of Boutet de Monvel, of Raffaelli, of Marcious-Simonds, and others of late years, have contributed to the art education of the people. When the bronze tablet marking the grave of Edwin Booth in Mount Auburn was placed, a little group of his friends gathered there. His daughter Edwina (Mrs. Grossman), Mrs. Edwin P. Whipple, Prof. Charles Eliot Norton, Mrs. Howe, and others, and Mrs. Howe, reminded of the beautiful social life of the rare and vanished circle of the past, said, half dreamily, " Where are the philosophers ? Charlotte [turning to Mrs. Whipple], Charlotte, why don't you call the philosophers again ? " " My doors are always open to them," replied Mrs. Whipple. " The philosophers " have nearly all vanished beyond reach of the earthly summons, and yet the presence of Emerson, Fields, Whipple, Dr. Holmes, Longfellow, Edwin Booth, seems to pervade and even dominate Bos- ton to-day, however unconsciously. The New England type is very distinctive. A New Englander is a New Englander as a Greek is a Greek. The type is as absolutely its own in the United States as that of the French or the Austrian in Europe. However wide the culture or the experience of the New Englander, he never ceases to have roots in soil, so to speak. On one occasion Prof. Charles Eliot Norton remarked that he DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 431 considered the poem *^ On a Bust of Dante," by Dr. Parsons, the finest one ever written on the immortal Italian. A devotee of Rossetti suggested his v^onderful poem, and asked Professor Norton if he, indeed, con- sidered that of Dr. Parsons finer than Rossetti's. Prof. Norton replied in the affirmative, saying that Rossetti seemed to him affected. There is an inherent Puritan- ism in every son of New England, which, however latent it may lie, now and then asserts its grasp over determining matters of taste and choice. Poet, reformer, romancist, with a charm of personal- ity that is, in itself, one of the most potent of gifts. Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson continues still his active days of a man of letters and social life. Colonel Higgin- son is the founder and the president of the choicest literary club of Boston, — the " Round Table " : he was long the president, as he is always one of the chief inspirers and leaders, of the Browning Club ; and the list of his published works is impressive. He has always stood for the most advanced and liberal thought ; he was one of the early workers for freedom ; he has always warmly espoused the cause of woman suffrage, and his scholarly taste, his wide range of delightful friendships, his choice contribution to literature, invest his name with a magic power. In his reminiscences published under the title of " Cheerful Yesterdays," the reader gains vivid glimpses of the choicest life of the past half century. Mrs. Margaret Deland is another of the noted novel- ists of the Boston of the closing years of the Nine- 432 BOSTON DAYS teenth century ; aud in her " John Ward, Preacher," and subsequent books, she has ranked among the best authors in contemporary fiction. The place held by Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps- Ward is one very distinctive in American literature. A daughter of one of the severest theologians, she yet startled the reading world by her radical ideas of the future life as presented in the " Gates Ajar." In the light of modern thought it is a little difficult to under- stand why there should have been anything incendiary in this picture of the possibilities of the future life, but it had its unquestioned work to do in breaking down theological barriers. It was, perhaps, the first important work to offer a rational picture of the life beyond death, as the natural and simple continuation and progress of this life. That such a work should come from the daughter of an Andover professor is not so strange when it is realized that this learned and revered scholar, however severe his creed, was one of the most tender and sympathetic of men, and that from both parents Mrs. Ward must have inherited her quality of exquisite literary talent. This fine quality of mind naturally made her susceptible to inspirations of a very high order. Whether Mrs. Phelps- Ward has " concealed herself behind an autobiography " — to borrow the clever mot of Zangwill — in her autobiographical book entitled "Chapters from a Life," is an open question. The strict Andover atmosphere of her girlhood is graphically reproduced in these pages. It was a life narrow, but DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 433 high. The life of well-defined views is not quite synonymous with that of great thought, but it has the mould, at least, of the higher intellectual life. Besides its interpretation of herself, — given with a delicate reserve that leaves the reader to crave more, — this book of Mrs. Ward's offers a multitude of charming and intimate glimpses of nearly all the noted New England authors. Of Longfellow she says : — *' Thus indeed, reviewing Longfellow's life as a whole, we discern his days to be crowded with incident and ex- perience. Every condition of human life presented itself at his door, and every human being found a welcome there, — incidents and experiences coming as frequently to him through the lives of others as through the gate of his own being. The note of love and unity with the divine will was the dominant one which controlled his spirit and gave him calm." Certainly the salient points of the life of a woman of letters, with whom thoughts, rather than occurrences, are events, is told with a delicacy of reserve which is in itself an example of literary art, and that the at- mosphere seems half ideal is, nevertheless, one of its strongest claims to realistic truth ; for the environment of this remarkable woman has been essentially one of detachment from ordinary events. The summer residence of Mr. and Mrs. Ward is very picturesque at their Gloucester cottage, where Mrs. Ward has almost translated sea and surf into music and set them in her " Songs of a Silent World." With the ocean on one side of the jutting point, and Glou- 28 434 BOSTON DAYS cester harbor on the other, there is a Yenetian-like eiFect to their home. Before the piazza are great rocks, and between this ledge and the shore the tide flows in. The color-pictures of a sea of sapphire, or silver gray, or of dreamy shades of amethyst, rose, or violet, transcend description ; and if one may see, flitting from piazza to rocks, a graceful, white-robed figure, with dark hair brushed carelessly away from the classic face, a hint of tuberoses at the throat, and the summer sunshine in the luminous eyes, he may not be far amiss if he fancy it to be that of the world- famous author, — Elizabeth Stuart Phelps-Ward. The pleasant informalities of summer life by the sea are reflected in this little note from Miss Phelps (before she became Mrs. Ward) to the Whipples, who were staying near : — Eastern Point. Dear Mr. and Mrs. Whipple, — I sent over yesterday to see if you wouldn't take an early tea with me, but you were not to be found, and we left no message, think- ing it would be a medley by the time it reached you. To-day I am not quite as well, and so have not tried again. I hope at all events that you will get over to see me in some fashion before you go. Sincerely yours, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. One of the most delightful and effervescent person- alities was Miss Lucretia Peabody Hale, a sister of Edward Everett Hale, who, in recalling their childhood, would often gleefully narrate that in their nursery days her father's paper, the " Advertiser," was made to do DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 435 duty at meals, pinned about their necks. Perhaps the future illustrious group absorbed something of this ex- ternal literary culture. Miss Susan Hale, her younger sister, is a wit, par excellence, a delightful woman of society, and is a most accomplished and extensive traveller. Miss Lucretia Hale, who will always be remembered as the author of that inimitable book, " The Peterkins," was a favorite pupil of the famous Elizabeth Peabody. The true Bostonese are all related or connected by intricate intermarriages, and, as a consequence, as Mr. Henry James has humorously portrayed in his stories, they are apt to speak of each other by their first names. Miss Hale's literary work was never by any means done in any well-regulated early morning hours. " I am absolutely useless till ten o'clock, at least," she used to say, '^ but I have observed that if I survive that hour I usually live through the day." It is a question if any Boston woman since the days of Margaret Fuller had ever so large a following, so to speak, as Miss Hale. Her literary classes drew about her many young people ; her literary work reached a still larger number, and her own friends and associates were practically infinite in variety. She had the talent for that large relatedness of life which so signally characterizes her distinguished brother. In the esteemed jurist and citizen. Judge Robert Grant, of the Boston of to-day, the literary world does not forget the Robert Grant who is one of the interest- ing figures among Boston authors. He has had the 436 BOSTON DAYS typical career of the man who was born in Boston, graduated at Harvard, and has been the poet of the Phi Beta Kappa before the Harvard chapter. As an under- graduate Mr. Grant showed the literary bent, and his work followed a certain sympathetic and delicately in- tuitive line of interpretation of social life, with flashes of wit and genial humor that make it delightful reading. He struck the keynote of fame in that wonderfully popular story of its day, the " Confessions of a Frivo- lous Girl," and between that and his latest novel, ^^ Unleavened Bread," — one of the momentous studies in American fiction, — lie a long list of charming works. The old "West End" of Boston is changing so rapidly that one hardly recognizes it. Beacon Hill, Mount Vernon, Chestnut, and Pinckney streets are being rapidly invaded by trade and apartment houses. These afford beautiful views from all the upper stories, for the location is picturesque in the extreme, and the old landmarks are, thereby, disappearing. From a some- what provincial — even though choice — city of the gods and muses, Boston is becoming cosmopolitan, and the general topography of the city is undergoing a trans- formation, while the vast extension of residence regions, made possible by the superb system of local electric transit, has fairly created a " Greater Boston " with the celerity of the traditional miracle. The home of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, the poet, is one of the stately old mansions on Beacon Hill, and it has a cupola commanding a view which — especially at DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 437 night, with the electric lights gleaming brilliantly amid the foliage of the Common, or reflected in the lake in the Public Gardens casting Rembrandtesque shadows over the stately architecture of the Back Bay — is most romantic. The large drawing-rooms, up one flight, after the manner of the old-time mansions of Boston, are interesting in their relics of travel and quaint carv- ings and old pictures ; brilliant companies throng them on occasions of receptions, or choice and select groups gather for the little dinners for which the house is famous. Mr. Aldrich's place in modern poetry is so unique that it is doubtless more widely appreciated than critically defined. Two things, at least, are appa- rent in his work, — apparent spontaneity, combined with the most exquisite finish. The subtle process no more lends itself to interpretation than does the song of the nightingale. The poetry of Mr. Aldrich is as distinctive as if he were the only poet in the world. This is not to say it is greater than any other ; but that it is of so unique and delicate a quality that it is only comparable with itself. When one says that these lyrics are of the exquisite finish, of the most subtle, penetrating insight into the springs of life, it can well be added that these qualities are to be found in greater or less measure in other poets also ; but the subtle quality that makes them Mr. Aldrich's own escapes analysis and defini- tion ; it is felt rather than explained. Nor is there any special satisfaction in endeavoring to turn upon them some critical searchlight that shall reveal their defects 438 BOSTON DAYS or limitations, if these they possess; let one rather revel in their beauty. As an instance of this pictorial beauty, take these lines : — *' My mind lets go a thousand things, Like dates of wars and deaths of kings, And yet recalls the very hour — 'T was noon by yonder village tower, And on the last hlue noon in May — The wind came briskly up this way, Crisping the brook beside the road ; Then, pausing here, set down its load Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly Two petals from that wild-rose tree," No painting could more wonderfully reproduce that scene, — the blue sky, the brisk May wind rippling the brook, the striking of the hour by the clock, and the two petals falling from the rose tree. Here is a per- fect artistic picture. In *' Prescience " is as subtle and perfect a picture with the far-reaching tide of spiritual emotion added. " The new moon hung in the sky. The sun was low in the west, And my betrothed and I In the churchyard paused to rest. '^ And lo ! in the meadow sweet Was the grave of a little child, With a crumbling stone at the feet And the ivy running wild. " Stricken with nameless fears She shrank and clung to me, And her eyes were filled with tears For a sorrow I did not see. i DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 439 " Tears for the unknown years And a sorrow that was to be ! " And how enchanting is this stanza from " The Unforgiven " : — " In the East the rose of morning seems as if 't would blossom soon ; But it never, never blossoms, in this picture ; and the moon Never ceases to be crescent, and thete June is always June." Mr. Aldrich's poetry recalls to one everything delicate and most beautiful, — the shimmer of moonlight on the sea ; the faint fragrance of half-opened Marechal Niel roses ; the gold and rose of a summer sunset. The finest sculptured alabaster could not be more beautiful in line and form than many of his poems. Mrs. James T. Fields still continues to occupy her home on Charles Street from which the tide of fashion has long since ebbed away. Once within, the guest would no more wonder that she felt no inclination to migrate with her Lares and Penates to newer locations. The west windows of the house (at the back) command the Charles River, which, making here a bend, gives the length for its vista, and the glory of the sunset is a vision never to be forgotten. The house is a veritable literary museum, — a shrine of treasures, — crowded with rare books, engravings, portraits, autographs ; portraits of Pope, by Hichardson, of Dickens, painted over a half a century ago by Alexander, of Lady Sunderland, by Sir Peter Lely. 440 BOSTON DAYS And especially does one feel the very consecration of interest in the guest-chamber, which so many notable people have occupied. For in this home almost every foreign visitor of distinction has been a guest. Mr. Fields was the genial companion, the sympathetic and inspiring critic, friend, and publisher. He had the publishing instinct developed almost to genius. He had an intuitive grasp of what the public wanted or should want, the latter knowledge, perhaps, being the more important. He was an educator of public taste. His genial and sympathetic personality made him the centre of a not- able group of authors, both American and English. It was he who brought out the first edition in America of Tennyson's poems. He published for Thackeray and Dickens. Meantime our American classics — Hawthorne, Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Mrs. Stowe, Thoreau, Whipple — were appearing from his house. When over thirty years of age Mr. Fields married Miss Annie Adams, a girl of seventeen, whose character and gifts, as she developed into womanhood, were remark- ably sympathetic with his own. A very beautiful picture of Mrs. Fields, taken in her early womanhood, was a great favorite of Mr. Long- fellow, a copy of it always remaining on the man- tel of that upper chamber of his house which was once Washington's chamber and in which the poet wrote ^' Hyperion." The hospitable home of Mr. and Mrs. Fields has played a notable part in the literary drama of Boston. In an upper room of their house Sai'cih Holland Adams DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 441 Emerson wrote his poem called "Voluntaries," on an occasion when he was their guest. At the table he told his host and hostess of the poem, and, after the meal they accompanied him to his room, where the scattered pages of the poem lay all over the carpet. On his reading it, he asked, "What shall the title be?" to which Mrs. Fields at once replied, " Voluntaries." Mr. Whittier was an always welcome, albeit rather shy, guest among the Boston group. He was often a guest for weeks at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Fields, and frequently, too, at the home of Governor and Mrs. Claflin. One of the most interesting figures in cosmopolitan society — for Europe as well as her own country claims her — is Miss Sarah Holland Adams, a sister of Mrs. Fields, an eminent German translator, and a lady of the most exquisite culture. For twenty years she lived abroad, largely in Berlin, where she was in touch with court circles and the best society of Germany in the world of thought and letters, and where one of her especial friends was Prof. Herman Grimm. Miss Adams translated his " Lectures on Goethe," a series of twelve which he delivered before the Univer- sity of Berlin, which, in the volume brought out by Little, Brown, and Company, constitute a contribution of value to Goethean literature. Another volume of the translations of Miss Adams comprises the essays of Dr. Grimm on Emerson, Carlyle, Frederick the Great, " The Brothers Grimm " (his father and uncle, the 442 BOSTON DAYS authors of the celebrated " Fairy Tales "), and others. Early in the last decade of the century just passed Miss Adams returned to her home city, and in an apartment looking out on Copley Square she makes a charming home, in picture and book-lined rooms, always brilliant with flowers sent by her myriad of friends, and which is a social centre of the finest Boston life. The " Life of Raphael," the "Life and Times of Goethe," and the " Essays " of Prof. Herman Grimm have all been trans- lated by Miss Adams ^vith that accuracy of significance and choice beauty of English which so notably charac- terize her literary work. Not only had Miss Adams a personal acquaintance with Professor Grimm, but a most intimate friendship. Her social circle in Berlin included, indeed, the most eminent men and women of the city, and at a literary festival she was decorated with a medal bearing on one side the portraits of the Grand Duke and Duchess of Weimar and on the other a laurel wreath and an inscription. This, the highest honor that Germany can bestow upon literary genius, was one singularly fitting to be given to Miss Adams. She was also made a member of the Gesellschaft, a literary society that is so cosmopolitan as to include members among the eminent people all over the world, and her salon was a centre of the most brilliant intellectual life. At Weimar Miss Adams passed several delightful months. It was at Weimar that Bayard Taylor made his home chiefly during many years of his early life, and he was much beloved by the court, and often read English poetry aloud to the DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 443 Duke and Duchess and their children. One evening he read to them (in English) Poe's " Raven," and when he had finished, the Grand Duke said : " It is a terrible conception, for the raven can only symbolize despair, and he makes it perch upon the bust of Pallas, as if to say that despair broods over wisdom herself." The Grand Duke was a great lover of Hawthorne, and Miss Adams relates that he often spoke of him to Mr. Taylor, and related that Goethe spoke of Haw- thorne's luminous and magnificent eyes. The charm of personality which characterizes Miss Adams is something difl&cult to define. It is that gift and grace we call charm, the result of the fine inflores- cence of many exquisite qualities, to which intellectual grasp, imaginative power, sympathy, and social culture all contribute, and which is all these, and more, in its effect. Miss Sarah Orne Jewett, whose manner has the same sympathetic winsomeness that invests her stories with a charmed atmosphere, though not a resident of Boston, yet has largely made one in the gifted circle of later years ; and Mrs. Celia Thaxter, too, was allured from the lovely sea-girt island that was her home for every summer, and in her early life for all the year, and that seemed a fit place for myth and legend and story. She was herself something of a Viking maiden, strong in her simple and spontaneous feeling, and pronounced in her individuality. Her sensitiveness to color is re- vealed in this part of a letter written to Mrs. Fields from Naples in 1880: — 444 BOSTON DAYS '• Our hotel is high up. Before us lies Capri, melting in sapphire and amethyst. The Mediterranean is wondrous ; it is like the ' Arabian Nights ; ' it 's not like water ; it 's like leaping, liquid, prismatic flame all about its delicious islands." Her letters all show joyful, exuberant life and resist- less energy. She loved flowers passionately ; music, only less, and she cared for the more direct and simple, rather than philosophic literature. She loved " Char- lotte Bronte " with all her heart. She loved Whittier, and spoke appreciatively of his rare truth and goodness. It is a question if the subtleties of art appealed to her. On the stage she preferred Ellen Terry to Bernhardt. She revelled in color, and all her letters reveal vividly this free, simple, joyous, and unique nature. Aside from the strong, personal interest that it possesses, it is interesting as a character-study. It was like finding the philosophers, indeed, to find Mrs. Horace Mann and her sister, Elizabeth Peabody, one winter when they had rooms in the city on Bowdoin Street, in the old West End. It was a cold and blus- tering March evening, probably in 1885 or 1886, that one or two friends climbed the stairs to the rooms that the two ladies were occupying. The mixture of high thinking and plain living was striking. • The rooms, only two or three, were in an old-fashioned house, and the sitting-room evidently served as kitchen and dining- room as well, in a kind of light housekeeping, where an oil stove and a cabinet did duty for range and pantry. In one corner was a superb marble bust of DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 445 Horace Mann ; there were engravings of great value and beauty — many of them brought from Europe by the Hawthornes — on the walls ; there were rare books and bits of vertu, and, with these, the meagre furnishing almost of tenement rooms. The two aged sisters — gentlewomen, whose manner would have graced any court — were living in the utmost simplicity, but they lived and moved and had their being in the heavenly kingdom. They missed nothing that this world could have given them. They had bread to eat that the world knew not of. The guests drew their chairs before the fire. Miss Peabody was a large woman. Mrs. Mann was as tiny and delicate as a sparrow. The kerosene lamp flared and flickered, and finally went out, after the fashion of a lamp where the housekeepers are too much occupied with ethical problems to remember to fill it. The blus- tering March wind blew the branches of trees against the windows, like ghostly finger taps, and the noble and high-souled women talked, and their friends listened and listened, even then half conscious that this was to be an historic hour. Mrs. Mann spoke of her husband, and of the " pre- cious privilege " it had been to share his life ; and she and Miss Peabody went on — in true transcendental fashion — to speak of the problem of evil as one that had no substantial existence, but was merely " the want of soul culture." Mrs. Anna Cabot Lodge was another of the strongly individualized characters of Boston. She lived into 446 BOSTON DAYS advanced age, well on in the eighties, and her name was an authority in that way in which Boston society is peculiar. With ample wealth, with liberal endowment of wit and literary and social culture, Mrs. Lodge made her Beacon Street home a noted centre of life. Dr. Howe was one of her nearer friends, and she was deeply interested in his work for the blind. Mrs. Lodge drew about her, indeed, many of the most eminent people of the day, and among the most intimate habituSs of her house was Charles Sumner. She was a highly intellectual woman, and so far as she was sympa- thetic, it was through the intellect, and not in the least through any poetic, intuitive, or imaginative feel- ing. That was not her metier. She was poised, keen, critical, extremely just in all her dealings, and a woman of an imperious will. During all the years of the domestic tragedy of Sumner's life, Mrs. Lodge was his friend and confidante. She was not, as already stated, an imaginative woman, but she was loyal and true, and, as the New England people say, one " always knew where to find her." She was penetrating, but not intuitive. Her force of intellect made her the former ; her lack of the poetry and divination of life denied her the magic of intuition. Boston has been fortunate in a group of Catholic citizens, — poets and men and women of letters, — Boyle O'Reilly, Mrs. Mary E. Blake (the "M. E. B." of literature), Miss Katherine Eleanor Conway, and James Jeffrey Roche being all especially prominent. Mr. O'Reilly had the personality that charmed the hum- DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 447 blest errand boy or the crudest laborer, as it did the choicest circles of Boston society. As president of the Papyrus Club, surrounded by the genius and wit of authors, artists, and scholars, he was not more de- lightful than in his professional and business relations with his associates in the daily work of life. His was a royal soul. A casual meeting and greeting on the street communicated to one a new stimulus and invig- oration. He was peculiarly and pre-eminently a man of large relatedness to life. Not only in his natural and inevitable relations to authorship and business, to his family and nearer friends and to general society, but to all humanity. No person could be so obscure, or so degraded, or so utterly outside the pale of what might seem some use in life, as to be outside the active sympathies of Boyle O'Reilly. If an individual was in need, that was all the passport required to his sympathy, his counsel, and his assistance. He left the deserts to be judged by the All-Seeing, and asked no credentials of those whom his goodness benefited. Even if Mr. O'Reilly had lacked all his genius, his education, his extensive culture, he would still have been a great man, because of those great qualities. Such a life lived for more than twenty years in a city will readily be seen to have accumulated a vast number and variety of personal relationships on many planes of life. Men and women of genius, scholars and cultivated workers in the arts and professions found in him a delightful friend and companion ; men and women and young people of the cruder classes, found in him a counsellor 448 BOSTON DAYS whose judgment was wise and unselfish, and whose sympathies were always responsive and generous, and full of stimulus and encouragement. Gen. Francis A. Walker and Mr. O'Reilly were the most inseparable of companions, and they used to take delight in puzzling their friends regarding their individual identity, as they strikingly resembled each other. Entering Mrs. Whipple's drawing-room on her Sunday " evenings " together, the one would assert to his hostess, " I am Walker," and the other, " I am O'Reilly," and it was quite safe to reverse these alleged identities in addressing them. Mrs. W^hipple relates that when the statue to Boyle O'Reilly — placed at the Boylston Street entrance to the Back Bay Park — was unveiled. General Walker sat so that his profile was just within range of the portrait bust of the dead patriot and poet, and that the face of the sculp- tured marble might well have been for the poet's friend as well. " It 's better to be Irish than to be right," Mr. O'Reilly would sometimes laughingly say, and the con- versation between himself and General Walker was often a perpetual flash of wit and repartee. Two familiar figures in social and literary circles are Nathan Haskell Dole, poet, wit, novelist, and eminent translator, and Arlo Bates, an author to whom the lovers of a national literature may well feel indebted for the fine work he contributes. His novel called " The Wheel of Fire " has passages that, in vivid intensity and psy- chological analysis, suggest Hawthorne in the " Scarlet DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 449 Letter," and his poems are among those that have claim to literary permanence. Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells is a woman whose singu- larly fine insight into life and art makes her one of the most interesting of Bostonians. The father of Mrs. Wells, the Rev. Dr. Gannett, was a noted Uni- tarian divine of his day, and a portrait of him which hangs in her drawing-room shows one of the typical New England thinkers whose doctrines of plain living and plain thinking laid the foundations for all that is best in the New England of to-day. In her hospitable home are some of the most delightful literary and social reunions. To hold the presidency of such an educational centre as that of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology means more than the usual office of college president, and General Walker's administration was a remarkable one. It is an institution where great forces diverge rather than converge. It is an institute that comprehends widely different trends. It is de- partmental and each department has its head. Over all this complicated work General Walker held sway. His military training had been of infinite value to him in acquiring easy command ; the lectures and other work in which he had been engaged had prepared him in every respect to meet this vast and complicated demand on his knowledge, his energies, and his direc- tive ability. Besides this work however, or rather, with this as a centre from which to radiate, General Walker entered 29 450 BOSTON DAYS into the life of politics and of municipal interests. He was a member of the park commission, the art com- mission, and a trustee of the Public Library. He was a leader and an authority on the statistics of finance. He was a frequent contributor to such reviews as the " Forum," the " North American," and the " Arena." He was one whom France would have distinguished as a *' first citizen." A literary festival marking the eighty-first anniver- sary of the birth of Mr. Longfellow by an authors' reading, was held in Sanders Theatre, the interior well known for Harvard Commencement exercises, where a long Latin inscription is over the stage, and, at the left, is the life-size statue of President Quincy. This "Reading" was a night that left its impression on memory. The stage was charmingly arranged with flowers and palms and shaded lamps on little tables grouped about ; and then there sat Colonel Higginson who presided with his own inimitable grace, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale, Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton, John Boyle O'Reilly, Mr. William Winter, Mr. George Parsons Lathrop, Heze- kiah Butterworth, Mr. Charles Follen Adams, and the " founder of the feast," — as Colonel Higginson so hap- pily said, — Miss Charlotte Fiske Bates, later Madame Rog^. A bust of the poet Longfellow, crowned with laurel, graced the centre of the stage, and above was the inscription, in living green, " Longfellow, 1807." The audience included a large number of the literati of Cambridge and Boston, an audience peculiarly re- DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 451 sponsive and appreciative. Colonel Higginson opened his felicitous remarks with an allusion to the Spanish proyerb, — that a man cannot be bell-ringer and walk in the procession at the same time, although he seemed to prove that he himself, could, for beside his graceful presiding, he read one of his own poems, " Dame Craigie," which was most appreciatively received. Mrs. Howe read her " Sunset on the Nile " and several short poems on Italian themes, and afterward recited some verses she had written to Longfellow. Colonel Higginson's introduction of Dr. Hale was very amusing. The statue of Josiah Quincy, once president of the col- lege, reminded him, he said, when he looked from it to Dr. Hale (the only officer of the university on the stage), of an occasion painfully near fifty years ago, when not only three of the speakers, but all of them, had worn gowns. And on that day President Quincy had said, in calling forward one young man, " Exspec- tatur oratio in lingua vernacula." With this and a "Hail, Hale," Dr. Hale came forward and read "My Double and How He Undid Me," till the audience as well, were fairly undone with laughter. Mr. William Winter, who may well be called the Moore of America in the wonderful melody and music of his poems, — read his lines on Longfellow, some stanzas beginning, "Could we but feel that our lost ones are near us," and his poem, " The Chieftain," in praise of Dr. Holmes. Mr. J. T. Trowbridge's contribution to the evening was made up entirely of those verses of his which describe simply and wdth no little pathos the tardy 4.52 BOSTON DAYS success of a playwright who has long been fighting poverty. Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton was felicitously intro- duced by Colonel Higginson, who related a portion of a conversation which he had with a gentleman in London who had spoken to him of the blindness which was the perpetual discouragement of his son's poetic talent, and of a gracious, sympathetic woman who had encouraged the son to write, and, by reading his verses aloud, had shown them to be poetry. The same justice which she had rendered to the work of the young, blind poet, Philip Bourke Marston, would now be rendered to some of her own poems, he said. Mrs. Moulton read first, ^'The House of Death," which was poor Marston's favorite, and her beautiful "At Midnight," '' In a Garden," and '' Come Back, Dear Days." Mrs. Moulton's winning manner, trainante voice, and charm of presence was felt by all. The poet — the woman — seemed revealed in all the beauty of her artistic genius and her loveliness of presence. Another of the great pleasures of the evening was the reading of Boyle O'Reilly, which included some of his crisp, keen, elec- tric epigrams, followed by the thrilling " Ensign Epps," and " In Bohemia." Charles Follen Adams was introduced with a stroke of wit, and recited his " Leedle Yawcob Strauss " in an inimitable German accent, and Miss Bates gave " My Thought and I," and some tributary verses which she had written to Longfellow. In closing. Colonel Hig- ginson paid a graceful and fitting tribute to Miss Bates, DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 453 and the evening ended with the reading of Lowell's beautiful lines to Longfellow, beginning, " I need not praise the sweetness of his song." The entertainment was one of the most interesting occasions in both life and literature. The name of Hezekiah Butterworth is one to conjure with in his home city where he is known, — not only as the author of the finest poem on Lincoln that has ever been written and of charming books of travel, but also as a delightful lecturer and one of the most ideal of friends. A curious thing was noted by the entire audience at this reading. All the evening there was a sound of faint, far-away music in the air. It was as delicate as the strain of an iEolian harp, as mournful as a burial chant; and it was a peculiarly haunting eerie sound. " Telegraph wires ? " exclaimed a friend to whom it was related. But there were no wires there. "A device of the freshmen," was suggested. The '' Trans- cript," alluding to this curious sound, said : — " It seemed like the ghost of vanished music haunting the hall. When Mr. William Winter, in a peculiarly mourn- ful voice and accent, read his own poem upon Long- fellow's death, which has these lines often repeated, like a refrain, " ' And still the night wind's moan goes on, And still the mystery is here,' this strange, ghostly music echoed the refrain with a shuddering sort of weirdness." 454 BOSTON DAYS One could hardly help fancying this had some un- known origin, so peculiarly unaccountable was the occurrence, and it was plainly heard by two or three hundred people. Oscar Fay Adams, poet, story-writer, and literary editor and compiler, is one of the younger Boston au- thors whose charming gifts, fastidious taste, and well- directed energy have contributed greatly to latter-day culture. The author of that inimitable collection of tales under the title of " The Archbishop's Unguarded Moment, and Other Stories," and of poems that have just claim to permanent importance in lyric art, — Mr. Adams has also done much other work, in various direc- tions, that is full of interest and of value. One of the most perfect specimens of exquisite lit- erary art in the English language is a romance entitled " The Duchess Emilia," by Prof. Barrett Wendell, of Harvard, an author whose criticism and lectures are, while often unique and exciting controversy, always of serious claim to attention. Professor Wendell's fine monograph on Mr. Francis Parkman, and his notable biography of Cotton Mather, are among the permanent works in American literature. Of Cotton Mather, Pro- fessor Wendell says : — " Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, he cast himself in the dust before the Lord ; he strained Ms eyes for a fleeting glimpse of the robes and crowns of G-od's angels, his ears for the faintest echo of their celestial music. Pare in motive, noble in purpose, his whole life was an unending effort to DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 455 strengthen in himself that phase of human nature whose inner token is a riot of mystical emotion. . . . The pas- sionate idealism to which he held with all his heart — like honest priests since the world began — colored and glorified, and made divine even the meanest things in petty earthly life he knew. . . . All about him he saw ever crescent disappointment and sorrow, and earthly failure ; but he never lost heart, not even for a moment ceased effort with word and deed alike, to do good to mankind. ... In his ministry Cotton Mather never fal- tered, . . . and among the Puritan priests there was never one, I believe, more faithfully earnest than this Cotton Mather." No other such perfect interpretation of this unique and remarkable man has ever been given to him whose mortal body has lain for nearly two hundred years in the old Mather tomb on Copp's Hill. So great in influence, so impressive in heroic noble- ness th^t she seems to belong to the world rather than to any one city, — Mary A. Livermore is, nevertheless, Boston born and bred, and her name confers added lustre even to that period when ^' the total air was fame." The great directive force of the work of the Sanitary Com- mission in the Civil War, which she organized and conducted ; the woman whose impassioned eloquence as an orator is unrivalled in all the ages ; whose great- ness of soul is only equalled by her nobility of heart. Mrs. Livermore is great — not only because she has a strong and active and finely disciplined intellect; not only because she has a storehouse of deeper and more varied experiences than any other one American woman, 456 BOSTON DAYS on account of her important work in the war and wide relations to humanity, — but more than all because she represents the spirit of American institutions. Patriotism is a duty, she feels, and she lives this duty. Who are you, she will say, that your street, your neigh- borhood, your town, your country, shall not be better and happier that you live in it. Mrs. Livermore may well be considered the most potent influence of the Nineteenth century on American womanhood. Mrs. Howe, with her exquisite culture and philosophic thought, Lucy Stone, with her in- vincible energy and sweetness of nature, Susan B. Anthony, with her stirring logic and good sense, Eliza- beth Cady Stanton, with her serene sway and invincible logic, Frances Willard, in her special work for temper- ance, always serene and strong on moral heights, — these, and other leaders of social achievement who might be named, have all contributed greatly and nobly ; but out of all this brilliant galaxy the name of Mary A. Livermore shines like a fixed star in the heavens. It is she who has traversed the entire country as the great popular lecturer, not specifically for suffrage, or temper- ance, or education, but including these, and as the great inspirer ; one whose power made for the enlarge- ment and the uplifting of the general life. She has always been close to the hearts of the people, and without any invidious comparison, it must be said that she has exerted a wider and a more universal influence than any other one American woman. In Mrs. Liver- more's lectures, and in even her most informal talks, DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 457 there is a depth of spiritual vitality that appeals in- stantly and profoundly to her audience, and establishes a swift and direct relation between speaker and hearer. In this lies, perhaps, the secret of her marvellous power. For thirty years the bare announcement that Mrs. Livermore was to speak would fill any lecture hall, east or west, to overflowing. She has the divine gift of sympathy. She is in touch with all the infinite power of the unseen life. She was born with the pro- foundly spiritual temperament, not merely an ethical bias, but the true spirituality of life. There is a wide difference between the two. Ethics and morality are negative ; faith and love are the positive and magnetic qualities. " I am not ashamed/' said Mrs. Livermore, once in conversation, '^ to confess myself a convert to the power of prayer." The words were as simple in their sublimity, or as sublime in their simplicity, as those of Saint Paul when he said, ^^ I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ." ^'Whatever contribution to progress I have been able to make," said Mrs. Livermore one morning, " has been entirely due to my husband. From the day of our marriaore to that of his death he surrounded me with the most perfect atmosphere for my thought and work. He left me entirely free. We could talk over all sub- jects ; we could difffer upon them without heat. When we were married I was a member of the Baptist Church, and he a Universalist minister, — and for three years I continued to go to my own church. He would ask me on my return if I had heard an interesting 458 BOSTON DAYS sermon. There was only one subject, so far as I know, on which he felt that my opinion was absolutely wrong, and that was the matter of protection and free trade." "Not a very personal subject, surely, between hus- band and wife," remarked her guest. '^No. On that," she replied, "he used to tell me that I spoke well, but that my premises were all wrong." The home of Mrs. Livermore is in Melrose, a beauti- ful suburban town some eight miles from Boston, with the romantic scenery of the Middlesex Fells all around. On one side she looks out on a beautiful blue lake, with hills in the near distance. It is a pleasant home, with spacious, hospitable rooms, and books and pic- tures everywhere in the cozy way of a house that has grown into a home. Many houses never become homes at all. When they do it is because they express the advancing household life from year to year — the new books bought and read together and talked over; the pictures that are the gift of friend or artist or the purchase of appreciation : the furnishing and decora- tions that have a certain fitness as the manifestation of the individual taste and selection that brings them together. One is often amused by seeing in the city a palace built and appropriately decorated and furnished, — by carte blanche given to the upholsterer and the artist, — and when all is completed, even to the smallest detail, the owners close and barricade it and go to Europe for DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 459 three years. Not so the home of the Livermores. It has grown year by year as life in tastes and require- ments and means expanded for the husband and wife, whose beautiful half century of wedded love is as " — perfect music set to noble words." Mrs. Livermore's study is lined with books. Her large, roll-top desk is in a corner by a window, her revolving chair before it. Its pigeon-holes are full, and the waste-basket, full even in the early morning of envelopes, reveals the voluminous correspondence every mail brings upon her in an avalanche that only her great executive and administrative power enables her to handle. She is consulted on every conceivable subject. The scope, number, and variety of the letters which Mrs. Livermore receives in any one day would suggest a good degree of the world's happenings. She is appealed to by great firms and societies for a confiden- tial opinion regarding certain individuals, or movements, or objects. Her judgment settles many a matter of which the world little dreams. There lies behind her eighty years of the most flawless integrity, admirable poise, great good sense, keen, and, one might say, practi- cally unerring moral discrimination ; and an irresistible energy that has been perpetually fed from the Divine energy and whose enthusiasm has been organized and applied to the most remarkable work for the advance- ment of humanity. About the study are portraits of Dr. Livermore, whose companionship has only grown still closer and more responsive since he passed into the 460 BOSTON DAYS unseen ; of Liicj Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and other friends. Here she writes and thinks and produces her literary work. To one with any fancy for tracing out the correspon- dences and the significances of life, there is something impressive in the way that Mary Ashton Rice and the Rev. Daniel Parker Livermore first met. It was in Duxbury, a seacoast town down on what is called the ^' South Shore " from Boston, on a Christmas eve. Mrs. Livermore (then Miss Rice) had gone out for a walk. The sea was at flood-tide and the radiant moonlight traced its broad track of silver across the bay. She found herself near the Universalist church, when, as she says, " a triumphant burst of song rang out on the night air. ^ Glory to God in the highest ; on earth peace and good will to men ! ' " Again was the glad song repeated, " as if the singers were unable to repress their joy," she has said, " and I listened till the anthem was ended. Should I enter ? " What a picture in this moment and what a crisis it was — the point, indeed, which determined all the future life, the marvellous influence and work of the nation's divinest helper — Mary A. Livermore. Here was the hour of destiny — the hour freighted with that intense significance of life which is seldom recognized except from the perspective of the long years to come. Should she enter ? That church portal was the " open door " of her life. If she had not entered, it would have been much the worse for the world and for all who live in it. But when a nature is held in con- DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 46l stant loyalty to God and the Divine will the leading is sure and the angels hold their charge concerning the life which keeps true to the heavenly influence. Such a life was that of the young girl just entering her early twenties, who paused in the moonlight on Christmas eve with the silver track of light on the ocean before her, with the choral music of "Glory to God in the highest " in the air, and with clouds of witnesses unseen above. Was not that moment one whose exaltation well initiated the noble, far-reaching, and profoundly significant influence upon the world that for more than fifty years has been exerted by Mary A. Li verm ore ? She entered. A blond young man of twenty-five was in the pulpit. "And thou shait call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins," was the text. " Save His people from their sins ! " Mrs. Liver- more says she mentally ejaculated ; " that is not the correct reading." She consulted a Bible and conceded the correctness. " It was a statement that had never arrested my attention," she said, " or made any impres- sion upon me." The sermon began. "It was not from endless punishment that Christ came to save us," said the young preacher, " but from our sins. He came to teach us how to live that we might avoid the mistakes of wrong-doings to which we are liable." He went on with illustration as familiar as the rudimentary mathematics, to the girl who listened so intensely and yet utterly new in combination. " A great peace stole over me," she said ; " a pulsa- tion of love for all the world throbbed through my 462 BOSTON DAYS being." Although some twenty years were to pass before this young woman was to enter upon her world- work, yet this was the hour of initiation into the Divine purpose. The rest of the story is a matter of sequences. Would the young minister lend her his sermon to read? He would and he did, and there began a duet of mutual trust and love and sweetness and work paralleled only by that story of the love of the poets, Robert and Eliza- beth Browning. " Aurora Leigh " had not then been written, but in its magnetic words the young minister might well have said to her : — " The world waits For help. Beloved, let us love so well Our work shall still be sweeter for our love, And still our love be sweeter for our work." The first home of Mr. and Mrs. Livermore was in Fall River, Mass., where he was the pastor of a church, and his wife entered into his work with all her charac- teristic earnestness. Not within these limits can their work be pictured. Largely is it known and read of all men, and it is, as she has said, largely due to the per- fect conditions which Dr. Livermore created and made always possible for the genius of his wife. It was he who encouraged and sustained all her pub- lic work. When that vast, bewildering call of the sani- tary commission came and Mrs. Livermore shrank from its weight of responsibility, feeling that as wife and mother she could not leave her home, it was her hus- band who said to her: "Mary, you are called to the angelic side of the war." To go forth to help — ta DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 463 heal, to care for the wounded and the sufFenng, to speak the last words to the dying, to carry aid and sympathy and uplift — that was the work to which, through her husband's sustaining counsel, she gave herself. Then, the war being over, came that extraor- dinary lecturing experience, of Mrs. Livermore's, extend- ing over a quarter of a century, during which she was a burning and a shining light in almost every city and town in the United States. She carried the message of intelligent activity and of moral inspiration. Whatever her theme, — in educa- tion, temperance, politics, literature, or affairs, — she aroused, stimulated, and uplifted the people. From the greatest statesman, the most brilliant leader of the literati, the reformer, — to the woman in domestic life in a Western town, — all thronged to hear Mrs. Livermore. No one was too lofty to be benefited ; no one too humble to understand. IsTor need one allude to Mrs. Livermore's lectures as a chapter that is closed. Only recently the Y. M. C. A. of Melrose begged her to address them. A thoroughly orthodox organization, Mrs. Livermore reminded them that by their ideas she was a heretic. They smiled. If such lives as Mrs. Livermore's are those of heretics, heresy will be at a premium. One characteristic little incident of her lecturing life is this : The rector of a very prominent church in Boston went to Mrs. Livermore to ask her to address the young men of his parish on temperance. He told her they were the very flower of aristocracy, culture, and wealth, 464 BOSTON DAYS — young men to whom all the kingdoms of the earth were open, but who were undermining their powers by fashionable intemperance. (This was some years ago, when the accepted standards of fashion were less refined than now.) The rector went on to explain to Mrs. Livermore that the regulation temperance talk would have no effect at all on this particular audience. So she started on a new tack. She primed herself with the scientific side of the subject, — the disintegrating power of alcohol on the physical nature, sapping all the springs of vitality and weakening and disintegrating the intellectual powers. The day and the hour came. An audience that taxed the resources of the room was present, — the young men, their mothers, sisters, wives, and sweethearts. The attitude of the men was one of great nonchalance and polite indifference, with a tacit expression to the lecturer that they had no objection to listening, but that nothing she could say would make any impression upon them, and she might as well accept that as a foregone conclusion. Mrs. Livermore looked them over and was in nowise disturbed. She opened her discourse. She marshalled fact after fact of scientific accuracy drawn from unques- tionable authority. Her hearers began to sit up with an alert attention. They listened with an interest that deepened to eagerness. They became responsive and sympathetic with the masterly argument. At its close they gathered around her; they inquired into her authorities, and copied the names of treatise and medi- cal or scientific author. And as she entered her car- DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 465 riage they brought her a gigantic box of jacqueminot roses — fifty or more of those long-stemmed jacque- minots which are fairly a forest of blazing splendor, and which required the services of brakeman and policeman to aid her in carrying until she was finally bestowed in her own carriage, with which her husband met her when she alighted from the train at Melrose. The present years of Mrs. Livermore's life are full of interest and beauty. Her intellectual power is only clearer and deeper as time adds increasing study, cul- ture, and thought. Her health is fairly good ; she often addresses audiences — and she is seeing people in all possible relations, from those of her intimate friends to the strangers who make to her a perpetual pilgrimage. Problems of life of all kinds — the most intimate and far-reaching — are continually submitted to her. To each and all she speaks the word of counsel and of wisdom. Mrs. Livermore's household includes her sister, a daughter, her secretary, and servants. Just opposite her house is the pretty home of her married daughter, where a family of grandchildren are devoted to her, as are her townspeople. She is the beloved as well as the venerated friend of each and all, and the days are filled with manifestations of this love and respect. Although the town of Melrose made its municipal celebration of Mrs. Livermore's eightieth birthday on Dec. 18, 1900, there is no suggestion of traditional " old age " about this benignant and charmingly interesting lady whose presence is a perfect energy of inspiration toward all 30 466 BOSTON DAYS that is lovely and pure and of good report. Her sym- pathies with youth are as keen as her judgment is wise. Her hold on eternal truth is unfailing, and her life is that of the profound spirituality that recognizes the perpetual interpretation of the seen by the unseen^ and the perfect and unfailing communion of spirit to spirit across the change we call death. An idyl in human history is the beautiful and forever-united life of the Kev. Dr. Daniel P. and Mary Ashton Rice Livermore. On a recent celebration of Lincoln's birthday Mrs. Livermore was the orator of the occasion, and for almost two hours, in an address given entirely without notes, she held the breathless attention of a great audience who felt it to be a classic masterpiece. What was the secret of it ? Who may analyze the power ? She passed in review the salient points of Lincoln's heredity and surroundings and early influences, showing them in such vivid relation to the great significance of his after-life as to offer a truer biographical picture of Lincoln than has, perhaps, before been given save in that sublime interpretation of his life by Col. Henry Watterson. Mrs. Livermore's knowledge of Lincoln was contemporary, and from the standpoint of the most intelligent and comprehensive sympathy. In the thrilling events of his lifetime she bore no unimportant part. She depicted his unvarying goodness of heart, his patience under misconstruction, his magnanimity, his nobleness, and that wonderful life lived again before the audience. The lecture made a red-letter day in its wonderful fulness of interest. DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 467 Mrs. Livermore has contributed immeasurably to the true couceptions of spirituality. She has come through clearer and closer study of its phenomena and by her receptivity to the life in the unseen, to comprehend the essential nature of the life here and that which is to come, and to teach the vital truth in a manner whose impressiveness is wholly her own. Stand- ing on the brink of more than eighty years, she looks before and after. There is an amusing little story that some years ago there was a gathering at which were a number of people well on toward fourscore, and that the poet Whittier said to Mrs. Livermore : ^^ How old art thou, Mary ? " She replied, " Sixty-five, Green- leaf," and he rejoined, " Get thee hence ! get thee hence ! thou 'rt nothing but a giddy girl." After the death of her husband, the Rev. Dr. Daniel P. Livermore, Mrs. Livermore wrote to a friend : — " Among the last words of Mr. Livermore was his wish that I would go on as I had been living. ' Don't give up any work you are engaged in ; only try not to overdo.' I have great need of work now. It is to me more than money, sympathy, food, or raiment. I must live worthily ; I cannot be overborne now, at close of my life, by sorrow, depression, and loneliness." These noble words are so universal in their signifi- cance that they may well be a theme for consideration. For when one comes to think of it, the cure for all the ills in the world is to live worthily. An unfailing recipe for unhappiness and misery is to live in self- contemplation ; an unfailing recipe for a lofty and 468 BOSTON DAYS noble order of happiness is to live in generous thought and purpose and out-going sympathies for other lives and for the things that make for progress. All the interests, motives, and aspirations that make up daily life extend themselves so indefinitely into the unseen world that neither their quality nor their course of direction can be adequately discussed save as the larger recognition is given to this ever-advancing horizon line. The outer life is but a fraction projected from the completeness that lies in this larger universe. Rev. Charles Gordon Ames, D.D., who succeeded James Freeman Clarke as pastor of the " Church of the Disciples," will leave a very distinctive impress upon Boston life. As a preacher, his sermons abound in epigrammatic passages of the finest spiritual signifi- cance. In the religious history of America he will rank among the great preachers who have from time to time stirred the mind and uplifted the hearts of the people. From Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards on to Theodore Parker, Henry Ward Beecher, Dr. Bush- nell, James Freeman Clarke, Edward Everett Hale, Phillips Brooks, George A. Gordon, and E. Winchester Donald, — in this galaxy the name of Dr. Ames shines like a star. Boston has always been most fortunate in her clergy, including so many men of eminence whose lives and public spirit have illustrated the ideals they enforced from the pulpit. The incalculable aid to all nobler life by the ministry of the Rev. Dr. George A. Gordon and by his literary work as well, and by the divinely unselfish life and DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 469 work of Father Field, the noble energy of Dr. Leigh- ton Parks, and of many others still, happily, in the midst of Boston life, are the priceless treasures of the City of Beautiful Ideals. The idea is sometimes advanced that people are " outgrowing the churches ; " that the general diffu- sion of literature, the lecture platform, the Sunday newspapers, athletics, amusements in general, — to say nothing of Buddhism, Mohammedism, Theosophy, the following of Abbas EfFendi, the various forms of " Mind Cure " and Christian Science, or palmistry, astrology, and other magic divinations have crowded out the church. The idea that these are more than a sub- stitute for religious organization is an idea that will never take root in American life. Our country is one founded upon moral ideals, and these are stimulated and nurtured by organized religion. The church is expanding with the age. It stands to-day not only for its regular religious services of song and worship, but as a centre of activity which extends in countless direc- tions and which appeals under numberless forms, — directions and forms which suggest themselves to every one. There is abundance of room for every variety of religious thought, and, in so far as it is sincere and held as an aid to the attainment of divine ideals, perhaps the more deeply all forms of its thought and philosophy are studied, the better it may be for the community. The " Church of the Disciples " is included among those of the Unitarian faith, but it stands for some- thing far more vital than speculative inquiry. It is 470 BOSTON DAYS the church ^^ founded on elective affinities, not on the purse principle/' as James Freeman Clarke said, — the church that has such a wealth of spiritual inheritance that one approaches it only with tender reverence. Its early history w^ identified with the history of the life of James Freeman Clarke, who for fifty years was its only pastor. At his death by his previous request Hev. Charles Gordon Ames, then pastor of a church in Philadelphia, was invited to the charge, which he accepted. Dr. Ames's service in the Church of the Disciples often leaves its impress on the mind as a beautiful picture. The portrait of James Freeman Clarke, painted by William Hunt, looks out from the lilies within which it is often wreathed. The reading-desk is filled with flowers ; palms and shining lilies encircle the minister as he stands in his pulpit, his countenance illuminated with the light of the spirit, the whole atmosphere one of silence and beauty. The flowers seem to fitly adorn a sacred festival. The music floats on the air, all sun- shine and exaltation and gladness. "The" great days of life," we hear the pastor saying, " are not the days when something happens outside of us. They are the days when something happens inside,— days of spiritual expansion ; days of discovery or illumination, when we gain clearer perception of high realities, see deeper meanings in life ; days of moral re-enforcement, when we make decisions and are prepared for worthier achievement. What a day for the blind, when the scales fall and his eyes are opened ! A white day — a day of DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 471 light ! Our greater birthdays are the days when we enter into truer life and come into possession of that inner good which is our proper inheritance as the children of Glod." One of the most memorable sermons of Dr. Ames is that entitled " The American Republic and the Kingdom of God," in which the true values of life are presented with great impressiveness. The sermons of Dr. Ames are held to be of the finest order, and his personal following adds largely to his congregation beyond those who are enrolled in mem- bership of the church. The prevailing spirit of the teachings of Dr. Ames is that of the inspiration of the higher life, — the possibility as well as the duty to live nobly day by day. His sermons have a very distinctive quality which is difficult to define in words. They are full of that radiant energy which communi- cates a spiritual impulse, the literary quality is fine, and there is usually a very deep vein of philosophy running through them ; but beyond this is a certain unusualness in a simple, direct, forcible, and impressive presentation of truth that enters into the very heart of life and seems to implant vital germs of the diviner spirit. It is a quality that leads one to feel after the service is over that with him old things have passed away and all has become new; that there is a new heaven and a new earth ; that he goes homeward not only refreshed, but renewed in his spiritual life ; that all his future is to express this nobler purpose and that all life must henceforth be lived on this higher plane. 472 BOSTON DAYS That pleasant home on Chestnut Street where the cordial hospitality of Dr. and Mrs. Ames radiates its cheer, seems to hold in itself the loveliness of the Boston days that have gone from all save memory, and all the promise, too, of the new Boston, — the Boston of the Twentieth century. Mrs. Fanny B. Ames — the wife of Dr. Ames — is one of the most brilliant women of the age, both in scholarly culture and in directive power. A leader in many organizations, her charming personality makes itself an effective factor in social advancement. Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, whose work in intellectual and philosophic progress is so important a feature in the social development of this City of Beautiful Ideals, has, among other contributions to belles lettres, compiled a volume of translations of Michael Angelo's poems, including some of her own, and others by Mr. Frank B. Sanborn, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Mr. John S. Dwight, and Miss Eva Channing, together with transla- tions made by Taylor, Harford, Symonds, and Southey. No record of the Nineteenth century in Boston could fail to include a reference to the oldest club organization of women, called "The New England Woman's Club," of which Mrs. Howe has been the life-long president, and Mrs. Cheney one of its most important directors. In a little reminiscence of the club's memorial days, Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz has said : — " Who will ever forget the tributes of James Freeman Clarke, Frederic Hedge, William H. Channing, Elizabeth Peabody, and the glorious anthems of Christopher P. DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 473 Cranch? At the centeDary of the birth of Washington Allston, . . . poems, letters, and reminiscences gave us a beautiful insight into his character and life, while William H. Channing, in words of lofty beauty, described the setting of the glorious star. ... At the centenary birthday of Michael Angelo, . . . again, Mr. Cranch composed for us an ode which rings out as fresh and bold as the ' David ' on San Miniato. . . . We waited not till the golden bowl was broken or the silver cord loosed to ex- press our love for that embodiment of human sympathy and broad thought, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody ; but while she was still in the vigor of her work, we bade her to a feast of recognition. She said she felt as if she were dead and meeting her ideal ; we felt as if we were holding up an ideal of true womanhood to ourselves." The history of this club is almost an epitome of fclie- social and literary history of the last quarter of the Nineteenth century in Boston. " The City of Beautiful Ideals ! " This phrase may well be held as synonymous with Boston. " The Puri- tan Fathers believed New England 'charged with a divine mission to show the world* what human society might be when governed by constant devotion to the revealed law of God,' " says Prof. Barrett Wendell ; and it is only from this foundation of faith and prayer and devotion to spiritual ideals, that the Boston of the Twentieth century can be estimated. The two regions of thought and of action have met and mingled in the forces that have developed the Puritan town, which John Winthrop found a paradise because there he "could enjoy God and Jesus Christ/' into the great 474 BOSTON DAYS cosmopolitan citj of the present. But it is impossible, as Phillips Brooks once said in one of his great dis- courses, to separate those two phases. "It is impos- sible/' said Dr. Brooks, "to say to the business man that he shall live only in the region of action; it is impossible to say to the scholar that he shall live only in the region of thought, for thought and action make one complete and single life. Thought is not simply the sea upon which the world of action rests, but, like the air which pervades the whole solid substance of our globe, it permeates and fills it in every part. It is thought which gives to it its life ; it is thought which makes the manifestation of itself in every different ac- tion of man." It is thought which, in both its early planting and in the golden age of genius, so magnetized the Boston atmosphere that gods and heroes still seem to haunt the shade of the waving elms on the historic old Common, and voices that bear divine messages for- ever thrill the air. If the dawn of the Twentieth cen- tury reveals more exclusively the age of action, it is that action which is the expression and fulfilment of thought of the Nineteenth century. Sylvester Baxter, a poet of ex:quisite touch and a man of letters whose fine power is winning wide recog- nition, is also contributing to the Twentieth century incalculably important results in his effective work for park extension and other civic improvements that en- hance the beauty of Boston. A true poet of the nobler life of the new and untried century is Alice Brown, who, though a novelist and DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 475 essayist, finds her most perfect expression in poetry. The " Hora Christi " by Miss Brown is worthy of artistic immortality. In it one stanza reads : — " In cloistered aisles they keep to-day Thy feast, living Lord ! With pomp of banner, pride of song. And stately sounding word. Mute stand the kings of power and place, While priests of holy mind Dispense Thy blessed heritage Of peace to all mankind." The " City of Beautiful Ideals " is glorified anew by the dawn of a group of new and younger writers who are proving that romance and poetry are not dead ; that Pan is still to be surprised lurking beneath the waving elms of the old Common. And among these Lindsay I. Swift, the author of that delightful book on " Brook Farm ; " Alice Stone Blackwell, a poet whose poems hold genuine appeal to art; Vida D. Scudder, whose fine work in literary criticism holds an unique place; Katherine Eleanor Conway, a poet of true gifts and a novelist of growing powder ; Helen Choate Prince and Laura A. Richards, — are all names that are winning in- creasing recognition in their contribution to the progress of literature. Mrs. Richards, although a resident of Maine, was Boston born and bred and must be claimed in the Boston group, both as one of the lovely and accomplished daughters of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, and as an author whose work is always published in this city. 476 BOSTON DAYS In the latter years of the Nineteenth century a re- markable organization was founded by Edwin D. Mead, LL.D., — the Twentieth Century Club, of which Mr. Mead is the president and the inspiring leader. Mr. Mead is widely known as one of the ablest interpreters of the philosophy of Kant, and one of the most entranc- ing of literary lecturers, as well as editor and essayist of scholarly fame. Mr. Mead's club contributes, in the most varied far-reaching and effective ways, to culture and to the ever-growing development of beautiful ideals, — of individual life and of citizenship. To Edwin D. Mead, supported by this noble organization, was due the ceremonial celebration of that memorable Midnight of 1900-01, when the old century went out and the new^century came in. The celebration of this memorable hour was one of significant and impressive beauty. It marked the initiation of a still higher development of the City of Beautiful Ideals, — of a period suggested in the lines of Stephen Phillips : — " I will make me a city of gliding and wide-wayed silence, With room in your streets for the soul." The scene of that midnight was one to live in memory. On a balcony in front of the State House on Beacon Hill stood the Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale and others of the clergy, with Mr. Edwin D. Mead and a group of invited guests. The Common below was thronged with people who, with one accord, welcomed the new century by singing the hymn, — DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 477 *' O God, our help in ages past. Our hope in worlds to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home." Reverently this great concourse of people listened as Dr. Hale, uplifting his voice in prayer, consecrated the historic hour and the years that waited, just over the threshold of this mystic midnight, with all their un- known potentialities, with their new and greater mes- sage to Humanity. Then, with a great fanfare of trumpets, the Twentieth century was ushered in ; and the populace who welcomed it, standing hushed and reverent under a sky all aflame with stars, while the deep-toned bell of old King's Chapel chimed the solemn strokes of the knell of the Nineteenth century and the greeting to the Twentieth, — the entire vast throng must have seemed to hear on the air the words of the poet : — ''Lo! now on the midnight the soul of the century passing. And on midnight the voice of the Lord ! " INDEX Abbey, Edwin A., 423. Adams, Charles Follen, 450. Hon. Charles Francis, 81. Oscar Fav, 454. Sarah Holland, 441, 442. Agassiz, Elizabeth Gary (Mrs. Louis Agassiz), 350, 351. Louis, 18 ; journey of, to the Andes, 19; poem of Dr. Holmes to, 20; death of, 20. Alcott, Amos Bronson, 128 ; esti- mated by Frothingham, 128 : birth of, 129 ; gifts of, 130, 131, 132 ; in home life, 133 ; favorite authors of, 134, 135; sonnets of, 135; school of, 137; Fruitlands, experiment of, described by Emerson, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143 ; poems of, 144. 145, 146; family life of, 153, 154; real- izes dream of an Academe, 164, 165; philosophical teachings of, 166, 167, 168; Emerson character- ized by, 184. Louisa May, diary, records of, 79 ; childhood of, 147 ; early ex- periences of, 147, 148 ; character of work, 149 ; diary, extracts of, 150, 151; fame of, 152. Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 434, 436; art of, 437; lines from, 437, 438, 439. Alger, Rev. Dr. William Rounceville, 353. Allston, Washington, 182. Alvary, Herr, 395. Ames, Rev. Dr. Charles Gordon, words of, on Phillips Brooks, 342 ; sermons of, 468, 470, 471. Ames, Fanny B. (Mrs. Charles Gor- don Ames), 472. Anagnos, Julia Romana, nee Howe, (Mrs. Michael Anagnos), 183, 184. Aristotle, 178. Arnold, Matthew, visits Boston, 325 ; lecture of, on Emerson, 372, 373. Atlantic Monthlv, The, founding of, 227, 228. Authors' reading, 450. B Bacon, Delia, 58 ; arduous life of, 99; Hawthorne's characterization of, 60. Balzac, Honore de, 344. Bartol, Rev. Dr. Cyrus, 31, 169. Bates, Arlo, 448. Charlotte Fiske, see Rog^. Baxter, Sylvester, 474. Beacon Hill, 475. Bernhardt, Sarah, comparison of, with Duse, 393. Bierstadt, Oscar F., 420. Blackwell, Alice Stone, 475. Blake, Mary E. (Mrs. John G. Blake), 446. Booth, Agnes (Mrs. John B. Schoef- fel), 392. Edwin, 430. Edwina (Mrs. Grossman), 430. Boston, description of, in the "for- ties," by Dr. Hale, 265, 266; famous groups in, 100 ; Latin Quartier of, 352. Bostonians, the summer homes of, 81, 82. Bradstreet, Anne, 23. Brema, Marie, 395. 480 INDEX Brimmer, Dr., 426. Brooks, Rt. Rev. Dr. Phillips, called to Trinity Church, 325; associ- ates of, 327; love of nature, 328; wide relatedness of, 329 ; ministry of, 333, 334, 377; special charac- teristics of, 334; periods of work, 335, 336; social nature of, 337; called to the Episcopate, 339; per- sonal traits of, 340 ; Dr. Ames on, 342; influence of, 348. Brown, Alice, 474. Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, sonnets of, 85. Brunswick, the Hotel, 328, 400. Bulkeley, Rev. Peter, 110. Butterworth, Hezekiah, 453. Cabot, James Eliot, 118. Carl^'le, Thomas, marriage gift of, to Mrs. Emerson, 234. Channing, Eva, 472. Chapman, Maria Westman, described by Miss Martineau, 64. Chatterji, Mohini, 356. Chav.annes, Puvis de, 428. Cheney, Ednah Dow, Theodore Parker's opinion of Alcott related by, 140. Child, Lydia Maria, nee Francis, beautiful temperament of, 60; ex- perience of, 61, 63, 64, 420; Whit- tier's estimate of, 421. Church of Disciples, founding of, 48 ; 469. Church, " Old South," 369. Trinity, 424. "City of Beautiful Ideals," 472. Claflin, Mary (Mrs. William Claflin), 417, 418. Hon. William, 417; early life of, 418; John Hancock estimated by, 419. Clapp, Henry Austin, fine dramatic criticism of, 392. Clarke, Rev. Dr. James Freeman, 48; "Ten Great Religions" of, 49; Dr. Holmes' poem to, 54; friendship of, for Margaret Fuller, 55; letter of Dr. Holmes to, 250, 251. Clough, Arthur Hugh, visit of, to Boston, 85. Club, the New England Woman's, 472. the Papyrus, 447. the Saturday, 229. the St. Botolph, 430. the Transcendental, 3. the Twentieth Century, 474. Concord, the idyl of, 163; famous people of, 104, 105. Conway, Katherine Eleanor, 355, 446. Cranch, Christopher, 472. D Dall, Caroline, nee Healey, tran- scendentalism defined by, 30, Damrosch, Mrs. Leopold, 406. Walter, 394; directive power of, 396; produces opera of "The Scarlet Letter," 403, 404, 405; creative power of, 409. Davids, Rhys, 390. Deland, Margaret, 431. Denison, Rev. John, 343. "Deserted House, The," 185. " Dial, The," 21. Diaz, Abby Morton, 418, 472; early work of, 420, 421. Dickinson, Emily, 118. Dolbear, Prof. Aaron E., 361. Dole, Nathan Haskell, 448. Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, visit of, to Boston, 20. Donald, Rev. Dr. E. Winchester, call of, to rectorship of Trinity Church, 347; sermons of, 347, 348. Douglass, Frederick, remark of, at funeral of Wendell Phillips, 72. Duse, Eleanora, comparison of, with Bernhardt, 392. E Ebenschuetz, Riza, 398. Elliott, John, decorative painting of, 406. INDEX 481 Elliott, Maud, nee Howe (Mrs. John Elliott), 269. Emerson, Ellen, 116. Mary Moody, 112, 113, 114. Ralph Waldo, letter of, to Whipple, 8; letter of, to Elizabeth Peabody, 21; letter of, to Sophia Peabody, 28; poetry of, 110; col- lege days, 115 ; describes Concord, 115, 116; letter of, to his wife, 117 ; letter of, to Margaret Fuller, 117; impressions of Alcott, 118, 120, 122 ; Margaret Fuller's words of, 124; letter of, to Whipple, 124, 125; poems of, 125, 126, 127; letter of, to Sophia Hawthorne, 163, 164; home of, 179; death of, 185, 186; appreciations of, 186, 194; grave of, 190; letter of Felton's to, 230, 231; letter of, to Whipple, 231; personal life of, 232, 235. Ruth, nee Haskins (Mrs. Wil- liam Emerson), 111, 112. Rev. William, 108. Felton, Cornelius C, letter of, to EmersoD, 230, 231. Field, Rev. Father, 469. Fields, Annie, nee Adams (Mrs. James T. Fields), 219, 439; 440. James T., 100, 205. Fischer, Emil, 398. Fiske, Dr. John, 364; 365; Darwinian interpretation of, 368, 369. Forbes, Edith, nee Emerson, 116. Frothingham, Rev. Octavius B., estimates Emerson's "iSTature," 24. Fuller, George, 426. Margaret, nee Fuller, Countess d'Ossoli, 32; 33; marriage of, 34; personality of, 35, 36; estimate of, by James Freeman Clarke, 37, 38 ; meets Emerson, 39 ; characteriza- tion of, by Emerson, 40 ; 86. Gadski, Johanna, appearance of, in opera of " The Scarlet Letter," 395. Garrison, William Lloyd, 23; esti- mate of, by Col. Higginson, 66. Gordon, Rev. Dr. George A., 468. Gould, Benjamin Apthorp, Observa- tory at Cordova founded by, 388; 389 ; poem of Holmes addressed to, 389 ; high rank in science, 390. Grant, Judge Robert, 435, 436. Greeley, Horace, 310. H Hale, Rev. Dr. Edward Everett, Boston in the "forties" described by, 265, 266; 277; ancestry of, 280, 281; important work of, 234, 254, 284; reads "My Double," 451; Twentieth century welcomed by, 475. Lucretia, 434, 435. Susan, 435. Hancock, John, 8; 419. Harris, Hon. William Torrey, LL.D., lecturer on Aristotle, 178 ; interpre- tation of Emerson, 171 ; lectures of, 173; lines to, 197, 198. Harvard, Rev. John, 419. Hawthorne, Julian, 155; 156. Madame, 158. Nathaniel, Whipple's visit to, 22 ; experience of, at Brook Farm, 22, letter of, to Sophia Peabody, 30; relations with Elizabeth Pea- body, 86; letters of, 155, 156, 159, 162, 163; Longfellow's poem on, 160. Sophia, nee Peabody (Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne), simplicity and loveliness of, 22 ; Longfellow's letter to, 161; letter of, to Long- fellow, 162; returns to London, 164. Rose. See Lathrop. Hedge, Dr. Frederic Henry, 122; 123. Hemenway, Mary, aid of, to John Fiske, 367 ; home of, 369 ; charac- ter of, 370, 371. Higginson, Col. Thomas Wentworth, 450, 451. 31 482 INDEX Hoar, Elizabeth, 121. , Hon. Samuel, 190. Hodgson, Dr. Richard, 360. Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Emerson characterized by, 28; letters of, to Mrs. Whipple, 204; to Whipple, 217, 218, 220, 221, 249, 250; poem of Lowell to, 237; key-note of character of, 238; views of, 238, 239 ; conversation of, 241 ; family of, 244, 245, 246; works of, 242, 248; letter of, to Motley, 248 ; let- ters of, to James Freeman Clarke, 250, 251 ; letters of, to Lowell, 252 ; 253; 255; personality of, 257 ; 258; 259; 260. Hunt, William, 426. Hutchinson, Anne, 5. Howe, Julia, nee Ward, 23 ; 73 ; lec- tures of, before School of Philoso- phy, 179 ; lines of, 267 ; early life of, 269, 270, 271; studies of, 272, 273, 274; work of, 274: reading by, 275. Maud. See Elliott. Dr. Samuel Gridley, poem of Whittier to, 100 ; 170; 267. Howells, Eleanor, nee Mead, 311. William Dean, Lowell's intro- duction of, to Hawthorne, 309; early poems of, 309 ; Lowell gives dinner to, 309 ; views of, 316, 317 ; sojourn of, in Venice, 311. Winifred, 311. "Impromptu, An," to Dr. W. J. Harris, 197, 198. Irving, Sir Henry, 392. Ives, Prof. Halsey C, portrait of, 430. James, Henry, pere, 312 ; Jils, Prof. William, 360, 391. Jewett, Sarah Orue, 443. Johns, Clayton, 406. Jones, Hiram K., 173, 174. Kalisch, Paul, 398. Kemble, Fanny (Mrs. Butler), Long- fellow hears reading by, 85, 86; anecdote of, 219. Kernahan, Coulson, 305. King, Rev. Dr. Thomas Starr, 18. King's Chapel, 238. Kingsford, Anna, 356. Klafsky, Katherine, 400; 401. Knowlton, Helen M., observation of, on Elizabeth Peabody, 181, 182 ; portrait of Winifred Howells, painted by, 311. Kossuth, entertained by Longfellow, 83, 84. Lathrop, George Parsons, 156, 157; 184; opera libretto of, 403. Rose, nee Hawthorne (Mrs. George Parsons Lathrop), 157. Lehmann, Lilli, 395. Lind, Jenny, 84, 85. Little, Brown & Co., 46, 128. Livermore, Rev. Dr. Daniel Parker, 460; 462. Mary Ashton, nee Rice (Mrs. Daniel Parker Livermore), 455; genius of, 457 ; home of, 458 ; great lectures of, 463, 464, 465; oration of Lincoln, 466 ; influence of, 467. Lodge, Anna Cabot, 446, 447. "Lohengrin," 397. Longfellow, Frances, nee Appleton, 22. Henry Wadsworth, 83, 85; let- ter of, to Whipple, 203, 204. Loring, General Charles G., 426. Lowell, Rev. Dr. Charles, 261. Institute, the, 286, 376. James Russell, letters of, to Whipple, 83; poem of, to Holmes, 237; letter to, from Holmes, 252 j 255; meets Thoreau, 263; early youth of, 261, 262, 263. Maria, nee White, 264. INDEX 483 Lowell, Percival, 386. Lunt, Adeline, nee Parsons, 297, 298, M Martineau, Harriet, estimates Margaret Fuller, 39. Mather, Cotton, 5; 7; 454, 455. McCosh, President, 179. Mead, Edwin, 474, 475. Larkin G., 311. Meeker, Nathan Cook, association with Horace Greeley on " Tribune," 310; town of Greeley, Colorado, founded by, 310. Ralph, charming style of, 310. Michael Angelo, 480. Michelson, Dr. Albert A., 373; great scientific work of, 374, 375. Monvel, Boutet de, 428. Motley, John Lothrop, 248, 251. Moulton, Louise, ne'e Chandler, cos- mopolitan life of, 302; 303, 304; poetic art of, 305; Kernahan's esti- mate of, 305, 306; 452. Munsterberg, Prof. Hugo, 390, 391. Myers, Frederic W. H., 364. N Nansen, Dr., 381; 382; Arctic night described by, 384, 385, 386. Nieriker, Louisa May, 136. Monsieur, 136. Nordica, Lillian, 402, 403. Norton, Andrews, views of, on Emer- son's "Nature," 25; 26. Prof. Charles Eliot, 119; Maria Lowell described by, 264; Lowell's letters edited by, 265; letter of, to Whipple, 290; Homer, Shak- speare, and Dante compared by, 290; lectures on Dante by, 289, 290; views of, on poetry, 430, 431. "Old Manse, The,"' 108. "Oracles of New England, The," 179, 180. O'Reilly, John Boyle, 446, 447, 448. Otis, Mrs. Harrison G., 74, 75; re- ceptions of, on Washington's birth- day, 76 ; work of, in the Civil War, 77, 78. "Over-Soul, The," 25. "Parker, Memorial, The," 70. Parker, Theodore, 21; comparison of, with Savonarola, 21 ; referred to, by Mrs. Howe, 56; Mrs. Child's impressions of, 56, 57; early im- pulses of, 57 ; death of, in Florence, 58. Parkman, Francis, remarkable na- ture of, 317, 318; methods of, 320; works of, 321. Parsons, Dr. Thomas William, 290; isolation of temperament of, 291; 292; "Paradisa Gloria" of, 293; early life of, 295, 296 ; Dante trans- lations of, 299, 300, 301. Peabody, Elizabeth, 29 ; visit of, to Europe, 88; with Charlotte Cush- man in Rome, meeting of, 89 ; work of, in School of Philosophy, 169, 170; letter of, to Alcott, 180; per- sonality of, 181, 182; characteriza- tion of, 183; Mrs. Howe's words of, 183 ; description of, 444, 445. Mary. 5ee Mann. Sophia. See, Hawthorne. the Sisters, 157. Peirce, Prof. Benjamin, poem of Holmes to, 225; lectures of, 226; scientific rank of, 222, 223 ; 224. Perabo, Johann Ernst, noble art of, 307, 308; views of, 308. Pericles, 100. Phillips, Stephen, 478. Wendell, 23, 65; O'Reilly's poem on, 66 ; estimate of, bj' Col. Higginson, 66, 67; tablet on home of, 68; 69, 70 ; death of, 71, 72. Porter, Maria S., nee Alley, Mrs. Lunt characterized by, 297, 298. Pratt, John, 66, 136. Prince, Helen, nee Choate, 475. Psychical Research, Society of, 360. 484 INDEX Public Library, the Boston, 421. Putnam, Herbert, 421. P^'thagoras, 177. Q QuiNCY, Dorothy ("Dorothy Q."), 80. Quincy, Col. Edmund, 79. R Radcliffe, College of, 357. Radical Club, the, 276, 277, 278. Raffaelli, 430. Richards, Laura A., nee Howe, 475. Ripley, Dr. George, 108, 109. Robinson, Edward, 426. Roche, James Jeffrey, 446. Roge, Charlotte Fiske, nee Bates, 450. "Royal Guest, The," 271, 272. Royce, Prof. Josiah, 364. St. Gaudens, Augustus, impressive statue by, 4. Sanborn, Franklin Benjamin, 121; poem of, before School of Philoso- phy, 175; 176; lectures of, 179; characterization of Emerson of, 191, 192; translations of, 472. Sargent, John S., 427, 428. Savage, Rev. Dr. Minot J., 57; 360. "Scarlet Letter, The," 84; opera of, 407, 408, 409. Scudder, Horace, 228. Scudder, Vida D., 475. Sedgwick, William E., 391. See, Dr. T. J. J., 376; astronomical discoveries of, 377; researches of, 378; reverses theory of La Place, 378; early life of, 329, 330. "Sleepy Hollow," 114. Snider, Denton J., 197. Sonnets, Alcott's, 135. Spofford, Harriet, nee Prescott, 229, 306. Stedraan, Edmund Clarence, poem of, before School of Philosophy, 175; Whittier estimated by, 416, 417. Stone, Lucy (Mrs. Henry B. Black- well), early life of, 90, 92, 93, 94; personality of, described by Alice Stone Blackwell, 95; marriage of, 96; home life of, 97, 98; character of, 99. Stowe, Harriet, nee Beecher, 219, 419. Swift, Lindsay I., 475. Symonds, Arthur, 472. " Tannhausek," 401. Tasso, 39. Temple Place, 353. Terry, Ellen, 392. Thaxter, Celia, 443, 444. Thoreau, Henry David, Emerson's estimate of, 105. "Threnody," 116. Ticknor, Anna Eliot, 348, 349. Caroline, 350. Prof. George D., 78. •'Transcript, The," relates occur- rence at authors' reading, 453. " Tristan and Isolde," 399. Twentieth Century, the, midnight inauguration of, on Boston Com- mon, 476. u " Uncle Tom's Cabin," 84. Very, Jones, 40 ; faith of, 41 ; char- acterized by Miss Peabody, 42; characterized by Emerson, 43, 44, 45 ; Dr. Hale on, 46, 47, 48. Vivekananda, Swami, 358. w Wagner, Richard, 86, 399. Walker, Gen. Francis A., 448, 449. Ward, Elizabeth Stuart, nee Phelps, 432; Longfellow characterized by, INDEX 485 433; seaside home of, 433, 434; note of, 434. "Wayside, The," 399. Wellesley, College of, 65. Wells, Kate, nee Gannett, 449. Wendell, Prof. Barrett, 454. Whipple, Charlotte, nee Hastings (Mrs. Edwin Percy Whipple), social circle of, 210; letter of Holmes to, 204, 205. - — Edwin Percy, 201 ; Elizabethan literature of, 202 ; letter of Sumner to, 202; Longfellow's letter to, 203, 204 ; letter of Edward Everett to, 263 ; letter of, to Lilian Whiting, 215, 216; Alcott characterized by, 205 ; letters of Holmes to, 206, 217, 218,220, 221, 260; letter of Emer- son's to, 231; letter of Curtis to, 208; characterized by Whittier, 207 ; movement to award Harvard degree to, 212 ; home life of, 210 ; characterization of, by Kate Field, 216, 217. Whipples, the, 22. Whittier, John Greenleaf, 410; po- tent influence of, 411; felicitous expressions of, 412; letter of, to Holmes, 412, 413; letter of, to Whipple, 414; noted reception to, by Mrs. Claflin, 417. Winter, William, 451. Winthrop, Hon. Eobert Charles, 11 ; ideal life of, 11, 12; public recep- tions of, 12; Phillips Brooks writes to, 12. Wolkonsky, Prince, 406. Wright, Eev. Dr. G. Frederick, great lectures of, 386; early life and work of, 387, 388. Xenophon, 24. ZoRN, Anders, art of, 429. Cbe aiorld Beautiful By LILIAN WHITING I know of no volumes of sermons published in recent years which are so well fitted to uplift the reader, and inspire all that is finest and best in his nature, as are the series of essays entitled "The World Beautifiil," by Lilian Whiting. — B. O. Flower, in The Coming Age. Cbe dorld Beautiful (fnvst Series) i6mo. Cloth, ^i.oo. Decorated cloth, ^1.25. Comprising : The World Beautiful 5 Friendship ; Our Social Salvation } Lotus Eating ; That WHICH IS to Come. The world beautifiil about which she writes is no far-off event to gvhich all things move, but the every-day scene around us filled by a spirit which elevates and transforms it. — Prof. Louis J. Block, in The Philosophical Journal. No one can read it without feeling himself the better and richer and happier for having done so. — The Independent. 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