FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON, D. D. 
 
 BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 DMA. SCIC 
 

 
 
JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 A BIOGRAPHY 
 

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 From a Painting by Caroline Cranch, 1884, 
 the possession of the Harvard Musical Association 
 
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 I 13 
 
 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT%c^ 
 
 Brook-Farmer, Editor, and Critic of Music 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY 
 By 
 GEORGE WILLIS COOKE 
 
 BOSTON 
 SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
 
 1898 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1898 
 
 BV SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 PRESS OF GEORGE H. ELLIS, BOSTON, U. S. A. 
 
TO THE HARVARD MUSICAL ASSOCIATION, 
 
 WITH WHICH THE SUBJECT OF THIS BIOGRAPHY WAS INTIMATELY 
 CONNECTED, FROM THE DAY OF ITS INCEPTION UNTIL HIS DEATH, 
 SERVING IT IN EVERY OFFICIAL CAPACITY, BEING ITS PRESIDENT 
 FOR TWENTY YEARS, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, 
 WITH THE HOPE THAT IT MAY HELP TO INDICATE HOW INTI- 
 MATELY THE MAN, THE ASSOCIATION, AND THE ART THEY AIMED 
 TO SERVE WERE UNITED TO EACH OTHER. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Ancestry, Youth, and College Life . i 
 
 II. Preaching and Translating n 
 
 III. At Northampton 31 
 
 IV. Brook Farm 48 
 
 V. A Time of Experiments 129 
 
 VI. "Dwight's Journal of Music" . . . 146 
 
 VII. A Year in Europe 168 
 
 VIII. Years of Toil for Music 186 
 
 IX. The Autocrat of Music 214 
 
 X. The Saturday Club 237 
 
 XI. Personal Traits 265 
 
 XII. The Closing Years 282 
 
When Nature was shaping him, clay was not 
 
 granted 
 
 For making so full-sized a man as she wanted. 
 
 So, to fill out her model, a little she spared 
 
 From some finer-grained stuff for a woman prepared ; 
 
 And she could not have hit a more excellent plan 
 
 For making him fully and perfectly man. 
 
 The success of her scheme gave her so much delight 
 
 That she tried it again, shortly after, in D wight : 
 
 Only, while she zvas kneading and shaping the clay, 
 
 She sang to her work in her sweet, childish way, 
 
 And found, when she d put the last touch to his soul, 
 
 That the music had somehow got mixed zvith the 
 
 whole. 
 
 A Fable for Critics. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This biography of John S. D wight was under- 
 taken at the suggestion and request of Mrs. Ednah 
 D. Cheney, and it has secured the benefit of her aid 
 and revision. The aim kept in view in its prepara- 
 tion was to permit Dwight to speak for himself as 
 far as it could be done, and to make the work auto- 
 biographic in so far as this was possible of accom- 
 plishmetit. As he was not a frequent letter-writer, 
 resource has been had to the published words of his 
 which throw light upon his career. Many of these 
 are of an autobiographic nature, and they have been 
 drawn upon frequently. 
 
 The letters written to Dwight by his friends have 
 been freely used, especially where they interpret his 
 own life or aid us in tinders landing his connection 
 with men and women well known to the public. 
 Among these will be found letters from Carlyle, 
 Emerson, Dr. Channing, Lowell, Longfellow, 
 Holmes, Theodore Parker, Hawthorne, Margaret 
 Fuller, George Ripley, W. W. Story, Lydia M. 
 Child, Elizabeth Peabody, Christopher P. Cranch, 
 George W. Curtis, Charles T. Brooks, Henry 
 James, William Henry Channing, E. P. Whipple, 
 and Richard Grant White. The work contains at 
 least twoscore interesting and valuable letters that 
 have never before appeared in print. 
 
 An attempt has been made to understand the cir- 
 cumstances amidst which Dwight was placed, and to 
 rightly interpret his social and intellectual environ- 
 
x PREFACE 
 
 ment. To this end reminiscences from his personal 
 friends and intimate associates have been secured, 
 and among these are: Mrs. fulia Ward Howe, 
 Mrs. John A. Andrew, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, 
 Colonel T. W. Higginson, Mr. B. J. Lang, Mr. 
 Arthur Foote, Mr. John Holmes, Mr. William F. 
 Apthorp, Mr. Erving Winslow, Mr. S. Lothrop 
 Thomdike, Mr. Ernst Perabo, Mrs. Laura A. 
 Richards, and Dr. Cyrus A. Bartol. If the book 
 gives a true account of D wight' s life and character, 
 it is due in large degree to these personal interviews 
 and reminiscences. 
 
 Three phases of D wight's life have been kept espe- 
 cially in view, — his connection with Brook Farm, 
 his membership hi the Saturday Club, and his work 
 for music in Boston. The chapter on Brook Farm 
 gives, perhaps, a more distinctly inward view of its 
 daily life than can be found elsewhere, due to the 
 numerous letters it contains written from the farm 
 by Dwight and his sisters. It also deals more fully 
 with the associationist movement in and about Bos- 
 ton than has been tisual, and it shows that the in- 
 fluence of Brook Farm was felt for many years 
 after it came to an end. 
 
 The Saturday Club has been frequently written of 
 by Dr. Holmes and others, but various notes kept of 
 its meetings by Dwight make the chapter here devoted 
 to it final as to dates and members. Its history is 
 told more fully than it has been anywhere else, and 
 with a view to showing how intimately Dwight was 
 connected with the literary men of his time. 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 So important was Dwighfs connection with the 
 development of musical interest and taste in Boston 
 that it was desirable some account of his work for 
 music should be given to the public. His fournal of 
 Music was a pioneer in its chosen field, and he made 
 it an educational power in securing a just recogni- 
 tion of the claims of music as an art. He was iiiti- 
 mately identified with almost every movement made 
 in behalf of music for nearly a half century in 
 the city of his birth, and the history of that art in 
 Boston cannot be written without the frequent use 
 of his name. In his time every one looked to him for 
 the right interpretatio?i of music, and musicians 
 trusted him as sincerely as did the general public. 
 His work was therefore unique, and never likely to 
 be repeated on the part of any interpreter of music. 
 He was a fit man for the time, that time when 
 music was securing its public, when musical culture 
 was finding its opportunity, and when a man of lit- 
 erary skill was needed who could mediate between the 
 art and the public. 
 
 The reference to D wight in Lowell's " Fable for 
 Critics" though brief, was just and appreciative. It 
 shows how highly the poet thought of his friend, 
 and it admirably expresses the interest with which 
 D wight's work for music was regarded by his asso- 
 ciates. We do not think of him to-day as of intel- 
 lectual kin with Hawthorne, but so lie was thought 
 of by our keenest literary critic. 
 
 Among the letters, etc., which came into my harids 
 in the preparation of this volume was a series of 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 letters from George William Curtis to Dwight. 
 These have been published in a separate volume, 
 which bears the title of " Early Letters of George 
 William Curtis to fohn S. Dwight: Brook Farm 
 and Concord." A few errors found their way into 
 that volume, which I take the liberty of correcting 
 here. 
 
 It was Curtis himself who invented the name 
 of Plato Skimpole for Alcott, and not Margaret 
 Fuller. Dickens s " Bleak House" in which Skim- 
 pole appears, was first published in 1852 in this 
 country ; but Margaret Fuller went to Europe in 
 1846, and died in 1850. 
 
 Elizabeth Hoar was betrothed to Charles Emer- 
 son, and not to his brother Edward. In regard to 
 Charles Emerson the Hon. George Frisbie Hoar 
 writes me : " / suppose his was the most brilliant 
 intellect of any person ever born in New England, 
 if you may trust the testimony of so many authori- 
 ties whose point of view is very different. His 
 brother Waldo, although eleven years older, said of 
 him that he looked to him as to a master, and that 
 he was the only person who made Shakspere seem 
 possible to him. Daniel Webster, in whose office he 
 studied, said, when he was consulted where he should 
 settle, that it made no difference where he settled. If 
 he opened an office in the midst of the backwoods in 
 Maine, the clients would throng after him. Dr. 
 Channing said of him, when he died, that all New 
 England mourned his loss ; and Edward Everett 
 delivered a eulogy upon him at a Phi Beta Kappa 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Xlll 
 
 dinner, which, I hope, will be brought to light if the 
 long-delayed duty of writing a memoir of Everett 
 shall ever be performed and his papers shall be pub- 
 lished. When it is remembered that Charles Emer- 
 son died at about twenty- seven years, when he had 
 scarcely begun the practice ofhisprofession,you will 
 perhaps be inclined to agree that my estimate of him 
 is not a fond exaggeration" 
 
 The account which Curtis gave of the drowning 
 of a young girl in Concord may be supplemented by 
 the statement that her name was Martha Hunt, and 
 not Mary. She belonged to the family of a well- 
 to-do farmer in Concord, and was a beautiful girl, 
 of sweet disposition. Had it not been for inherited 
 insanity, she would have had no difficulty in finding 
 a refined society suited to her capacity. 
 
 Elizabeth Randall was married at the house of 
 Mrs. Cheney, and not at that of Samuel Hoar. It 
 should also be said that Samuel Hoar was known 
 in Concord as " Souire," and not as Judge. In his 
 day he was one of the most famous lawyers in the 
 country. Chief Justice Shaw said that he was the 
 most powerful jttry lawyer in Massachusetts. Starr 
 King said of him that " he lived all the beatitudes 
 daily." After his death tribute was paid to his 
 memory by John A. Andrew, Emory Washburn, 
 Charles Sumner, John G. Palfrey, Robert C. Win- 
 throp, and James Walker. President Walker said 
 of his relations to Harvard College that he was 
 " venerable alike for his age and his virtues, a de- 
 voted friend to the college, whom he has been able to 
 
xiv PREFACE 
 
 serve in a thousand ways by the wisdom of his coun- 
 sels and the weight of his character." He also said 
 of him, " Other men served the college ; Samuel 
 Hoar saved it" 
 
 In his letter about Father Hecker, Curtis spoke 
 of a series of papers in the Dial, called " Ernest, the 
 Seeker" as written by William Henry Channing. 
 They were in reality written by William Ellery 
 Channing, the poet, one of Thoreaus most intimate 
 friends and his first biographer. One who knew 
 him well in his days of poetic activity has written of 
 him, "I shall be much mistaken if some of his poems 
 do not survive nearly everything that his generation 
 in this country produced." 
 
 One or two other errors may be corrected. Curtis 
 mentions the Nethake family in New York, not 
 the Vathek. The flower he found on his visit to 
 Wachusett was the potentilla. All these errors 
 have been corrected in the second edition. Some of 
 them were made by Curtis himself, and others came 
 from misinformation. I have to thank those per- 
 sons who have kindly pointed them out to me. 
 
 The chapter on the Saturday Club was published 
 in the New England Magazine for June, 1898, and 
 is reprinted through the kindiiess of the publisher. 
 It has been revised, however, especially with refer- 
 ence to Horatio Woodman ; and the facts hi regard 
 to his life are now given, correcting false statements 
 that have been made about him. 
 
 g. w. c. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 ANCESTRY, YOUTH, AND COLLEGE LIFE. 
 
 The Dwight family is a widely extended one in 
 the United States, and has included a large num- 
 ber of statesmen, judges, authors, college presidents 
 and professors, and other men of prominence and 
 influence. Most of those who bear the name are 
 descendants of Mr. John Dwight, one of the orig- 
 inal settlers of Dedham, Mass. One branch of the 
 family located in Shirley, Mass., about the middle of 
 the eighteenth century. Captain John Dwight, a 
 supposed son of John Dwight, of Medfield, who 
 was descended from Michael Dwight, of Dedham, 
 was born about the year 1705, became a sea cap- 
 tain, and was shipwrecked in 1744. He left a 
 widow, and a son John, aged four, who was brought 
 up in Boston. He moved to Shirley, where he 
 spent his life as a farmer and a stone-cutter. He 
 was in the Revolutionary army, and he was made 
 partly deaf for many years from the effects of a 
 wound received at the battle of White Plains. He 
 died Oct. 6, 18 16, as the result of accidental poi- 
 soning. 
 
 The children of John Dwight, of Shirley, were 
 Susanna, John, Sally, Betsey, Francis, Priscilla, 
 Pamilla, Sullivan. The eldest son, John, was born 
 Dec. 22, 1776. He graduated at Harvard College 
 in 1800, in a class which included Charles Lowell, 
 D.D., Washington Allston, and Judge Lemuel 
 Shaw. He studied for the ministry, but, before 
 
2 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 entering upon the work of his profession, found 
 himself rejecting the severe Calvinism in which he 
 had been educated. Then he studied medicine 
 with the celebrated physician, Dr. John Jeffries, 
 and settled in Boston. He was only moderately 
 successful as a medical practitioner, his mind being 
 largely occupied with mechanical invention. In 
 religion he was a free-thinker, and of a very radical 
 kind for his day. Sincere and truth-loving, he re- 
 fused to accept what was unworthy of God and 
 revolting to human affection. Speaking at his fu- 
 neral, Theodore Parker remarked : "Our friend is 
 said to have held opinions which are not popular. 
 I know not of those opinions; but this I do know, 
 — that, whatever they were, he was true to them. 
 And greater praise could be given to no man." 
 
 Dr. John Dwight married Mary Corey, of West 
 Roxbury, in 1812. She was a woman of "a very 
 simple, modest, childlike nature, fresh in her feel- 
 ings and instincts, and of a lovely disposition." 
 She was a handsome woman, sweet, amiable, and 
 sensible, of exquisite taste, and of a superior char- 
 acter. She was fond of reading, had good literary 
 judgment, and a strong liking for poetry. Her 
 nature was aesthetic and artistic in its preferences. 
 She had a remarkable appreciation of beauty, and 
 fine taste as to its character and quality. 
 
 To Dr. John Dwight and his wife Mary were 
 born: John Sullivan, May 13, 181 3; Marianne, 
 April 4, 1816; Frances Ellen, Dec. 13, 181 9; and 
 Benjamin Franklin, Sept. 5, 1824. It was natural 
 
ANCESTRY, YOUTH, AND COLLEGE LIFE 3 
 
 that the eldest son should take the name of his 
 father, since it had for generations been a common 
 Dwight name. The second name was that of his 
 father's youngest brother, who was for many years 
 a successful marble-cutter in Thomaston, Me., and 
 a militia officer of some note. 
 
 John Sullivan Dwight was born in Court Street, 
 Boston, in a house which is now standing. He 
 first went to the infant school of " Marm English," 
 who was patronized by many of the ministers and 
 the best families. He next went to the grammar 
 school in Derne Street, where he won a Franklin 
 prize. He was a quiet, studious boy, fond of his 
 books. 
 
 Young Dwight attended the Latin School, then 
 taught by Benjamin Gould, where he took prizes 
 whenever there were any, and secured a Franklin 
 medal. One of his sisters remembers his holding 
 a roll of paper in his hand, containing notes he had 
 collected in preparation for the writing of a prize 
 essay. His mother asked him if he would not 
 have it tied with a ribbon, and he said he was will- 
 ing to have it tied with a piece of twine if he could 
 secure the prize. In the Latin School, Dwight 
 made rapid progress, and took high standing in his 
 class. 
 
 One of his sisters remembers that John first 
 showed a taste for music when about fifteen, when 
 he heard a brass band playing the " Hunter's 
 Chorus"; and he followed it about. From that 
 time music was an absorbing interest with him. 
 
4 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 He was very fond of attending the " New England 
 Museum," kept by Thomas Grainger, who was 
 friendly with John's father, and gave the family 
 free access to his place of entertainment. It was 
 not the animals in which the youth, took an inter- 
 est, but the music. The boy was passionately fond 
 of street music, and found delight in a street organ, 
 even in later years. 
 
 John devoted much time to the piano and flute. 
 From his mother he gained an exquisite love of 
 the beautiful and a fine aesthetic sensibility. His 
 father's mechanical skill he did not inherit in the 
 least degree, but from his mother he acquired those 
 intellectual qualities which determined all his after 
 life. 
 
 In the summer of 1829 young Dwight entered 
 Harvard College, " carrying thither," according to 
 his own statement, " perhaps more Latin and Greek 
 (technically, as to grammar, at least) than I [he] 
 brought away." Having entered college better 
 prepared than most of his classmates, he did not 
 exert himself as he had done in the Latin School, 
 but kept a respectable standing in his class. He 
 was interested in music far more than in any pre- 
 scribed college study, and it is because of that in- 
 terest he is chiefly remembered by his companions. 
 Music was then no part of the college course; but 
 Dwight early joined the Pierian Sodality, a club 
 of students for musical study and practice. It 
 furnished the music for the exhibitions, which 
 was thought to be very good. It was then the 
 
ANCESTRY, YOUTH, AND COLLEGE LIFE 5 
 
 rule of the college that prescribed study hours 
 should be kept by the students. From 12 m. to 
 2 p.m. was a time of intermission ; and the moment 
 the bell rang the noon hour Dwight caught up his 
 flute, on which he played until the bell rang again 
 for study, taking barely time to eat his dinner in 
 the interval. One of his classmates has said that 
 his heart seemed to be in music more than any- 
 thing else. 
 
 Of this period Colonel T. W. Higginson fur- 
 nishes these reminiscences: "I have always known 
 John Dwight, ever since he and two other young 
 men used to come to my mother's house in Cam- 
 bridge, when I was about eleven, and play flute 
 trios with my sister's piano accompaniment, she 
 being a fine pianist. One was the late C. P. 
 Cranch ; and the third was William Negle Haber- 
 sham, of Georgia. The latter had a silver flute ; 
 and I remember John Dwight's saying, ' It has a 
 silver tone,' in the same dreamy and ecstatic way 
 in which he always spoke of everything musical. 
 He and Cranch were then divinity students, and 
 Habersham an undergraduate. The latter gradu- 
 ated in 1836, so this must have been about 1835. 
 I don't remember what music they played (my 
 sister played Beethoven, who was then a novelty); 
 but I remember that after being sent up to bed I 
 was allowed to leave my door open, and went to 
 sleep by music. Afterwards I read with pleasure 
 of the boy in ' Charles Auchester ' who does the 
 same." 
 
6 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 In an account of the musical society called the 
 Pierian Sodality, formed in 1808, and still flourish- 
 ing, which Dwight wrote for the " Harvard Book," 
 he gives some interesting reminiscences of his 
 college days. " When the Sodality began to play 
 at college exhibitions," he wrote, " or when the 
 flutes came in, and, with those soft, persuasive in- 
 struments, of course the serenading, we are not 
 informed. Both practices were fully in vogue 
 when we first heard the Pierians, in 1827-28, and 
 were kept up, with occasional interruptions, for 
 many a year afterwards. Shall we forget the scene 
 of the Exhibition Day, when the Latin School boy, 
 on the eve of entering college, eager to catch a 
 glimpse beforehand of the promised land, went out 
 to University Hall, and for the first time heard and 
 saw, up there in the side (north) gallery, the little 
 group of Pierians, with their ribbons and their 
 medals and their shining instruments, among them 
 the protruding, long, and lengthening monster, the 
 trombone, wielded with an air of gravity and 
 dignity by one who now ranks among our most 
 distinguished scholars, orators, and statesmen? 
 Had any strains of band or orchestra ever 
 sounded so sweet to the expectant Freshman's 
 ears as those? And was not he, too, captivated 
 and converted to the gospel of the college flute, 
 as the transcendent and most eloquent of instru- 
 ments? Nevertheless within a year or two he 
 chose the reedy clarionet, wherewith to lead a 
 little preparatory club, — the purgatory which half- 
 
ANCESTRY, YOUTH, AND COLLEGE LIFE 7 
 
 fledged musicians of his own ilk had to pass 
 through before they could be candidates for the 
 Pierian paradise. This was called the Arionic 
 Society; and, if its utmost skill was discord, the 
 struggle of its members for promotion into the 
 higher order was persistent. We think it was 
 founded some years later than the Sodality, for 
 which it was in some sense the noisy nursery. How 
 long it lasted, we know not. The Sodality in our 
 day, under the presidency of accomplished flutists 
 (Isaac Appleton Jewett, Boott, and Graham), was 
 comparatively rich in instruments. Besides the 
 flutes (first, second, third, and several of each), we 
 had the clarionet, a pair of French horns, violon- 
 cello, and part of the time a nondescript bass horn." 
 Dwight's love of poetry and the best literature 
 was only less than his love of music. He read 
 much in the best authors, and his literary exercises 
 showed his strong literary taste. In his Junior year 
 he read an original poem before the Hasty Pud- 
 ding Club, in the middle of the Senior year he 
 lectured on music before the Northborough Ly- 
 ceum, and a few weeks before graduation he gave 
 a paper on poetry before the Harvard Union. On 
 graduation, July 17, 1832, Dwight furnished the 
 class poem, which contained thirty nine-line stanzas. 
 These facts hint at his excellent standing in a class 
 which contained George Ticknor Curtis, Henry 
 W. Bellows, Charles T. Brooks, Estes Howe, 
 Samuel Osgood, and John Holmes, brother of 
 the poet. 
 
8 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 A part of his Senior year was spent by Dwight 
 in teaching at Northborough. His letters do not 
 indicate that he fully enjoyed the occupation or 
 that the pupils he had under him were such as to 
 enlist his intellectual sympathies. He introduced 
 music into his school, and he found such comfort 
 as he could in the social life of the place. In Sep- 
 tember, 1832, he entered the Divinity School of 
 Harvard College, After taking up the studies of 
 the next year, he left in October, and went to Mead- 
 ville, Penn., to serve as a tutor in the family of 
 Mr. H. J. Huidekoper. He greatly enjoyed his 
 stay in that place, the family in which he was 
 placed, the young people whose education he 
 guided, and his own opportunities for reading and 
 study. He was the leading spirit in organizing 
 a lyceum in Meadville, before which he gave the 
 first lecture, taking for his subject " Education." In 
 August, 1834, he returned to the Divinity School; 
 and he completed the course of study in August, 
 1836. On graduation he gave a dissertation on 
 " The Proper Character of Poetry and Music for 
 Public Worship," which was published in the 
 Christian Examiner for November, 1836. This 
 paper was a plea for the recognition of music 
 on its own merits and as a means of genuine 
 culture. 
 
 In the Divinity School, as in the college, Dwight's 
 one great interest was music. Near his own were 
 the rooms of his lifelong friends, Theodore Parker 
 and Christopher P. Cranch. Parker had no love 
 
ANCESTRY, YOUTH, AND COLLEGE LIFE 9 
 
 of music and no capacity for its production, but 
 Cranch was only less devoted to it than Dwight. 
 When the two music-lovers were one evening play- 
 ing together, they heard a great din in the hall. 
 On Dwight's opening the door, Parker was discov- 
 ered sawing wood. When asked why he was so 
 engaged in that place, he replied, " You disturb 
 me with your music when I wish to study, and I 
 will have my fun in return." He kept on with his 
 sawing until the music was silenced. 
 
 On Exhibition Day in July, 1837, a number of 
 graduates, who had been members of the Pierian 
 Sodality, met with the students who were then 
 members ; and the conversation turned on the work 
 of the little society. It was suggested that a soci- 
 ety be formed of graduates for the purpose of meet- 
 ing regularly at Commencement each year. A 
 committee was at once appointed to prepare a plan 
 for such society, of which Dwight was made a mem- 
 ber. He wrote to Cranch : " The plan proposed 
 has been very warmly met. Many gentlemen of 
 high character have answered that they will come, 
 and do all that they can to promote the objects 
 contemplated. Some engage to contribute liberally 
 towards a fund." On Commencement Day, August 
 30, a meeting was held in response to a circular 
 sent out to all the former members of the Sodality, 
 inviting them to attend. The report of the com- 
 mittee was prepared by Dwight, by whom it was 
 read. He proposed two objects for the society con- 
 templated, the first that of holding an annual meet- 
 
io JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 ing on Commencement Day of those interested in 
 music, and the second that of securing the advance- 
 ment of the cause of music, particularly in the uni- 
 versity. 
 
 The society took the name of the General As- 
 sociation of the Members of the Pierian Sodality. 
 Henry Ware, D.D., was elected the president, and 
 D wight the vice-president. In 1840 the name was 
 changed to the Harvard Musical Association. In 
 1845 tne society was incorporated, and in 1848 it 
 began to hold its meetings in Boston. From the 
 beginning the society took the position that " the 
 science and art of music is worthy of a place in a 
 system of liberal education, and deserving of culti- 
 vation by educated men." It took for its definite 
 object to secure " the introduction of music as a 
 regular branch of instruction, and the cultivation of 
 musical taste and science in Harvard University." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 PREACHING AND TRANSLATING. 
 
 In July, 1836, John S. Dwight entered upon his 
 work as a preacher; but three years and a half 
 passed before he had a pulpit of his own. He was 
 idle but few Sundays, but the parishes evidently 
 were not wholly pleased with his preaching. He 
 saw his own limitations with reference to his chosen 
 profession. In a letter written in Boston, Febru- 
 ary, 1837, he said to Theodore Parker, " I am al- 
 most afraid that I cannot succeed as a preacher." 
 
 " You ask me to point out your faults," wrote 
 Parker from Salem, March 14. "I can in no wise 
 refuse, since you did me the same favor you ask. I 
 fear to touch the subject, but will attempt it. Let 
 me begin by stating some of your merits by way of 
 offset to what is to follow. You have a deep love 
 of the beautiful, strong likings and keen dislikings, 
 a quick discernment, a deep love of freedom. I love 
 the spontaneity of reason displayed in your mind 
 and the beautiful active power of your imagination. 
 But I must speak of ' faults ' under each of these 
 heads. You do not always see the beautiful clearly. 
 The beautiful is not sharply defined, so you love 
 vagueness, mistaking the indefinite for the Infinite, 
 and, like Ixion of old, embracing a cloud instead of 
 a goddess. You surround yourself with the per- 
 fumed clouds of music. You mingle the same per- 
 fume and melody in your sermons, but you carry 
 all the vagueness of musical clouds where clearness 
 
12 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 and precision are virtues. Thus you will be feeble 
 in expression where your feeling is strong. You 
 place the beauty of action in unconsciousness. This 
 is wrong, — profoundly wrong. Babes are uncon- 
 scious. Instructed men act with will, therefore are 
 they moral, god-like. You confound tranquillity and 
 unconsciousness ; but Tranquillity is the daughter 
 of Volition and Love, their favorite though young- 
 est child. You are deficient in will. This is the 
 most important statement I have to make. 
 
 " Your strong likings sometimes lead you where 
 you would not go. Your dislikes make you shrink 
 from others who, you have a presentiment, are not 
 congenial souls. Thus you are often misunder- 
 stood, often neglected by such as are really con- 
 genial, born of the same parent. 
 
 " Your quick discernment leads you away some- 
 times. What you catch at the first or second 
 grasp, you hold ; but you are not a patient thinker. 
 This proceeds from want of will. You oftentimes 
 go down very deep into the hidden things of nat- 
 ure and see visions ; but you descry only half of a 
 truth, which often leads to a whole error. If you 
 would add reflection to your list of cardinal virtues 
 of the mind, and apply it to the rich elements of 
 thought which the spontaneous reason affords you, 
 you will be a great man. This want of will-con- 
 trolled thought has prevented your doing anything 
 worthy of yourself. You have done fine things, 
 but they are nothing to what you can and ought 
 to do. 
 
PREACHING AND TRANSLATING 13 
 
 " Your love of freedom makes you despise law. 
 Now a man is only free by keeping the law of his 
 being, ' the law of the spirit of life,' as Paul calls it. 
 You have not will enough to be free. Impulse as- 
 sumes the place of will with you. Sometimes it 
 carries you where reason would perhaps reluct to 
 go. Now the will cannot be the impelling power, 
 but it should be a directing. Without this man is 
 like a straw in the waters. You have a beautiful 
 sentiment; but you need a firm principle to give 
 consistency, vigor, and selbst-standigkeit. You 
 have read the little note upon Schubert at the end 
 of the Life of Schiller : it is full of instruction. 
 
 " I admire your imagination : it is really creative, 
 not merely a sickly fancy ; but it makes you dream 
 when you should do. Duty, not dreaming, is for 
 men. You must get a place in the real world be- 
 fore you can walk into the ideal like a gentleman. 
 Nobody can scramble into heaven : even the giants 
 piled Pelion upon Ossa before they attempted it. 
 I have suspected that your ideals are incapable of 
 realization. So are all, you will say. . True, but 
 only on account of the narrowness of Space and the 
 lowness of Time ; while I suspect yours of an in- 
 trinsic defect, that they sometimes involve a contra- 
 diction, and so would commit suicide before they 
 were of age." 
 
 In writing to Dwight three months before the 
 above letter was written, Parker had asked his 
 friend to point out all the faults which he found 
 most prominent in his character, both intellectual 
 
14 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 and moral. To this Dwight replied a few days 
 later in these words : " I may hint to you some- 
 thing about your character, as I would to myself 
 about my own, rather in the w r ay of cautious suspi- 
 cion than passing any actual judgment. I fear 
 that I have not enough of the element of will in 
 me. I cannot judge people. I can only regard 
 what I see in them as the manifestations of a 
 peculiar nature. I have strong likings, strong an- 
 tipathies ; but I do not feel it necessary to praise 
 or blame. Still, I should be unworthy of the con- 
 fidence you have reposed in me if I did not speak 
 to you openly. I shall try to merit the confidence 
 you have placed in my good will and candor, 
 though I would not have you place too much in 
 my judgment. 
 
 " I always thought you had faults ; but, as I try 
 to touch them, they slip away. Therefore, let me 
 commence systematically ; and, first, whatever may 
 be your habitual principles, motives, tendencies, 
 passions, you do not fail at all in the resolution to 
 act them out. Whatever you wish, you will ; and, 
 what you will, you effect. This I have admired in 
 you, perhaps because I am so passive. But yet 
 even this virtue you carry to a degree which is dis- 
 agreeable to me. I don't like to see a man have 
 too much will: it mars the beauty of nature. You 
 seem, as the phrenologist said, ' goaded on.' Your 
 life seems a succession of convulsive efforts, and 
 the only wonder is to me that they don't exhaust 
 you. You continually recover and launch forth 
 
PREACHING AND TRANSLATING 15 
 
 again. This circumstance makes me somewhat 
 mistrust my own judgment about this trait. Still, 
 it is painful for me to see a being whom I respect 
 and love anything but calm. I like not impetuosity, 
 except that of unconscious impulse. You distrust 
 those who are unlike yourself. You fancy them re- 
 straints upon you, and then your faith in your own 
 energies and ideas speaks out in a tone of almost 
 bitter contempt for the world and those who do not 
 think and feel as you do. You feel that such senti- 
 ments as you cherish ought to triumph, but you 
 find the world courting men who pursue inferior 
 aims. Coupled with your high ideal is an impa- 
 tient wish to see it immediately realized, — two 
 things which don't go well together; for the one 
 prompts you to love, the other, soured by necessary 
 disappointment, prompts to hate, at least contempt. 
 " I think your love of learning is a passion, that 
 it injures your mind by converting insensibly what 
 is originally a pure thirst for truth into a greedy, 
 avaricious, jealous striving, not merely to know, but 
 to get all there is known. Don't you often turn 
 aside from your own reflection from a fear of 
 losing what another has said or written on the sub- 
 ject ? Hav^ you not too much of a mania for all 
 printed things, — as if books were the symbols of 
 that truth to which the student aspires ? You 
 write, you read, you talk, you think, in a hurry, 
 for fear of not getting all. Tell me if I conject- 
 ure wrongly, and pardon this weak but sincere at- 
 tempt to answer your questions. Your friend and 
 brother." 
 
16 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 These letters indicate the sensitive, refined, and 
 unworldly cast of Dwight's character, and the aloof- 
 ness of his heart and mind from the commonplaces 
 of the world. His letter to Parker reveals his own 
 character more fully than does Parker's to him, 
 and shows clearly his want of an incisive and dom- 
 inating will-power. A letter from Rev. H. W. Bel- 
 lows to D wight, written in the autumn of 1836, 
 hints of the fears Dwight's intimate friends had 
 deep at heart as to his future. " A good many of 
 your friends," his classmate writes, " who admire 
 your genius, fear, I think, whether it is destined to 
 have a full manifestation. Their fears and mine 
 are founded upon a certain contempt you have for 
 the details of life, for the common modes of useful- 
 ness, for the use of means. They fear for your sta- 
 bility. They fear for your nonconformity to circum- 
 stances. Have they any grounds ? Do you feel 
 any radical weakness of purpose, any consciousness 
 that you are destined to dream bright dreams, 
 and wake to weep over their vanity? You may 
 have the character of being dreamy, irresolute, and 
 impracticable, with a consciousness all the while of 
 a lofty destiny of usefulness in the world. Forgive 
 me for touching this matter, but I express a feel- 
 ing that has sometimes cast a doubt upon my mind 
 as to your prospects of happiness. I have feared 
 that your fortunes might be those of genius too 
 often without sympathy, too often disastrous." 
 
 D wight did not always feel in the discouraged 
 mood in which he wrote to Parker, and he had 
 
PREACHING AND TRANSLATING 17 
 
 more than one occasion for feeling that his work in 
 the pulpit was acceptable. In 1837 Rev. S. D. Rob- 
 bins, of Lynn, wrote to him, " Your services were 
 not only acceptable, but more than profitable; and 
 I am grateful to you for their benefit." In 1839 
 Rev. E. Q. Sewall, of Scituate, wrote him : " I can- 
 not refuse myself the satisfaction of letting you 
 know how exceedingly and universally pleased my 
 society were with your services. It was delightful 
 to me to see the quantity of intellectual and moral 
 activity which seemed the product directly of your 
 word and theme." 
 
 In June, 1837, D wight received a request from 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson that he supply the pulpit 
 of the church in East Lexington. To this congre- 
 gation, newly formed, Emerson had been preach- 
 ing for about two years. The people were of the 
 anti-slavery and radical type, to a considerable ex- 
 tent ; and Emerson's preaching had been very satis- 
 factory. He had grown to strongly dislike the 
 pulpit as a place for himself, however; and he 
 quietly omitted on one Sunday the public prayer, 
 finding it not in consonance with his mood. He 
 was anxious to find some one to take his place, and 
 to relieve him of the drive every Sunday from Con- 
 cord. Dwight spent a few Sundays with this little 
 congregation; and in February, 1838, he received 
 this letter from Emerson : — 
 
 " I was at East Lexington yesterday, and ex- 
 plained my wish to relinquish the charge of the 
 pulpit to Mr. Morrill ; and he talked with the com- 
 
18 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 mittee. They are very glad to know that you are 
 disposed to come, — the committee for themselves, 
 — and they think it agreeable to all. But they are 
 so systematically prudent that they think it will for 
 the present be better if I engaged to supply the 
 desk, and then send you, than if they agree with 
 you at first hand. 
 
 " So I am to come once or twice in person be- 
 tween now and the first of May, when my engage- 
 ment expires ; and then, if agreeable to you, I am 
 to renew the engagement, but with the understand- 
 ing that you are to take the entire charge, only 
 calling me in if any particular contingency should 
 make it desirable. I am agreeably astonished at 
 arriving at the dignity of patronage, and you may 
 be sure I shall be sufficiently ostentatious of it. 
 Meantime I shall depend on you to go there next 
 Sunday, and thereafter. When I see you, I will fix 
 some day when I should go before May." 
 
 For something more than a year Dwight con- 
 tinued to supply the East Lexington pulpit, being 
 absent, however, more than half of the time. His 
 preaching did not wholly satisfy the congregation, 
 and he was not invited to settle. He is still re- 
 membered in the parish with much regard for his 
 enthusiastic love of nature and his passionate de- 
 votion to music. " He was all music," say those 
 who knew him, — full of interesting talk about the 
 art, and constantly improvising on the piano, when 
 one was within reach. He was shy, bashful, diffi- 
 dent in the extreme, sensitive to surroundings and 
 
PREACHING AND TRANSLATING 19 
 
 especially as to persons, and caring little for those 
 not of his own taste and quality. He was also 
 greatly interested in German ; was then giving 
 much time to its study, and to translation of the 
 German poets. In his visits to the parish, German 
 books and music, and whatever books he happened 
 to be interested in at the time, went with him, and 
 were freely talked of to those who would listen to 
 him. His sermons were often written on Saturday 
 night and Sunday morning, a considerable part of 
 the night being devoted to them. This practice he 
 kept up so long as he occupied a pulpit. 
 
 Dwight was dependent upon those who heard 
 him for whatever success he attained in the pulpit. 
 If people did not hear him gladly, he felt at once 
 the depression of the situation ; but, where he was 
 cordially welcomed, his mood rose to the highest 
 level. In May, 1839, he spent three Sundays in 
 Bangor, Me., in the pulpit of Rev. F. H. Hedge. 
 On the second Sunday he wrote to one of his sis- 
 ters : " I enjoy myself exceedingly, and I feel fifty 
 per cent, better every way than when I left Boston. 
 I receive the most cordial and constant attentions 
 from the people ; in fact, never was made nearly so 
 much of anywhere. So many call upon me, or in- 
 vite me to ride, to tea, and what not, that I get 
 little time to work or to brood over my thought; 
 and that is just what I want. There is much more 
 refined society than I anticipated in Bangor. Mr. 
 Hedge's society includes the most of this better 
 part. What makes me feel doubly at home here 
 
20 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 is the fact that Mr. Emerson was here some years 
 ago, and interested the people very much. I have 
 never got so cordial a hearing for my free utter- 
 ances as here. They are an active, public-spirited 
 people, and are not afraid." 
 
 During these years of waiting Dwight was not 
 idle with his pen. In 1838 he wrote reviews of 
 Tennyson's " Poems " and Gardner's " Music of 
 Nature " for the Christiaiz Examiner. During 
 1839 he wrote on Schiller's " William Tell " and 
 Dickens's " Oliver Twist," and in 1840 he furnished 
 to the same review an article on " Spenser's 
 Poems." It was good work he put into these 
 criticisms, somewhat youthful and enthusiastic, but 
 sound and wholesome. His review of Tennyson 
 was the earliest published in this country, and was 
 marked by his independent and appreciative spirit. 
 
 His chief work at this time, however, was the 
 translation of the minor poems of Goethe and 
 Schiller for the series of volumes edited by his 
 friend George Ripley, under the general title of 
 " Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature." The 
 second volume in this series appeared in the latter 
 part of 1838, with the title " Select Minor Poems, 
 translated from the German of Goethe and Schiller, 
 with Notes." Dwight translated most of the poems 
 from Goethe, and somewhat less than half of those 
 from Schiller ; and he edited the volume, furnish- 
 ing the eighty pages of notes. The plan of the 
 volume is given in a letter which Dwight sent to 
 Rev. James Freeman Clarke, then at Louisville, Ky., 
 asking for his aid in its preparation : — 
 
PREACHING AND TRANSLATING 21 
 
 " Knowing you to be a friend of Goethe and 
 Schiller, I may venture to ask your assistance in 
 the volume which I am preparing, and which is to 
 consist of the principal ' minor poems ' of those 
 two authors. My plan is to present a faithful trans- 
 lation of all the most characteristic and important 
 lyrics of these two men, so selected and arranged 
 as to exhibit as much as possible of their spirit, and 
 in some measure to tell their internal history, to 
 mark the different phases through which their 
 minds passed, to show them as they were acted 
 upon by the circumstances of their terrestrial edu- 
 cation. Thus of Schiller I should wish to give 
 some specimens of his earliest and most impas- 
 sioned poetry, and then some which is more 
 tinged with his philosophical speculations, and all 
 of those riper and calmer productions of thought 
 and views of life. Of Goethe I would not omit his 
 pantheistic pieces, which come under the general 
 title of ' God and the World,' although these will 
 be very difficult to accomplish. 
 
 " I am to have the assistance of Professors Long- 
 fellow and Felton, of Rev. Dr. Frothingham, of 
 Miss M. Fuller, C. T. Brooks, etc., all of whom 
 have entered upon the work with spirit. But we 
 must fill out three hundred and fifty pages, and 
 execute all with great care, so that we need a good 
 deal of assistance. I hope you will take mercy 
 upon me in my desperate expedition, and send me 
 something. 
 
 " As to the method of translation, I wish in all 
 
22 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 cases to preserve the form as well as the spirit; for 
 in lyric poetry the form is part of the substance. 
 To retain the very idea of the author, with the exact 
 rhythm and rhyme, and the fervor and grace of ex- 
 pression, is the ideal to which we ought certainly to 
 aim; and then it will not be our fault if we fall 
 short." 
 
 Besides those persons mentioned in this letter, 
 Dwight had the assistance of George Bancroft, 
 William H. Channing, Frederic H. Hedge, and 
 Christopher P. Cranch. He did not have the aid, 
 however, of Felton and Longfellow. 
 
 Into the notes much labor was put, and of a help- 
 ful kind. The first one was of considerable length, 
 and presented Dwight's theory of translation. The 
 other notes gave the circumstances of the writing 
 of the poems, and such explanations as made them 
 readable by those not familiar with the literary his- 
 tory of the two poets. 
 
 An interesting incident in connection with this 
 book was its dedication, in these words : " To 
 Thomas Carlyle, as a slight token of admiration 
 and gratitude, this volume is respectfully inscribed 
 by the Translator." In October, 1838, Dwight 
 wrote in this wise for permission to insert this 
 dedication: — 
 
 " My friend, Mr. R. W. Emerson, whom I had de- 
 sired to write to you and make a rather presumptu- 
 ous request in my behalf, has exhorted me to do the 
 thing myself. As a young student of German let- 
 ters, following out gratefully, but unworthily, the 
 
PREACHING AND TRANSLATING 23 
 
 impulse which he owes in great part to your writ- 
 ings, and now about to present some of the first- 
 fruits of his studies to the public, in the shape of 
 translations, will you allow me the gratification of 
 dedicating them to you ? The whole task has 
 been pleasant to me, though I fear for the result. 
 It has been, on my part, active conversation with 
 greater minds, and an attempt to get nearer to 
 them by striving to reproduce some of their works. 
 What I have to show for it will show most un- 
 worthily, no doubt ; but it has been honest, hearty 
 labor, and has met with such sincere encourage- 
 ment from a circle of friends whose judgment I re- 
 spect, and whose sympathies are with the highest, 
 that I have determined to let it go forth, and to 
 let Goethe and Schiller appear in such imperfect 
 copies as I have been able to make of some of their 
 divine lyrics in the moments when they have most 
 filled my fancy and spoken to my experience. 
 That I have done them in this way is my only 
 hope for them. It makes them sweet memorials to 
 myself, though they may look poorly to others. In 
 filling up a volume, however, some things have had 
 to be done mechanically, more for completeness' 
 sake, and for others, than from any special impulse 
 of my own ; and this the more as I have adopted 
 and carried out the principle, in translating these 
 poems, of preserving the form always with the 
 spirit, as being, in fact, inseparable from it in a 
 lyric. Generally, I have caught the music of the 
 piece, and walked about with it ringing through 
 
24 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 me, while I pondered and digested the substance, 
 and in this way has the literal imitation become 
 natural and free. 
 
 " The book is to be one of the series of ' Speci- 
 mens of Foreign Standard Literature,' edited by 
 Rev. George Ripley, and will be entitled ' Se- 
 lect Minor Poems from Goethe and Schiller.' It 
 will contain a pretty full collection of the songs, 
 ballads, etc., of those men, and many of the philo- 
 sophical and art poems and dithyrambics of Goethe. 
 I have selected chiefly such pieces as have struck 
 my fancy, such as steal upon my memory at 
 times as fit representations of inward experiences, 
 wherein all must recognize something of their own. 
 Several translations have been contributed by my 
 friends, among whose names, possibly, you will rec- 
 ognize one or two acquaintances. This account of 
 the plan of the work, of the feelings and methods 
 with which it has been growing together most nat- 
 urally and pleasantly, I have felt bound to give you 
 before asking leave to connect your name with it 
 in any way. Most pleasant of all will it be, when 
 it is all done, to inscribe one page to the most suc- 
 cessful interpreter of the beauties and deep wealth 
 and wisdom of German mind to the English 
 people, with whom, in spirit at least, we younger 
 and ruder Americans, New Englanders, claim to be 
 numbered. Most pleasant will it be to acknowl- 
 edge many a deep inward obligation, which the 
 young man in his self-culture feels to the friendly 
 spirit that goes before him, leaving such a pure 
 
PREACHING AND TRANSLATING 25 
 
 light behind him, to surprise and invite the hum- 
 blest onward." 
 
 " Your very courteous letter has just been 
 handed to me," Carlyle wrote in reply. " I answer 
 without delay, what you have reason to expect, that 
 I am flattered and honored by your proposal ; that, 
 if such a dedication can seem in any way desirable 
 to you, it cannot be other than gratifying to me. 
 
 " My best wishes go with you in your enterprise. 
 Among the Germans are to be found true singers : 
 the only true ones we have had for a great while, 
 with any such compass of melody ; the last we are 
 likely to have, I think, for a great while. You do 
 well to unseal their voices for them in that great 
 western land. They are countrymen, kinsmen of 
 ours, these Deutschen ; and truly, in the speaking 
 or singing department, the chief of the family at 
 present. In the doing and divining department, 
 again we Saxons, Englanders New and Old, may 
 set up for the first. Honor to each after his kind ! 
 
 " Your mood of mind is the right one for a trans- 
 lator. The tune of a Poem, especially if it be a 
 Goethe's Poem, is the soul of the whole, round 
 which all, the very thoughts no less than the words, 
 shapes and modulates itself. The tune is to be got 
 hold of before anything else is got. And yet each 
 language has its genius, its capabilities. Your task 
 is a difficult one. For the rest there is no alchemy 
 like good will. 
 
 " It is several years now since I quitted that 
 province of things, but I feel still and shall ever 
 
26 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 feel its great importance to the whole modern 
 world ; and it is a real pleasure to me, on looking 
 round, to observe so many generous fellow-laborers, 
 on this side of the ocean and on that, who have 
 taken up the cause in such a fashion as to insure 
 fair play to it in the long run. Go on, and prosper. 
 
 " May I ask you to present my kind remem- 
 brances to Mr. Ripley? I have many friends in 
 your country whom I know not how to thank. If 
 you see Emerson, say I wrote to him lately out of 
 Scotland, and mean to write again in some two 
 weeks by a speedier conveyance." 
 
 On the appearance of the book a copy was at 
 once sent to Carlyle, with a note of thanks and ex- 
 planation. In due time there came in reply the 
 following characteristic letter : — 
 
 Cheyne Row, London, 14 March, 1839. 
 My dear Sir, — Your letter by the " Royal Will- 
 iam " reached me yesterday. The Book it referred 
 to had not then arrived. But, strangely enough, 
 Kennett, the dilatory Kennett, inspired by I know 
 not what good genius, had in those same hours be- 
 thought himself and set his messengers in motion; 
 and so, returning from a friend's late last night, I 
 found your Packet lying safe in waiting for me. 
 Mrs. Austin and Miss Martineau are both in town. 
 They shall have their copies, if they have not al- 
 ready got them. Mrs. Jameson is gone to Ger- 
 many and Dresden some days ago, so that hers, 
 I suppose, must lie till her return, which was not 
 
PREACHING AND TRANSLATING 27 
 
 expected to be very distant. Such a volume would 
 have been a welcome thing to carry round with her 
 to Weimar. However, it will doubtless find its 
 way thither by and by, and be welcome, arrive 
 when it may. 
 
 For myself I thank you very cordially for this 
 Gift, for the copy specially assigned me, and for the 
 kind Inscription prefixed to all the copies. It is 
 good news that any one esteems us, better and 
 better when our favorer is one whom we ourselves 
 can esteem. Of course, I have not yet been able 
 to give your volume such an examination as I well 
 design for it; but I have looked here and there, 
 read largely here and there, read your notes nearly 
 altogether, and know tolerably whereabouts you 
 are. It seems to be a volume creditable to New 
 England, to yourself and all your coadjutors, well 
 worthy of the creditable publication it forms part 
 of. With great pleasure I recognize in you the 
 merit, the rarest of all in Goethe's translators, yet 
 the first condition, without which every other merit 
 is impossible, that of understanding your original. 
 You seem to me to have actually deciphered for 
 yourself, and got to behold and see the lineaments 
 of this great mind, so that you know what it 
 means and what its words mean. I have heard 
 from no English writer whatever as much truth as 
 you write in these notes about Goethe. I might 
 say nowhere else at all among English writers any- 
 thing but partiality, misapprehension, non-vision, 
 gleams of insight bewildered in a mass of halluci- 
 
28 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 nations, leaving no image for us but at bottom that 
 of a vague large blamable Impossibility. Interpre- 
 tation of detached pieces in such circumstances is 
 hopeless. In the contrary circumstances there may 
 be hope in it. I like many of the versions very 
 well. Your songs seem to me to be the best, far 
 better than one has seen hitherto, than one could 
 have expected to see. The Epigrammatic Aphor- 
 istic matter, too, is sometimes wonderfully success- 
 ful. At other times the quaint felicity of the ex- 
 pression is lost (I know nothing in writing more 
 difficult to preserve), but the sense even in these 
 cases is there. Schiller was much easier to do. 
 On the whole, I must congratulate you on getting 
 through so handsomely. It was an enterprise 
 wherein failure to a very high degree need not 
 have been dishonorable. Among your helpers I 
 notice my old acquaintance Channing, and greatly 
 approve of his " Kennst Du das Land ? " 
 
 How the public will receive your book is perhaps 
 very doubtful, perhaps not very momentous. One 
 great acquisition you have infallibly made, far be- 
 yond what any Public could do for you, — the ac- 
 quisition of a Teacher and Prophet for yourself. 
 Alone of men, very far beyond all other men, 
 Goethe seemed to me to have understood his cen- 
 tury, to have conquered his century, and made that, 
 too, for himself a portion of universal Time, a por- 
 tion of Eternity. Glory to the strong man ! say I. 
 Joy over all the race of men ! Such a man is as 
 a Prometheus, who in a time of midnight and 
 
PREACHING AND TRANSLATING 29 
 
 spectres miraculously brings fire and light out of 
 Heaven itself; and his sacred urn is burning here 
 among us still for long generations, whereat the 
 rest of us can, according to our need, kindle lights. 
 What all this means, I believe you know. It is 
 now long that I have ceased to speak much about 
 such things ; but they are not forgotten for all that. 
 There is a time to speak of them, there comes also 
 a time to be silent of them, and, if possible, do 
 better than speak. 
 
 Your scheme of activity pleases me well. Taken 
 up in singleness of heart, with modesty, with cheer- 
 ful courage to do and to endure, it cannot but lead 
 you towards a good goal. Neither must poverty 
 depress you overmuch. Poverty is no bad com- 
 panion for a young man. No degree of poverty 
 whatever can permanently hold down a man in 
 wrong courses. Nay, the best and highest course 
 for a man, where his duty and blessedness do lie, 
 is often enough one of great and greatest poverty. 
 Heed not poverty. Speak to your fellow-men what 
 things you have made out by the grace of God. 
 A far fataller enemy than poverty is one to which 
 not many of us, but all of us, are liable in this 
 career: the thrice cursed sin of Self-conceit, bred 
 oftener by riches than by Poverty ! God deliver us 
 all from that, send us whatever of "ill fortune" 
 is needful to deliver us from that! 
 
 I write in great haste, but with little prospect of 
 speedy leisure, and therefore to-day rather than 
 to-morrow. Pray thank Mr. Ripley for his valued 
 
3 o JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 book, which lay nearly a year hidden somewhere, 
 but did appear in fine. 
 
 With best wishes and thanks, 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 T. Carlyle. 
 
 In writing to Emerson, under date of April 17, 
 1839, Carlyle said: "I received Dwight's book, 
 liked it, and have answered him : a good youth of 
 the kind you describe. No Englishman, to my 
 knowledge, has uttered as much sense about 
 Goethe and German things." In March Emerson 
 had written to Carlyle : " I hope you liked John 
 Dwight's translations of Goethe and notes. He is 
 a good, susceptible, yearning soul, not so apt to 
 create as to receive with the freest allowance ; but 
 I like his book very much." 
 
 In the letters of these years there are hints of 
 various activities and interests, hymns written for 
 the ordination of Theodore Parker and on other 
 occasions, a visit full of satisfaction to Dr. Chan- 
 ning at Newport, attendance upon the meetings of 
 the little company of Transcendentalists, intimate 
 friendship with Ripley, a cordial correspondence 
 with Brooks, Parker, Samuel Osgood, Bellows, 
 Hedge, Elizabeth Peabody, Mrs. George Ripley, 
 and others. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 AT NORTHAMPTON. 
 
 In 1839 there came the promise of ' a pulpit of 
 his own to Dwight. During that year he preached 
 with acceptance at South Boston, Dover, N.H., and 
 Northampton, Mass. In each of these places it 
 seemed probable that he might be invited to settle. 
 He went to Northampton for a few Sundays in 
 July. He became at once interested in the society, 
 and he threw himself most actively into the work 
 of visiting and building up the congregation. 
 Early in the next year he was asked to preach 
 again at Northampton. He was invited to become 
 the minister of the little Unitarian parish, and he 
 was ordained in May. 
 
 From the first the people were not wholly satis- 
 fied with Dwight's preaching and methods of work. 
 It was only a little more than fifteen years before 
 that the church had separated from the original 
 parish of the town, which still strongly retained the 
 impress of the work of Jonathan Edwards. Calvin- 
 ism was strongly intrenched in the Connecticut 
 Valley in 1820, and the worst features of the revival 
 methods were still in vogue. Those who withdrew 
 from the Edwards parish in 1823 were Unitarians 
 of the most conservative type, and they were not 
 prepared for other innovations than those they had 
 already made. Into this town of Puritan traditions 
 came a young man full of modern ideas and 
 methods, a Transcendentalist when Transcendental- 
 
32 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 ism was condemned everywhere, and one not con- 
 tented until he had tried his own experiments and 
 put his own devices into operation. There was 
 much debate, long hesitation, and a final invitation, 
 but with a considerable number lukewarm or op- 
 posed. 
 
 It must not be understood, however, that Dwight 
 was an extremist at this time. His long statement 
 of belief furnished to the parish would now be re- 
 garded as conservative, and would doubtless suffice 
 to admit him into not a few evangelical churches 
 of the present day. It was in what he omitted of 
 conventional words and forms and in the new 
 methods he introduced that the cause of hesitation 
 on the part of the congregation was to be found. 
 At last, however, all objections seemed removed; 
 and Dwight accepted the call offered in February. 
 He was to receive a salary of six hundred dollars. 
 He was ordained on May 20, the sermon being 
 preached by his friend George Ripley, and the 
 charge given by Dr. Channing. 
 
 On the Sunday following his ordination Dwight 
 wrote to his sister: " In the full blaze of morning 
 I woke in terror. More than half the sermons still 
 remained before me. Then came an intense day. 
 Somehow mysteriously I got through it, as I had 
 no right to hope. I scratched away in the morn- 
 ing, and got one done, and went and preached it. 
 It was on ' The Church,' an attempt to set forth the 
 true and simple idea of a Christian community, 
 which should be unsectarian, exclusive in nothing, 
 
AT NORTHAMPTON 33 
 
 and based on the common interests and sympa- 
 thies of all humanity. The text for the whole day 
 was from 1 Corinthians : ' Though I be free from 
 all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, 
 that I might gain the more.' This opened three 
 topics: (1) the end of the ministry to increase the 
 church, — 'that I might gain the more'; (2) the min- 
 ister as a minister or servant of the church, — ' I 
 made myself servant unto all'; (3) the minister as 
 a man, the independence of the minister, — ' though 
 I be free from all men.' I preached the first head 
 in the morning, and it gave great delight. I men- 
 tion it because it was the most liberal view ever 
 presented of the church. I hurried home, and 
 sketched something rapidly for the p.m. on the 
 other two heads, which I filled out extempore. It 
 was an exceeding trial, both for the intense mental 
 exercise in planning and executing and on account 
 of the mortification it cost me on account of my 
 delinquency. The church was unusually full, — if 
 anything, fuller than on Wednesday. I spoke ear- 
 nestly, but blundered and stammered not a little, 
 repeated myself, and left out most things, and came 
 down from the pulpit in confusion. But, to my 
 great surprise, every one was satisfied, and many 
 enthusiastic. And so I learned the lesson : a true 
 purpose is power, though it have no hands. 
 
 " After church I walked down with Judge Lyman 
 and Dr. Channing to visit old Judge Hinkley, who 
 is near his end. I could not help thinking again 
 how Providence, in all things, favors me ; that, on 
 
34 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 the first time of my being called to the trying and 
 new situation of administering peace at a death- 
 bed, Dr. Channing, of all men, should be with me. 
 His talk and his prayer were most touching. I 
 visit the old judge daily since, with confidence. 
 Then I ran half-way up Round Hill, and sat on the 
 grass an hour, drinking the beauty and the melody. 
 How this beauty revives one ! I was tolerably 
 rested by it, and proceeded up to Edward Clarke's, 
 and took tea with the Channings, the Lymans, and 
 Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, the most beautiful company 
 which could be assembled on a beautiful evening 
 on a glorious hill. At sunset we all went down to 
 Mrs. Hunt's, where we had a conversation meeting, 
 at Dr. Channing's suggestion. The house was 
 crowded. We talked over the morning's sermon 
 and the ' church.' Dr. Channing talked a great 
 deal, and closed with a prayer which was inspira- 
 tion. The effect of his visit has been most happy 
 on all the people. He has been the true friend and 
 godfather here to me. He knows half my people, 
 is interested in our church, and thinks he sees the 
 first signs of true, life and progress. I spent most 
 of Monday morning with him, and then took leave 
 of him in sadness." A few days later Dr. Channing 
 sent him the following letter about his sermon : — 
 
 My dear Sir, — I return " Bettine " by Miss Lyman. 
 There was one part of your sermon about which I 
 did not speak to you. You said the minister was to 
 have his friends. True, but he must here practise 
 
AT NORTHAMPTON 35 
 
 some self-denial. He must avoid all exclusiveness, 
 and beware of giving real ground for jealousy. He 
 must wait, too, long enough to understand those 
 around him, that he may not rashly give a confi- 
 dence which he must afterwards withdraw. In this 
 way the young minister brings on himself silent but 
 real dislikes. I hope I am legible, for the state of 
 my hand hardly allows me to write. 
 
 Yours truly, etc., 
 Stockbridge, May 29. W. E. C. 
 
 A letter written to Dwight on the day of his 
 ordination, by Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody, gives 
 indication of one of his limitations as a preacher. 
 It is such a frank and generous letter as only a 
 friend can write. "What I am going to say," she 
 writes, " respects some part of your services. A 
 certain want of fluency in prayer has been the real 
 cause of your want of outward success more than 
 any other thing ; and, even in the place where you 
 are, it is felt, although overlooked in the estimation 
 of your many high and beautiful gifts. Now it has 
 always seemed to me as if a few hints from another 
 would remedy this deficiency, but I felt there was a 
 difficulty in giving them while you were yet a can- 
 didate, because there would be something painfully 
 embarrassing to a mind noble and delicate as yours 
 in the consciousness of praying with reference to 
 the criticisms of an audience. I suppose the evil 
 has originated in your idea of being spontaneous. 
 You have thought there was falsehood, perhaps, 
 
36 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 in making an exercise of this kind a subject of 
 meditation and composition. You have heard so 
 much formal praying that you have shrunk from it 
 as the only evil. But in your case it was hardly to 
 be feared : you might premeditate and even write, 
 and still there be no danger of your losing sight of 
 God or losing feeling. Moreover, I think that, even 
 on your own plan, if you would be very short, and 
 as soon as you feel yourself hesitate should close, 
 you would outgrow it, especially as now you will 
 find yourself much more at ease. I remember Mr. 
 E[merson] said that once you had a theory about 
 preaching of the same kind, and did not put enough 
 intellectual labor into the composition of a sermon. 
 But you have got over that, and hence I infer that 
 you may change your mind about prayer. It is 
 right for me to say that, when I heard you preach 
 last, I felt nothing but pleasure in the prayer, which 
 seemed to me full, free, and rich, and should have 
 supposed that the difficulty was completely out- 
 grown, but that I have heard what is said about it 
 at Northampton and elsewhere. I certainly know 
 no one else in such a state of palpable growth as 
 yourself, save and excepting Mr. E. I was charmed 
 and interested by your first sermons, but felt your 
 improvement in practical talent to be very great. 
 The last years of your life, in which you have borne 
 an apparent failure with such courage, dignity, and 
 beauty, have done for you, palpably, what no out- 
 ward success could have done. It has turned you 
 visibly from a child into a man in bearing; and, in 
 
AT NORTHAMPTON 37 
 
 hoping for you now a continued prosperity, I can 
 hope for nothing more than that you should adorn 
 it as you have adorned adversity." 
 
 With the aid of George Ripley the ordination 
 services were printed in full in a neat pamphlet, in 
 Boston, during the autumn. In the summer and 
 later on there was correspondence with Charles T. 
 Brooks about a volume of German poems, which 
 Brooks was translating, and in the preparation of 
 which he desired, and received, Dwight's help. 
 From letters to his family and friends, his doings 
 and thinkings may be briefly chronicled. 
 
 " Had a fine day Sunday with old sermons," he 
 wrote September 4. " The people looked so glad 
 and expectant. After services I rode out with the 
 Lorings to Mrs. Child, and spent one of the most 
 delightful evenings of my life." This was Ellis 
 Gray Loring and Lydia Maria Child. " I have 
 lived in high clover this week," he wrote October 
 12. "Two whole Sundays from Cranch ! He has 
 completely won the hearts of our people. I have 
 never listened to four sermons all so noble and 
 so inspiring. I feel eclipsed in his success. He 
 ought to be renowned and sought for in the 
 churches, but his day is coming. Nothing has 
 gratified me more since I have been here than to 
 witness the warm response of our people to his 
 bold and stirring declarations of truth. I feel as if 
 the victory was won in regard to liberty of opinion 
 here, and he feels that it is the freest and most 
 genial atmosphere in which he has spoken." 
 
3S JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 A week later he wrote : " I enjoyed Cranch's 
 visit prodigiously. Saturday I taught singing- 
 school, had conversation meeting in the evening, 
 at which I taxed my mind more than usual, and 
 made the fullest statement, which I have ever yet 
 succeeded in getting out, of my idea of Christ and 
 Christianity." 
 
 " When I got back," he says November 8, " I 
 found a beautiful present from New York, — Beet- 
 hoven's opera * Fidelio.' The same night I found 
 a letter from Dr. Stedman, written in behalf of 
 Ditson, the music publisher, asking me to make 
 a translation from the German of Matthison's 
 'Adelaide,' and adapt it to Beethoven's music 
 for publication. The letter contained a copy of 
 Beethoven's letter of dedication to Matthison. 
 These two things came in upon me together, just 
 as one of my old Beethoven fits was growing upon 
 me. I have played through ever so many sonatas 
 this week." 
 
 Writing to one of his sisters under date of Jan. 
 12, 1 84 1, Dwight gives an account of his work in 
 detail : " Shall I give you the order of performances 
 for one week ? Sunday evening, a conversation or 
 a teachers' meeting; Monday, Shakspere; Tues- 
 day, Glee Club ; Wednesday, choir meeting ; Thurs- 
 day, the Ladies' Whist Club, alias 'The Sociable'; 
 Saturday, singing-school for children, — not to men- 
 tion parties and such like. Then there are things 
 to be written, things to be read. I incline to books, 
 and would pass the day with them if it were pos- 
 
AT NORTHAMPTON 39 
 
 sible. They give me more satisfaction than men 
 just now. The Dial I have nearly devoured since 
 Sunday. It even clipped the borders of my ser- 
 mon some, it was so irresistible a dainty. It is a 
 splendid number ; and I cannot but thank the good 
 souls who wrote in it, they have given me so much 
 of inward comfort and beautiful thoughts. You 
 shall have it erelong." 
 
 The conversation meetings which Dwight men- 
 tions several times were not an invention of his 
 own. He probably took the idea of them from Dr. 
 Charles Follen, who was for several years the min- 
 ister of the little church in East Lexington. It was 
 Dr. Follen's idea that the religious services of the 
 churches were too stiff and formal, not sufficiently 
 spontaneous, and did not give the people oppor- 
 tunity enough to ask questions and to express their 
 own opinions. He planned a church at East Lex- 
 ington, with the pulpit near the centre, wherein 
 pastor and people could freely interchange ideas. 
 His hope was that a new life would be awakened 
 by this free spirit in the church, and that there 
 would result a deepening of the religious life. His 
 death on the ill-fated steamer " Lexington," as he 
 was returning from New York to the dedication of 
 the church, prevented his realizing his idea of a free 
 church, in which the service should be the joint ex- 
 pression of the worshipful spirit of both the minister 
 and congregation. His abilities as a scholar, his 
 free spirit as a thinker and social reformer, and his 
 deeply religious instinct, would have led him to 
 
40 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 use wisely the fresh and earnest methods he pro- 
 posed. Dwight took from him the idea of meetings 
 for conversation on religious subjects, wherein all 
 should speak freely, and in which it was sought to 
 cultivate the spirit of devotion in simple earnest- 
 ness. 
 
 Dwight read the Dial with much interest, and 
 procured several subscribers for it in Northampton 
 and Greenfield. He was a contributor to the first 
 volume, the opening number publishing one of his 
 sermons under the title of " Religion of Beauty," 
 and an article by him on " Concerts of the Past 
 Winter," being those of Boston. In the third and 
 fourth numbers appeared a sermon under the title 
 of " Ideals of Every-day Life." Some of his interest 
 in this publication may be understood from a por- 
 tion of a letter to him from Mrs. George Ripley: 
 " We are heartily rejoiced that you like the Dial 
 well. George, Margaret, and Theodore [Ripley, 
 Parker, and Miss Fuller] all run it down unmerci- 
 fully. It has not fire and flame enough for them, 
 but the reflected approbation of the public makes 
 them seem more truly to appreciate it now. It is 
 thought by many — myself among the number — a 
 very charming book. Miss Peabody says: 'It is 
 domestic, giving the every-day state of feeling and 
 thought of the writers. There is no effort about it, 
 and much strength behind.' The next number will 
 be great. We cannot answer your inquiries with 
 regard to the poetry in the Dial, especially that 
 'sweet, sad melody ' you speak of. Margaret sup- 
 
AT NORTHAMPTON 41 
 
 plies the poetical department from the confidential 
 deposits of private friendship in her portfolio ; and 
 we agree not to know the names of the pieces we 
 most admire, that we may always have an answer 
 for those who ask us." 
 
 " You have seen the Dial, of course," wrote Rip- 
 ley in July. " I hope you like it better than I do. 
 It is quite unworthy, I think, of its pretensions; 
 and unless the everlasting hills, to which we have 
 looked for help, give us something more than this, 
 they had better cease to be parturient. Pray send 
 us the remainder of that homily on ' The Church at 
 Work,' etc., or whatever you may have stronger and 
 better. I like your * Rest ' still more in print than 
 I did in MS. It is an exquisite expression of a 
 noble and true thought. Your article on ' Con- 
 certs ' is an atoning offering for the many sins of 
 the Dial. I do not fancy the ' Religion of Beauty ' 
 so much as I expected to do. It is unfinished. 
 Almost every sentence promises something better 
 than we get, and the sum total is a feeling of disap- 
 pointment. Do give us some truly artistic product, 
 be it ever so small. Your beautiful improvisations 
 are a sin against your own soul ; and, unless you 
 repent and mend your ways, you will be damned 
 when the day of judgment comes." 
 
 " How glad I am that you like the Dial so well ! " 
 wrote Ripley a month later, " and that the saints in 
 Northampton and Deerfield also have an eye for its 
 merits. The best judges, though, I think, generally 
 are disappointed. It was not pronouce enough. 
 
42 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 They expected hoofs and horns, while it proved as 
 gentle as any sucking dove. The next number, I 
 trust, will make amends. Still, this has produced 
 a decided sensation. I feared it would fall dead; 
 but there is no dread of that now. People seem 
 to look on with wonder ; while the Philistines, who 
 dare show out, are wrathy as fighting-cocks. Pray 
 send on your articles without delay; and, if you 
 have any more such dainty verses as the last, let 
 them come, too." 
 
 At the end of Dwight's first contribution to the 
 Dial appeared a poem bearing the title " Rest," to 
 which Ripley refers with words of praise. Although 
 immediately following the article on the " Religion 
 of Beauty," it does not form an integral part of it. 
 This poem has been frequently reprinted, and for 
 many years it was popularly supposed to be a trans- 
 lation from the German of Goethe. It was written 
 by Dwight himself, and it is the one poem of his 
 that has become popular and secured the honor of 
 familiar quotation. It will be given here in full as 
 the Dial first printed it : — 
 
 REST. 
 
 Sweet is the pleasure 
 
 Itself cannot spoil ! 
 Is not true leisure 
 
 One with true toil ? 
 
 Thou that wouldst taste it, 
 
 Still do thy best ; 
 Use it, not waste it, 
 
 Else 'tis no rest. 
 
AT NORTHAMPTON 43 
 
 Wouldst behold beauty 
 
 Near thee, all round ? 
 Only hath duty, 
 
 Such a sight found. 
 
 Rest is not quitting 
 
 The busy career : 
 Rest is the fitting 
 
 Of self to its sphere. 
 
 'Tis the brook's motion, 
 
 Clear without strife, 
 Fleeing to ocean 
 
 After its life. 
 
 Deeper devotion 
 
 Nowhere hath knelt; 
 Fuller emotion 
 
 Heart never felt. 
 
 'Tis loving and serving 
 
 The Highest and Best ! 
 'Tis onwards ! unswerving, 
 
 And that is true rest. 
 
 Dwight had other literary tasks in hand than that 
 of contributing to the Dial. He writes to Brooks 
 of a "great parcel of songs for Lowell Mason, 
 most of which were more imitations than transla- 
 tions." " I am under engagement to Ripley," he 
 wrote Aug. 14, 1840, "to make a volume of Herder 
 about that terrible Spinoza, etc., this autumn. I 
 have postponed it all summer, and have but just 
 got a chance to begin." In April the next year he 
 wrote, " I have promised Ripley to make a volume 
 or two from Goethe's prose, which ought to be 
 
44 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 half-done by this time, but is scarcely begun." 
 Neither of these tasks was completed, and it is 
 doubtful if they were ever really undertaken. 
 
 When the anniversary of his ordination came 
 round, Dwight took occasion to review his year's 
 work, to point out in what ways it had not satisfied 
 him, and to indicate how it might be improved. 
 He spoke freely of some criticisms made upon his 
 preaching which had come to him ; and he said 
 that the objections arose from the fact that the 
 people were worldly, and therefore not desirous of 
 having the truth freely spoken. These sermons 
 revived the discontent, and gave occasion for its 
 breaking out in a serious manner. He attempted 
 to heal the breach, sought to explain his words, to 
 reconcile the malcontents, and to restore harmony. 
 Ten days after the outburst he wrote : " I have 
 never felt in better spirits than since the painful 
 effort of yesterday. In the first place, I feel that 
 I have done my duty. In the next place, it has 
 shown me who are my friends, and what warm and 
 true friends they are." 
 
 " From all that I have discovered," he wrote 
 June 22, "of the character of the individuals of 
 whom my society is composed, I feel more and 
 more convinced that the relation between us never 
 could have been lasting, that I never entirely un- 
 derstood the heterogeneous compound, that, had I 
 done twice as much as I have, had I neglected no 
 means or precaution which occurred to me, it could 
 not have altered the case. The truth is, the true 
 
AT NORTHAMPTON 45 
 
 state of things was from the first concealed from 
 me. The enthusiasm of that ordination time de- 
 ceived us. There were many who came reluctantly 
 into the measure of my settlement. But all went 
 on so quietly that I had reason to suppose that 
 everybody was interested as much as could be ex- 
 pected. As it is, I know that a great many have 
 been and still are deeply interested in my services, 
 and are grieved exceedingly that a separation 
 should take place. Very nearly all the women, 
 and a majority of the men, I count upon confi- 
 dently. But the favor with which I am looked 
 upon by the female portion seems to be one chief 
 offence. It is strange that my friends and my 
 opposers know so little of each other." A few 
 days later he wrote : " I am free ! I heard nothing 
 of the doings of the parish meeting till three days 
 after. It was very thinly attended, and most of my 
 friends were absent." 
 
 Dwight spent the summer and autumn in North- 
 ampton, enjoying the beauties of nature and devot- 
 ing himself to literary labors. He preached a few 
 times in neighboring towns, and he spent much 
 time in wandering over the hills. His letters show 
 an exquisite appreciation of all the quieter phases 
 of nature around him. He was planning and pre- 
 paring for the future. August 20 he gave a lect- 
 ure before the American Institute of Instruction 
 on " Simplicity of Character as affected by the 
 Common Systems of Education." Before the Har- 
 vard Musical Association, August 25, he gave an 
 
46 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 address on music, which was published in Hack's 
 Musical Magazine for September. 
 
 " The days are quite filled up," he writes Sep- 
 tember 24 ; " yet I have done little but study and 
 read and muse with reference to the coming 
 lectures. I have just got through two long jobs, — 
 the writing off and correcting my two addresses for 
 the press, which I have sent to Boston. The 
 musical address will appear soon in Hack's Maga- 
 zine, and a few copies will be done up separately in 
 pamphlet form. I have nearly doubled the length 
 of it in writing it over, and I feel now that it is 
 the happiest statement of my feelings about music 
 which I have yet written. As I delivered it, it 
 seemed loose and badly hung together, though it 
 had a unity in my mind. I have now put a back- 
 bone into it, which holds all the parts firmly and 
 systematically together." 
 
 The lectures referred to were on music, and they 
 were prepared before his return to Boston in No- 
 vember. Early in the summer he wrote his friends 
 in behalf of a course of popular lectures on music, 
 and he soon had a number of engagements for 
 their delivery. The winter was devoted in part to 
 this work and to other literary employments. 
 
 After leaving Northampton, Dwight preached 
 half a dozen times, and then quietly dropped out of 
 a profession which he felt was no longer congenial. 
 In reply to an invitation from Dr. Flint, of Salem, 
 to fill his pulpit for a few Sundays, Dwight wrote 
 from Brook Farm, under date of June 18, 1842: 
 
AT NORTHAMPTON 47 
 
 " The truth is, my mind has been for some time 
 past verging more and more away from the clerical 
 profession. Already I had resolved never again to 
 be settled (even if I could be, which is doubtful); 
 and now, just as I received your request, I was seri- 
 ously deliberating the question whether to preach 
 again at all. I have doubts about the Church. I 
 agree with Parker mainly as to the essence of 
 Christianity. I disincline more and more to the 
 forms, especially public prayer. I have less sympa- 
 thy than I had with the prevailing spirit of the 
 churches, and less hope of ever being able to mould 
 the Church and the profession to my idea, so that I 
 could be true to my conviction while continuing in 
 them ; and, in this state of mind, while I cannot go 
 heartily and with my whole soul into a pulpit, I 
 feel that it would be false to do it at all, either from 
 old habit or for the sake of the livelihood, or re- 
 spectable connection which I might derive from it. 
 For the present, therefore, I decline all invitations 
 to preach, not pledging myself with regard to the 
 future, but yet seeing little prospect of my being 
 reconciled to the profession or the profession to 
 me. 
 
 " What pangs this costs me, what breaking of old 
 hopes fondly cherished, and what plunging upon a 
 new sea of uncertainties, I have not time or spirit 
 to detail to you. But I know you will approve my 
 course of action, such being my state of mind, and 
 will give me credit for all willingness and desire to 
 help you, were it only consistent with my sense of 
 duty." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 BROOK FARM. 
 
 It was a time of intense intellectual ferment 
 when Dwight began the work of his life. The 
 Transcendental movement was just getting under 
 way, and he entered into the spirit of it with great 
 enthusiasm. The stir of social discontent he fully 
 shared with many of his friends. The eager wish 
 for a pure and rational religion was his in a large 
 degree. In these and other directions he was a 
 child of his time in the truest sense, sharing its 
 hopes, joining in its aspirations, and ready to labor 
 for the realization of its ideals. 
 
 When the Transcendental Club was started in 
 Boston, he was a member from the first. He was 
 intimately connected with all the men who be- 
 longed to it, and had known them as friends for 
 some years. They felt him to be one of them- 
 selves, a sharer in their convictions and one worthy 
 of their confidence. They saw in him fine traits 
 of character, capacity for noble achievements, and 
 somewhat of the high gift of genius. If they saw 
 any limitation in his character, it was that he was 
 not sufficiently self-seeking to push his way to the 
 highest successes, and that he lacked the assertive 
 will which is the promise of great achievements. 
 He won their affection, however, and secured their 
 loyal friendship. He fully shared in their intel- 
 lectual hopes, and he was not behind any of them 
 in that loyalty to conviction which counts not the 
 cost for the sake of truth. 
 
BROOK FARM 49 
 
 These qualities of his character were well brought 
 out by his connection with Brook Farm. His inti- 
 macy with George Ripley and his wife, which had 
 been of several years' duration, undoubtedly had 
 something to do with his interest in that experi- 
 ment. It was not this alone, however, which led 
 him to join his friends in this effort at practical re- 
 form. Far more than Ripley himself, he was by 
 nature destined to cast in his lot with such an effort 
 to regenerate society. A born idealist, by temper- 
 ament an enthusiast, and by conviction a come- 
 outer from the conventionalities of society and re- 
 ligion, he was one who could see the promise of 
 such a movement, and forsake all things cheerfully 
 for its sake. It was not a young man's day-dream 
 which led Dwight to Brook Farm. He never out- 
 grew the convictions of that early time. To the 
 day of his death he held firmly to the motives and 
 aspirations which made him a member of the Brook 
 Farm community. 
 
 Dwight was not one to drop into the common 
 ways of the world and be content therewith. Wher- 
 ever born or reared, he would have looked at the 
 world with his own eyes, and been unwilling to ac- 
 cept the traditional methods of explaining it. Re- 
 fined and gentle in all the habits of his mind, an 
 intense lover of the beautiful, and aesthetic in his 
 tastes and preferences, he seemed not to have in 
 him any of the stuff of a reformer. He certainly was 
 not an iconoclast or one in any way inclined to the 
 destruction of what is old and venerable. It was 
 
50 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 his love of beauty, his instinctive yearning for what 
 is pure and noble, and his keen desire for moral 
 justice which led him to join with those who de- 
 sired a better form of society. It was 'his wish 
 to show how a finer and purer life could be lived 
 when men turned away from greed and gave them- 
 selves to what is right and just. 
 
 One of the most characteristic enthusiasms of 
 the time found its best expression at Brook Farm. 
 It was not mere enthusiasm, however, which led to 
 that experiment, but a careful and serious study of 
 the needs of humanity. George Ripley was a man 
 of sound intellect, tempered moral purpose, and 
 wise insight into human needs. He calmly rea- 
 soned out a method for saving society, and his the- 
 ories were shared by some of the most judicious 
 men and women of his day. He went to Brook 
 Farm in March or April, 1841, with deliberate pur- 
 pose and high hopes. His wife and a few friends 
 went with him to try the experiment of an indus- 
 trial and social life which should be guided by ra- 
 tional aims, and in which all should jointly share 
 in securing the good of all. The Articles of As- 
 sociation of this community were drawn up on 
 September 29, and officers were elected. On the 
 first of November the Brook Farm Institute of 
 Agriculture and Education was organized, and to 
 it were transferred the farm and other property 
 which Mr. Ripley had purchased. 
 
 The objects had in view in the establishment of 
 Brook Farm may be best stated in the words of 
 
BROOK FARM 51 
 
 George Ripley, its founder and leader. " Our ob- 
 jects," he wrote, "are to insure a more natural union 
 between intellectual and manual labor than now 
 exists; to combine the thinker and the worker, as 
 far as possible, in the same individual ; to guarantee 
 the highest mental freedom by providing all with 
 labor adapted to their tastes and talents, and secur- 
 ing to them the fruits of their industry ; to do away 
 with the necessity of menial services by opening the 
 benefits of education and the profits of labor to all ; 
 and thus to prepare a society of liberal, intelligent, 
 and cultivated persons, whose relations with each 
 other would permit a more simple and wholesome 
 life than can be led amid the pressure of our com- 
 petitive institutions." The articles of agreement, 
 drawn up in Boston during the winter of 1840-41, 
 somewhat more explicitly set forth the purposes 
 had in view : " To substitute a system of brotherly 
 co-operation for one of selfish competition ; to 
 secure to our children, and to those who may be 
 intrusted to our care, the benefits of the highest 
 physical, intellectual, and moral education which, in 
 the present state of human knowledge, the resources 
 at our command will permit ; to institute an at- 
 tractive, efficient, and productive system of in- 
 dustry; to prevent the exercise of worldly anxiety 
 by the competent supply of our necessary wants; 
 to diminish the desire of excessive accumula- 
 tion by making the acquisition of individual prop- 
 erty subservient to upright and disinterested uses; 
 to guarantee to each other the means of physical 
 
52 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 support and of spiritual progress; and thus to 
 impart a greater freedom, simplicity, truthfulness, 
 refinement, and moral dignity to our mode of life." 
 When Ripley went to the farm in West Roxbury, 
 he was accompanied by his wife, Sophia Willard 
 Ripley, a woman of ability and learning, self-deny- 
 ing, and a capable leader, fit to adorn any society, 
 and yet accepting the most menial tasks in behalf 
 of her faith in the ideal; and his sister, Marianne 
 Ripley, a teacher of experience and skill, devoted to 
 her brother's interests, but somewhat Puritanic 
 and inflexible in character. Soon after they were 
 joined by George P. Bradford, a graduate of Har- 
 vard College, a gentle and refined soul, a lover of 
 good literature, an able teacher, to which profes- 
 sion his life was devoted; Warren Burton, a grad- 
 uate of Harvard and a Unitarian preacher, a writer 
 of two or three delightful books on educational 
 subjects, especially one on the district school as 
 it was ; and Minot Pratt, a printer and student, 
 a lover of flowers, and a writer on agricultural 
 themes, a gentle and lovable man, with his wife 
 and children. On the 12th of April Nathaniel 
 Hawthorne joined the little community, and a few 
 weeks later he set down in his journal an enthusi- 
 astic account of the life at the farm. William B. 
 Allen became the farmer of the association. In 
 the autumn Charles A. Dana, who had been a stu- 
 dent at Harvard, joined his interests with the others; 
 and in November John S. Dwight became a mem- 
 ber. When the association was organized, in the 
 
BROOK FARM 53 
 
 autumn of 1841, Ripley was assigned the position 
 of chairman and leader, Dana was made the secre- 
 tary, and Mrs. Ripley took charge of the educa- 
 tional interests. 
 
 The word " association " was used by the resi- 
 dents at Brook Farm to describe their life, private 
 property was permitted and encouraged, all paid for 
 board and lodging, and all received wages for the 
 work they performed. It was a definite attempt to 
 bring out and develop individual talent and char- 
 acter, and every effort was made to prevent same- 
 ness of thought and expression. At first there was 
 an inclination to an excess of individual action, and 
 to what Margaret Fuller called " grotesque freaks 
 of liberty." This tendency grew less insistent in 
 time ; but the right to individual belief was ac- 
 knowledged to the fullest extent, and it was duly 
 respected. Without doubt this freedom of action 
 was one source of weakness in the association ; for 
 it hindered united effort, and the needed discipline 
 was not secured. 
 
 For the first three or four years the association 
 devoted itself mainly to agriculture and education. 
 The farm was not a good one, but a considerable 
 effort was made to add to its productiveness. An 
 experienced farmer was secured to direct the farm 
 operations, and all the men were expected to de- 
 vote a part of each day to the farm-work. A re- 
 turn to nature was much preached at that time, and 
 it was thought by many that the cultivation of the 
 soil was the only natural form of labor. It was 
 
54 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 maintained that no one could be sound in body and 
 mind who did not cultivate the earth. " So, in 
 order to reform society, in order to regenerate the 
 world, and to realize democracy in the social rela- 
 tions," as Mr. Dana stated the objects had in view 
 by the founders of Brook Farm, " they determined 
 that their society should first pursue agriculture, 
 which would give every man plenty of outdoor 
 labor in the free air, and, at the same time, the 
 opportunity of study, of instruction, of becoming 
 familiar with everything in literature and in learn- 
 ing." 
 
 From the first the educational object was made 
 more prominent at Brook Farm than agricult- 
 ure itself. In describing the association, George 
 Ripley wrote, " We are a company of teachers." 
 And again he said, " The branch of industry which 
 we pursue, as our primary object and chief means 
 of support, is teaching." The educational forces of 
 the association were carefully organized. There 
 was an admirable primary school, which was fol- 
 lowed by one preparatory for college, and another 
 which devoted three years to a practical training in 
 agriculture and horticulture. George Ripley taught 
 philosophy and mathematics ; George P. Bradford, 
 literature ; John S. Dwight, music and Latin ; 
 Charles A. Dana, Greek and German; John S. 
 Brown, agriculture ; Sophia W. Ripley, history and 
 modern languages. In the primary school the 
 teachers were Marianne Ripley, Abby Morton 
 (afterward Mrs. Diaz), Georgiana Bruce (after- 
 
BROOK FARM 55 
 
 ward Mrs. Kirby), and Hannah B. Ripley. In this 
 department many others took part as time went on, 
 and among them Dwight's sisters. Among the 
 students were a considerable number who became 
 known to the world for their intellectual ability or 
 their interest in practical reforms. Much attention 
 was also given to the intellectual interests of the 
 adult members of the association. Clubs were 
 organized, lectures were given, and books were 
 freely loaned from his library by Mr. Ripley. In 
 fact, an intellectual atmosphere surrounded the 
 whole community. All were at school who 
 belonged to it, for many gatherings were held 
 that provided instruction and intellectual stimulus 
 to all the members. In the mingling of old and 
 young in the process of education the association 
 was unique in its methods, few restraints being put 
 upon the young, while the old were constantly in- 
 vited to keep fully alive their intellectual interests. 
 The life at Brook Farm was very simple, and it 
 was marked by a spirit of co-operation and sym- 
 pathy. There was a common table, and all the 
 members joined together in providing social enter- 
 tainment. The life was a very happy one. The 
 work of the field or kitchen was relieved by con- 
 versation, song, or jest ; and the men did not fail 
 to assist in the severer labors of the women. Every 
 kindly office of helpfulness the members freely be- 
 stowed upon each other, if it was seen to be needed; 
 and the young found endless amusement in games 
 of every kind. 
 
56 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 On the farm, when it was bought, was a large 
 house ; and this was named " The Hive." It was 
 added to, and provided kitchen, dining-room, parlor, 
 and office, as well as many sleeping-rooms. Across 
 the road was a much smaller farm-house that was 
 rented for some months for school purposes, and 
 was christened " The Nest." In time there was 
 built on the highest point of land a large house 
 that therefore took the name of " The Eyrie," which 
 was occupied by the Ripleys, and used for school 
 purposes, as well as the keeping of Mr. Ripley's 
 library. Here, also, were the pianos, with the aid 
 of which Dwight carried on musical instruction. A 
 cottage was also built, that has been frequently 
 named after Margaret Fuller, but was not built or 
 occupied by her. The Pilgrim, or Morton, house 
 was built by two brothers from Plymouth for their 
 families, but soon came into the control of the 
 association. Then was undertaken the great 
 Phalanstery that was burned before completion. 
 Barns, a large workshop, and greenhouses were 
 also added to the buildings on the farm. 
 
 On leaving Northampton in the autumn of 1841, 
 Dwight became a member of the community at 
 Brook Farm. In a few remarks made by him, at 
 the close of an address on Brook Farm by Rev. 
 O. B. Frothingham, he gave an account of his life 
 there. They explain his purpose in joining the 
 association, and his mature judgment as to the 
 outcome of the experiment. 
 
 "It was my privilege," he said, " to know Mr. 
 
BROOK FARM 57 
 
 Ripley very intimately for a number of years before 
 he conceived that experiment. When I came out 
 of the Divinity School at Cambridge, he was my 
 first warm, helpful, encouraging friend. I was at 
 his house almost daily during that famous contro- 
 versy with Andrews Norton. I knew the whole of 
 it as it went on. I talked with Mr. Ripley, and 
 heard him read his manuscript. 
 
 "After I lived in Northampton, I was very much 
 attracted to his idea which resulted in Brook Farm. 
 His aspiration was to bring about a truer state of 
 society, one in which human beings should stand 
 in frank relations of true equality and fraternity, 
 mutually helpful, respecting each other's occupa- 
 tion, and making one the helper of the other. The 
 prime idea was an organization of industry in such 
 a way that the most refined and educated should 
 show themselves practically on a level with those 
 whose whole education had been hard labor. There- 
 fore, the scholars and the cultivated would take 
 their part also in the manual labor, working on the 
 farm or cultivating nurseries of young trees, or 
 they would even engage in the housework. 
 
 "I remember the night of my first arrival at 
 Brook Farm. It had been going on all the sum- 
 mer. I arrived in November. At that time it was 
 a sort of pastoral life, rather romantic, although so 
 much hard labor was involved in it. They were all 
 at tea in the old building, which was called the 
 Hive. In a long room at a long table they were 
 taking tea, and I sat down with them. When tea 
 
58 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 was over, they were all very merry, full of life ; and 
 all turned to and washed the dishes, cups, and 
 saucers. All joined in, — the Curtis brothers, Dana, 
 and all. It was very enchanting ; quite a lark, as 
 we say. Much of the industry went on in that way, 
 because it combined the freest sociability with the 
 useful arts. 
 
 11 The idea of most of us was that, beginning with 
 what we felt to be a true system, with true relations 
 to one another, it would probably grow into some- 
 thing larger, and that by bringing in others we 
 should finally succeed in reforming and elevating 
 society and put it on a basis of universal co-opera- 
 tion. Communism it was not, because property was 
 respected. Some were allowed to hold and earn 
 more than others. Only justice was sought for in 
 the matter of labor and in the distribution of any 
 surplus, if there were any, which seldom occurred. 
 Capital, labor, and skill each had their fair propor- 
 tion in the division; and the same person might 
 share under each of these heads. It gave labor the 
 largest share, five-twelfths; capital, four-twelfths; 
 and skill, three-twelfths. By skill is meant the or- 
 ganizing head to industry. That was the whole of 
 our equality. 
 
 " The great point aimed at was to realize prac- 
 tical equality and mutual culture, and a common- 
 sense education for the children in a larger sense 
 than prevails in ordinary society. The educational 
 phase consisted partly in our education of one an- 
 other and partly in the school, which was also one 
 
BROOK FARM 59 
 
 of the means of support of the community. Pupils 
 were taken from outside, who lived there, and were 
 taught by Mr. and Mrs. Ripley and others. There 
 were some young people who came and lived there 
 simply as boarders, from a certain romantic interest 
 in the ideas, but not committing themselves to them 
 by membership. 
 
 " The social education was extremely pleasant. 
 For instance, in the matter of music, we had ex- 
 tremely limited means or talent; and very little 
 could be done except in a very rudimentary, tenta- 
 tive, and experimental way. We had a singing 
 class, and we had some who could sing a song 
 gracefully and accompany themselves at the piano. 
 We had some piano music ; and, so far as it was 
 possible, care was taken that it should be good, — 
 sonatas of Beethoven and Mozart, and music of 
 that order. We sang masses of Haydn and others, 
 and no doubt music of a better quality than pre- 
 vailed in most society at that date ; but that would 
 be counted nothing now. Occasionally we had 
 artists come to visit us. We had delightful read- 
 ings ; and once in a while, when William Henry 
 Channing was in the neighborhood, he would 
 preach us a sermon. 
 
 " Hawthorne was there then, but he left at about 
 that time. He knew very little about it as an organ- 
 ized industrial experiment. But he was pleased to 
 live on a farm, and he liked to drive oxen ; and he 
 would drive until he got himself tired through the 
 day, and shut himself up in his room in the even- 
 
60 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 ing. So it was wholly a mistake that the ' Blithe- 
 dale Romance ' describes Brook Farm. There is 
 nothing of Brook Farm in it except the scenery. 
 None of the characters represent people at Brook 
 Farm. It has been supposed that the heroine was 
 Margaret Fuller, but she was never a member. 
 She was only an occasional visitor, a friend of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Ripley. She made us delightful visits. 
 
 " We were never more than a hundred, often not 
 that; and we had very little means and a poor 
 farm, nearly two hundred acres, mostly grass and 
 woods, and found it hard to get people enough of 
 the right kind to do what work was required. 
 Everybody went into the work heartily, and every- 
 body tried to help every other. There was a great 
 sweetness and charm in the sincerity of the life. 
 
 " I do not think Brook Farm was wholly a 
 dream. This aspect has been too strongly pre- 
 sented. I think it was very practical, for we had 
 very practical and common-sense men and women 
 among us. It was a great good to me. Every one 
 who was there will say it was to him, though it is 
 extremely hard to tell of it. The truth is, every 
 resident there had his own view of it. Every one 
 saw the life through his own eyes and in his own 
 way. Naturally, they formed groups ; and one 
 group was not like another. Certain ones were 
 just as individual as in any common society. I felt 
 and still think that it was a wholesome life, that it 
 was a good practical education. I have no doubt I 
 should not have been living at this day if it had not 
 
BROOK FARM 61 
 
 been for the life there, for what I did on the farm 
 and among the trees, in handling the hay and even 
 in swinging the scythe. Those who have survived, 
 and been active in their experiences, have certainly 
 shown themselves persons of power and faculty, 
 with as much common sense, on the average, as or- 
 dinary men." 
 
 As Dwight has said in these reminiscences, the 
 school was opened almost from the first. Persons 
 who were in sympathy with the purposes of the 
 community sent their children, as did others who 
 were intent only on finding the best possible in- 
 struction for their children. The prices were mod- 
 erate, the surroundings delightful, the moral at- 
 mosphere wholesome ; and it was in a fair 
 degree successful. 
 
 Dwight directed the musical life of the commu- 
 nity. His enthusiasm for the musical art found 
 scope for expression at this time. The materials 
 he had at command were not of the best, but he 
 made the most of them. He cultivated a taste for 
 the better kinds of music, talked so enthusiastically 
 about the divine mission of music, and gave so 
 much time to bringing out the best musical quali- 
 ties of the members of the community that he 
 succeeded in impressing his own tastes and con- 
 victions upon all around him. His work for music 
 has been described by a member of the commu- 
 nity, Miss Amelia Russell, writing in the Atlantic 
 Monthly for November, 1878, where she says that 
 he was " of a most delicately sensitive organization ; 
 
62 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 and discords of every kind were as antagonistic to 
 him as were false chords in music. His whole life," 
 she says, "seemed one dream of music; and I do 
 not think that he was ever fully awake to all the 
 harsh gratings of this outer world. We were in- 
 debted to him for much of the pleasure of our 
 evening social life. He was too really musical to 
 endure the weariness of teaching beginners the first 
 rudiments of his own art, although for some time 
 he was our only teacher. I must say he was won- 
 derfully patient, considering his temperament, in 
 the task he had assumed ; for his nerves must have 
 been most fearfully taxed in some of his labors, but 
 his outward demeanor did not bear testimony to 
 what must often have been his earnest desire, — to 
 tear his hair out by the roots." 
 
 In giving a boy's recollections of life at Brook 
 Farm, in the New England Magazine for May, 
 1894, Arthur Sumner says that Dwight "used to 
 come in from his toil in the hot sun at noon to 
 give me a lesson on the piano ; and, after doing that 
 job, he would lie down on the lounge and go to 
 sleep, while I played to him. What a piece of 
 nonsense it was to have a man like that hoeing 
 corn and stiffening his eloquent fingers! But the 
 idea was, I think, that all kinds of labor must be 
 made equally honorable, and that the poet, painter, 
 and philosopher must take their turn at the plough 
 or in the ditch. Mr. Dwight had a quite feminine 
 sweetness and delicacy of nature." 
 
 Another member of the community has written 
 
BROOK FARM 63 
 
 of the time when Dwight joined it, and of his 
 earliest efforts to develop a musical interest and 
 taste among the members. " This winter," we are 
 told, " brought to us a cordial sympathizer and 
 earnest laborer, John S. Dwight, and with him all 
 sorts of talk about the meaning and use of music, 
 and much delicate improvisation. Soon there was 
 a class of little ones crowding around the gentle, 
 genial master, singing from the first ' Boston School 
 Singing Book ' — has there been so sweet a collec- 
 tion since ? — and later a larger class who attacked 
 the gems in ' Kingsley's Choir,' and presented Mo- 
 zart's Seventh and Twelfth Masses. How mod- 
 estly he speaks of the Mass Clubs which sprang up 
 about that time, not only at Brook Farm, but in 
 Boston, and of the writing and lecturing on the 
 great masters, as if he himself had not been the 
 sole instigator and unwearied worker, assisted, no 
 doubt, by the articles of Miss Fuller ! First, it was 
 necessary to create a larger want for something 
 better than the Swiss Bell Ringers and mangled 
 psalmody. Then he set himself to work to cause 
 to be assembled the talent that would supply, while 
 it increased the demand. It will never be known 
 by what studied and persistent manipulation a suf- 
 ficiently large public was brought to believe that 
 Beethoven's symphonies and Mozart's masses were 
 divine creations, and as such their performance 
 should be called for by all lovers of fine music." 
 
 The reference in the above to Dwight's mention 
 of Mass Clubs is to his paper on " Music as a 
 
64 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 Means of Culture," published in the Atlantic 
 Monthly for September, 1870. In that essay he 
 gave some reminiscences of the Brook Farm pe- 
 riod, and especially of the awakening of musical 
 interest at that time. In that awakening he was 
 the chief factor, and it was his own enthusiasm 
 which kindled to a glow the musical interest of 
 others. The Mass Clubs were the result of his 
 work for music at Brook Farm and in Boston, and 
 of his effort to make people acquainted with the 
 great composers and their productions. His own 
 ardor and persistence were so great as to arouse in 
 others a like passionate love of music as an art and 
 a means of true culture. The lecturing on music 
 he mentions was done by himself, for the most 
 part; but it fell in with the general intellectual 
 movement of the time. What Emerson was doing 
 for the intellectual life of the time, Parker for its 
 religion, Ripley for its economic life, Dwight was 
 doing for its music, spiritualizing it, giving it force 
 and character in intellectual convictions, and bring- 
 ing it into close relations with all the higher human 
 interests. 
 
 " It is a fact of some significance," Dwight says, 
 " that the interest here felt in Beethoven began at 
 the same moment with the interest in Emerson, 
 and notably in the same minds who found such 
 quickening in his free and bracing utterance. It 
 was to a great extent the great souls drawn to 
 ' Transcendentalism ' (as it was nicknamed), to es- 
 cape spiritual starvation, who were most drawn also 
 
BROOK FARM 65 
 
 to the great, deep music which we began to hear 
 at that time. For, be it remembered, the first great 
 awakening of the musical instinct here was when 
 the C Minor Symphony of Beethoven was played, 
 thirty years ago or more, in that old theatre long 
 since vanished from the heart of the dry-goods 
 part of Boston, which has been converted into an 
 'Odeon,' where an 'Academy of Music' gave us 
 some first glimpses of the glories of great orches- 
 tral music. Some may yet remember how young 
 men and women of the most cultured circles, whom 
 the new intellectual dayspring had made thought- 
 ful, and at the same time open and impressible to 
 all appeals of art and beauty, used to sit there 
 through the concert in that far-off upper gallery or 
 sky-parlor, secluded in the shade, and give them- 
 selves up completely to the influence of the sublime 
 harmonies that sank to their souls, enlarging and 
 coloring thenceforth the whole horizon of their life. 
 Then came the Brook Farm experiment. And it 
 is equally a curious fact that music, and of the best 
 kind, — the Beethoven sonatas, the masses of Mozart 
 and Haydn, — got at, indeed, in a very humble, 
 home-made, and imperfect way, was one of the chief 
 interests and refreshments of those halcyon days. 
 Nay, it was among the singing portion of those 
 plain farmers, teachers, and (but for such cheer) do- 
 mestic drudges that the first example sprang up of 
 the so-called ' Mass Clubs,' once so in vogue among 
 small knots of amateurs. They met to practise 
 music which to them seemed heavenly, after the 
 
66 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 old hackneyed glees and psalm-tunes, though little 
 many of them thought or cared about the creed 
 embodied in the Latin words that formed the con- 
 venient vehicle for tones so thrilling. The music 
 was quite innocent of creed, except that of the 
 heart and of the common deepest wants and aspira- 
 tions of all souls, darkly locked up in formulas, till 
 set free by the subtile solvent of the delicious har- 
 monies. And our genial friend, who sits in Har- 
 per's 'Easy Chair,' has told the world what parties 
 from 'the Farm ' — and he was 'one of them ' — would 
 come to town to drink in the symphonies, and then 
 walk back the whole way, seven miles at night, and 
 unconscious of fatigue, carrying home with them a 
 new good genius, beautiful and strong, to help 
 them through the next day's labors. Then, too, 
 and among the same class of minds — the same 
 ' Transcendental set ' — began the writing and the 
 lecturing on music and its great masters, treating 
 it from a high spiritual point of view, and seeking 
 (too imaginatively, no doubt) the key and meaning 
 to the symphony, but anyhow establishing a vital, 
 true affinity between the great tone-poems and all 
 great ideals of the human mind. In the Harbinger, 
 for years printed at Brook Farm, in the Dial, which 
 told the time of days so far ahead, in the writings 
 of Margaret Fuller and others, these became favor- 
 ite and glowing topics of discourse ; and such dis- 
 cussion did at least contribute much to make music 
 more respected, — to lift it in the esteem of thought- 
 ful persons to a level with the rest of the ' humani- 
 
BROOK FARM 67 
 
 ties ' of culture, and especially to turn attention to 
 the nobler compositions, and away from that which 
 is but idle, sensual, and vulgar. 
 
 " The kind reader will grant plenary indulgence 
 to these gossiping memories, and must not for a 
 moment think it is intended by them to claim for 
 any one class the exclusive credit of the impulse 
 given in those days to music. Cecilia had her 
 ardent friends and votaries among conservatives as 
 well. But is it not significant, as well as curious, 
 that the free-thinking and idealistic class referred 
 to — call them 'Transcendental dreamers' if you 
 will : they can afford to bear the title now — were so 
 largely engaged in the movement that among the 
 ' select few ' constant to all opportunities of hear- 
 ing the great music in its days of small things here 
 so many of this class were found ? The ideas of 
 those enthusiasts, if we look around us now, have 
 leavened the whole thought and culture of this 
 people, have melted icy creeds, and opened genial 
 communion between sects, have set the whole 
 breast of the nation heaving, till it has cast off the 
 vampire of at least one of its great established 
 crimes and curses, have set all men thinking of the 
 elevation of mankind. These are the conquering 
 ideas ; and with them came in the respect for music, 
 which now in its way, too, is leavening, refining, hu- 
 manizing, our too crude and swaggering democratic 
 civilization. A short pedigree, but great ideas, by 
 their transforming power, work centuries of change 
 in a few years. 
 
6S JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 " The great music came in, then, because it was 
 in full affinity with the best thoughts stirring in 
 fresh, earnest souls. The same unsatisfied, deep 
 want that shrank from the old Puritan creed and 
 practice, that sought a positive soul's joy instead of 
 abnegation, that yearned for the ' beauty oi holiness,' 
 and for communion with the Father in some sin- 
 cere way of one's own without profession, that, 
 kindled with ideals of a heaven on earth and of a 
 reign of love in harmony with nature's beauty and 
 the prophecies of art, found just then and here un- 
 wonted comfort, courage, and expression in the 
 strains of the divine composers, of which we were 
 then getting the first visitations. It was as if 
 our social globe, charged with the electricity of 
 new divine ideas and longings, — germs of a new 
 era, — were beginning to be haunted by auroral 
 gleams and flashes of strange melody and harmony. 
 Young souls, resolved to keep their youth, and 
 be true to themselves, felt a mysterious attraction 
 to all this, though without culture musically. Per- 
 sons not technically musical at all would feel the 
 music as they felt the rhythm of the ocean rolling 
 in upon the beach. They understood as little of 
 the laws of the one as of the other fascinating and 
 prophetic mystery. Beethoven, above all, struck 
 the key-note of the age. In his deep music, so pro- 
 foundly human, one heard, as in a sea-shell, the 
 murmur of the grander future. Beethoven, Handel, 
 Mozart, found no more eager audience than among 
 these ' disciples of the newness ' (as some sneeringly 
 
BROOK FARM 69 
 
 called them), these believing ones, who would not 
 have belief imposed upon them, who cared more for 
 life than doctrine, and to whom it was a prime 
 necessity of heart and soul to make life genial. 
 This was to them ' music of the future,' in a more 
 deep and real sense than any Wagner of these 
 later times has been inspired to write." 
 
 For a time, at least, Dwight gave himself up with 
 enthusiasm to the new life around him, and to its 
 absorbing interests. His pleasure in the idyllic side 
 of the life he was living is well expressed in a note 
 to Lowell, written about seven months after he had 
 taken up his residence at Brook Farm. " May I not 
 hope to see you at Brook Farm in this fine sea- 
 son ? " he asks. " I should delight to have you long 
 enough to conduct you about our wood and river 
 walks, or take you out in our boat, when we might 
 discuss matters human and divine, or, better yet, 
 deliver ourselves up to the water-sprites and to our 
 own wayward fancies, whether of noisy talk or 
 silent reverie, like Nature's happy children. I have 
 forgotten how to write or think or picture out a 
 scene or thought in words. I only feel. Perhaps 
 you will bring a sprig or two from the poetic plants 
 which have been springing up under your still fos- 
 tering hand this summer. When are we to have 
 the book ? " 
 
 He had not wholly dropped his pen, however; 
 and an article on " Griswold and American poetry " 
 went to the Christian Examiner at this time. In 
 the autumn Henry T. Tuckerman asked him to 
 
70 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 contribute translations from his favorite German 
 poets to the Boston Miscellany. At the same time 
 Lowell was writing to him in behalf of his own vent- 
 ure, the Pioneer. Lowell's letter indicates fairly 
 well the position which Dwight had gained as a 
 literary worker and as a musical critic : — 
 
 " My dear Friend, — On the ist of next January a 
 magazine will be started in Boston, of which I am 
 to be the editor. It is to be a free magazine, and 
 is to take as high an aim in art as may be. I wish 
 to notice every branch of art, and do it in an artis- 
 tic way. To this end I wish to get those who 
 know something to write for me in its several de- 
 partments. I shall give them carte blanche as to 
 what they say, not wishing to cut the opinions of 
 those who know more than I do of the subjects on 
 which they write down to my own level. 
 
 " If you are willing, I should like to have the 
 musical criticism under your charge. At first I 
 shall not be able to pay as much as I wish. But I 
 will give at the least $10 for every article of three 
 pages or more, and $2 a page for less. The possi- 
 bility of raising our people's taste in this divine 
 matter must be a part of your reward at first. If 
 the magazine succeeds, I shall be able and glad to 
 pay you as you deserve. 
 
 11 If you come into Boston, will you come and see 
 me, that we may talk it over? If you cannot, will 
 you write to that effect? Yours in love and 
 
 h °P e ' J. R. Lowell." 
 
BROOK FARM 71 
 
 A fortnight later Dwight wrote : " Not finding 
 you in, I take the liberty of sitting down in your 
 office to reply to yours of a fortnight since. I was 
 hoping to see you in Boston before this, or I 
 should have written. Your project pleases me ex- 
 ceedingly. I have only time to say that it will give 
 me pleasure to be connected with it in any way 
 in which I may further its success. It would be a 
 great pleasure to me to have a corner in which I 
 may freely whisper from time to time what I have 
 to say on Musical Art ; and in these hard times I 
 shall be glad of any additional resources, however 
 small, to eke out what is exceedingly small. 
 
 " I shall try to call this afternoon, if perad vent- 
 ure I may find you in your office, and hear you 
 expose the noble project further. Meanwhile I 
 rejoice to find you grown so Pan-theistic, since in 
 that I can subscribe myself your sympathizer and 
 well-wisher." 
 
 " I intended fully to have seen you on Sunday," 
 Lowell wrote a week later, " but found myself so 
 happy at Frank Shaw's that I had not the heart to 
 go away. It is truly a gladness to me that you are 
 willing to write my musical criticisms for me, for I 
 do not know any one who can do it so well. 
 
 " Can you write something about the symphony 
 which the Academy are to ' bring out ' this winter ? 
 Say three or four or five pages of the size of the 
 Boston Miscellany. Three of your MS. pages will 
 probably fill a printed page of that size. When I 
 specify the length, I do not wish you to curb your- 
 
72 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 self: if it should be longer, never mind. I should 
 also like to have a notice of Bohrer, if you have 
 heard him, to go in fine print among the notices 
 of the month. Any essay on music that you are 
 prompted to write, I shall be glad to print and pay 
 for. I should like to see you when you are in Bos- 
 ton, but am generally out of town Saturday after- 
 noons. Always your friend." 
 
 Dwight did write on the Academy of Music 
 and other subjects, but the Pioneer was short-lived. 
 In 1843 he contributed to the Democratic Review 
 articles on Haydn, Handel, and Mozart; and he 
 wrote on other subjects for the same periodical. 
 When Mrs. Eliza Lee was translating from Rich- 
 ter and publishing his biography, Dwight lent her 
 valuable assistance. " I regret exceedingly," she 
 wrote him, " that I could not have had the benefit 
 of your revision of my book at an earlier period ; 
 for I feel that your correction of the translation has 
 been a benefit which nothing can repay." 
 
 The interest in Dwight's lectures on music led 
 to a desire for their publication on the part of his 
 friends. What that interest was is hinted at in a 
 note sent him by Margaret Fuller, who wrote : — 
 
 "My dear Mr. Dwight, — I enclose the sum I 
 vainly attempted to rob from the musical public 
 under cloak of your reputation. I shall not be able 
 to hear your lecture, as it is the last evening my 
 sister Fanny passes with us before a separation like 
 to be a long one, but trust you will give your audi- 
 
BROOK FARM 73 
 
 ence as much pleasure as you did last time. The 
 expressions of obligation that I heard were numer- 
 ous. If there is a concert or rehearsal at the 
 Odeon on Saturday evening, will it be convenient 
 for you to escort Caroline and myself ? With re- 
 
 g ard - S. M. Fuller." 
 
 The desire to see his lectures put into a vol- 
 ume was voiced by Ellis Gray Loring, who wrote 
 D wight in August, 1842 : " I have had true satis- 
 faction in reading the lectures on Handel and 
 Mozart, and doubt not they will realize for me 
 what must be your chief purpose ; that is, that 
 your readers shall always hereafter enjoy and ap- 
 preciate better the compositions of those mas- 
 ters. I wish your various writings on music 
 might be collected and published. I think they 
 would make, in every sense, a successful work." 
 The same wish was expressed in a letter from 
 George W. Curtis, written in January, 1844, who 
 said : " When Charles Dana came running to me 
 with what he thought Emerson's poem, how could 
 I help saying, It is mine? In that case, at least, 
 it was sympathy for Emerson's reputation that 
 prompted the speech. There is something that 
 pleases me much in the united works of young 
 authors. Imagine the united literary works of 
 Dwight and Curtis rotting in an odd drawer of 
 Ticknor's or James Munroe's ; could we ever look 
 each other in the face again ? What a perpetual 
 suspicion there would be that the one swamped the 
 
74 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 other ! Do you not mean some day to gather your 
 musical essays together, and suffer them to expand 
 into a book? though not with the cream-colored 
 calyx that Ticknor affects, I beg. Nay, might you 
 not make some arrangement with Greeley to pub- 
 lish them here in a cheap way, if you would make 
 money? for those who valued them would, of 
 course, obtain more desirable copies. If not, and 
 you would think dignity compromised, some of 
 the regular publishers might be diplomatized with. 
 They would make a unique work. You know we 
 have nothing similar in American literature, no 
 book of artistic criticism, have we ? Why will you 
 not think of it, if you have not done so? and, 
 'what so poor a man as Hamlet is may do, you 
 shall command."' 
 
 In 1845 there was correspondence with a New 
 York publisher about a " History of Music," and 
 encouragement was given; but the book was not 
 completed. At the same time Dwight proposed 
 the plan of putting his Dial essays into a book; 
 and the publisher wrote: " I have read a part of 
 the ' Ideals of Every-day Life ' with more care since 
 writing you, and am highly pleased with it, so 
 much so that, if you will let me have it after you 
 shall have enlarged it enough to make fifty or 
 seventy-five printed pages of a 12 mo, I will add a 
 few choice things, and publish it. I should not ex- 
 pect to make anything on it, but would just make 
 it pay for itself by paying you a reasonable com- 
 pensation. The chief object would be to dissemi- 
 
BROOK FARM 75 
 
 nate the pure principles which those sermons incul- 
 cate, and to make known your name as a writer 
 through the large list of the press which is now on 
 our exchange list from every State in the Union. 
 I should give away three hundred copies, at least. 
 Will you not let me have it at a small compen- 
 sation?" This scheme also fell through, probably 
 because of more urgent interests demanding atten- 
 tion at Brook Farm. 
 
 His enthusiastic interest in music Dwight ex- 
 pressed in a letter written on Christmas Day, 1843. 
 It also gives hint of his feeling of deprivation in 
 being shut out from opportunities to cultivate 
 music as he desired. The cordial, friendly, and 
 even enthusiastic letters of Mrs. Child were full of 
 spirit and courage; and especially was her delight 
 in Ole Bull of a most exuberant nature. 
 
 "My dear Friend Mrs. Child, — All things con- 
 spire to make me write to you. It is Christmas night. 
 Mr. Benzon is here to remind me of you (though I 
 need no reminding), and to take my letter; and, 
 above all, you have spoken to me irresistibly in 
 that splendid letter to the Courier about 'Ole 
 Bulbul.' This last, I believe, I must thank for 
 effectually breaking the spell of my strange, un- 
 pardonable, — to myself even, — inexplicable silence. 
 I will no longer respond only in silent feeling, but 
 in visible tokens, in words ; for therein you speak 
 like my other self, therein you speak to me, — not 
 for the first time, surely. Have I not for two whole 
 
76 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 years been receiving the kindest and sweetest 
 recognitions from you, and, like a selfish dog, 
 hoarded them up in silence, answering not a word ? 
 Verily, you have heaped coals of fire upon my head. 
 First, that noble, soul-stirring appeal in behalf of 
 Mrs. Colt, which I did not answer because the re- 
 sult went against my heart; then message after 
 message of kindest sympathy and remembrance, 
 which have been to me among my great encourage- 
 ments in a life of perplexity and loneliness ; then 
 your beautiful, your most cheering and inspiring 
 book, — a book which I prize and reperuse with 
 double fondness, for the golden sunshine in it and 
 for associations with the author and the giver; 
 and now, finally, this outpouring of your true soul 
 about music, which no one should respond to more 
 promptly or fervently than myself. 
 
 " How shall I ever repay you for all my debt? 
 If thoughts and feelings answering to yours, and 
 having a most conscious reference to you, — thoughts 
 by you suggested and suggesting you, — were letters, 
 I should have written to you every day in the year. 
 Alas ! I hope my friends know expression with me 
 is no measure of regard. You certainly will bear 
 me out in saying it is never too late to repent. 
 And this is the holy, happy Christmas, — a good 
 time to shuffle off the coil of old indolent habit, and 
 to present myself before you in the clean robes of 
 new and good intentions. You will not give me 
 up for hopeless. I hereby rebuke, renounce, and 
 cast out from myself the dumb spirit. If he has 
 
BROOK FARM 
 
 77 
 
 occupied so long as to have somewhat weakened 
 my original faculty of speech, and made me slow 
 and awkward at concocting a letter (for my dumb- 
 ness has been to all my friends, not to you alone), 
 this, too, you will pardon, and accept a first lame 
 effort encouragingly. 
 
 " I shall not rest until I hear your Bulbul. They 
 tell me that in him is the living presence of com- 
 manding genius in music; and that is what I have 
 hardly, perhaps never, met. I have divined, recog- 
 nized (through a glass darkly), genius in the. works 
 of great composers through the imperfect medium 
 of uninspired performers, or through my own poor 
 efforts to study myself into their meaning by slow 
 and painful transfer of the printed notes to the keys 
 of my piano. I have been charmed, transported, 
 robbed of my sleep, and haunted for days by the 
 wonderful performances of violinists and pianists. 
 
 " But I do not feel quite sure that music has yet 
 spoken to me through one of her appointed organs, 
 through one of her chosen sons, in the person of 
 a performer. And yet I have heard something so 
 near to inspiration that I require the presence of 
 Ole Bull to show me whether it was not that. 
 
 " During the last week my sleep was broken, and 
 all my habitual scenes and functions made stale 
 and wearisome and obsolete, as it seemed to me, 
 by hearing, not indeed a Persian nightingale, but a 
 something between a canary bird and a thrush. I 
 mean Vieuxtemps. He is the perfection of art, if 
 nothing more ; and he must be more, to be that. 
 
78 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 Of his tones, what you say of Bulbul's would not 
 be an exaggerated description. Sometimes there 
 was nothing earthly in them. They were like 
 spirit disembodied : they did not contradict or limit 
 my soul, as all things material or finite do, as all 
 things must do which have not perfect beauty. My 
 soul was free with them. Like the stars and the 
 tints of the sky at all hours, I enjoyed them with 
 an entire surrender of myself and with a sweet re- 
 sponse. Then they were wild, nervous, and elec- 
 trifying. Indeed, the bold certainty, bold yet calm, 
 the sudden flashing energy with which he always 
 attacked a theme, was a perpetual surprise and 
 a perpetual conquest. The melody was certainly 
 new-born under his hands: there was no possibil- 
 ity of its becoming old or wearisome. The nature 
 of the instrument, too, its appetizing harshness, its 
 racy, sharp violinity, came honestly out, more elo- 
 quent and musical than if it were all sweet. His 
 compositions, not very profound or impassioned, 
 were beautiful, were original. This made it seem 
 cold and only artistical to many. But there was a 
 uniform subdued sensibility and a quiet earnest- 
 ness in his whole air that would not let me believe 
 him without a soul. He moved my soul. Could 
 he have done it unless he had played from at least 
 an equal depth ? Could he have caused me to feel 
 if he did not feel himself? He was born for the 
 violin, I know. A youth of twenty-three, he has 
 exhausted its known powers. The most expe- 
 rienced critics cannot discover a want in his per- 
 
BROOK FARM 79 
 
 formance. Perhaps you think, if the critics cannot, 
 the simple hearts can. Well, he delighted me with 
 the peculiar delight of finding something perfect in 
 the outward. Modest and unconscious, not thrust- 
 ing himself between his music and you, he seemed 
 to be the artist in a high and holy sense, to be filled 
 with the true idea and sentiment of art, to lose 
 himself in exercising an infallible mastery over his 
 instrument. . But not an infallible mastery over 
 this most wonderful, most common instrument, this 
 human heart ? He certainly has not conquered 
 the multitude like Ole Bull. Perhaps, though a 
 true artist, he yet lacks genius. If he has it, it is 
 not of the popular recognizable sort. One thing 
 was most wonderful to think of afterwards, — that 
 his art, so admirable, so inspiring, seemed at the 
 moment nothing strange or difficult, nothing but the 
 simplest, — no more marvellous than daylight, but 
 yet as marvellous, as hard to explain or analyze. I 
 say he is between a canary and a thrush, because 
 he is such a polished singer on the one hand, and 
 yet, so far from being a tame one, he has plenty of 
 'gism.' He laughs and mocks like the thrush. 
 He is wild and wood-like and mysterious and inimi- 
 table like him. 
 
 " Wednesday, 27th. — I am just from the Fourier 
 convention, where I spend day and night. It is 
 intensely interesting, probably the only great au- 
 dience in this world where most exciting contro- 
 versy could be carried on in a perfectly sweet spirit 
 on both sides. How much of this is owing to the 
 
80 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 'spirit that moves over the face of the troubled 
 waters ' when William Channing's voice is raised ! 
 But I cannot tell you of it in this. Here I feel 
 with new force the divine significance of music. 
 You have said the truest thing ever said about it 
 when you called music the 'soprano, or feminine, 
 principle of the universe,' the principle of all things, 
 etc. That music is so becoming recognized as the 
 art of arts, the soul of them all, at the very same 
 time when the law of social harmonies is being an- 
 nounced, is a fact not without significance. Were 
 it not worth while to give a life to develop the 
 analogy ? " 
 
 In October of the next year Mrs. Child wrote, 
 urging Dwight to prepare an article on Ole Bull 
 for the Democratic Review, and offering to secure 
 him free admission to the great violinist's concerts 
 if he would do so. Dwight promptly replied ; but 
 the first part of the letter, which touched upon 
 personal experiences and sorrows, was cut away 
 and destroyed by Mrs. Child. In a fragment of it 
 which remains, he says : " The truth is, my friend, 
 I am oppressed with sadness. I have had heavy 
 sorrows to bear in these later times which have 
 quite checked the elasticity that seeks expression." 
 The part of the letter touching upon music and 
 Ole Bull explains why Dwight did not give more 
 time to literary pursuits, and is as follows : — 
 
 " Now as to Ole Bull. I heard him twice last 
 winter. Excepting only a symphony of Beethoven 
 or a mass of Mozart, nothing ever filled me with 
 
BROOK FARM 8 1 
 
 such deep, solemn joy. I had spoken warmly of 
 Vieuxtemps, and still he is very beautiful in my 
 memory. The popular award of ' artistical perfec- 
 tion ' to Vieuxtemps and ' genius ' to Ole Bull is 
 not quite just to the former. I felt in him more 
 than he gave me to hear. I do not believe that he 
 has exhausted himself yet. But Ole Bull is un- 
 doubtedly the stronger and greater man. I should 
 doubt if he were the more simple of the two. He 
 is certainly the most original, the most never-failing 
 and commanding. He does inspire as the other 
 cannot. The most glorious sensation I ever had 
 was to sit in one of his audiences, and to feel that 
 all were elevated to the same pitch with myself, that 
 the spirit in every breast had risen to the same 
 level. My impulse was to speak to any one and 
 to every one as to an intimate friend. The most 
 indifferent person was a man — a living soul — to 
 me. The most remote and proud I did not fear 
 nor despise. In that moment they were acces- 
 sible, — nay, more, worth reaching. This certainly 
 was the highest testimony to his great art, to his 
 great soul. 
 
 " Frederic Rackemann, the pianist, who has him- 
 self the fire of genius, was intimate with him. He 
 would speak, by turns, of Bull and of Vieuxtemps as 
 the greatest, and that, apparently, with the most 
 entire unconsciousness of any inconsistency. Yet 
 I judge that his sympathy was more with Bull. 
 Once he said that ' Vieuxtemps was altogether the 
 greater artist'; but, on being pressed, he said that 
 
82 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 Ole Bull could do all that he could, with a little 
 study, and a great deal more. It was plain where 
 his enthusiasm shone forth. 
 
 11 1 should really delight to do the thing you pro- 
 pose, were I only sure of one thing, — my ability. I 
 have, to be sure, very, very little time, my musical 
 and literary life being almost indefinitely post- 
 poned. But I would contrive to steal time. Let 
 me say that I will expose myself to the temptation 
 of doing it, but I will not promise. Hear him 
 more, I certainly should; and your kind sugges- 
 tion about the pecuniary facilities would be highly 
 acceptable, — nay, indispensable ; for now that I am 
 so lost to intellectual society in Boston, so identi- 
 fied with a despised sect, and so absorbed here 
 as to lose the run of musical acquaintances, free 
 tickets are not at my command, as they once were. 
 One thing more : I want to know Ole Bull ; yet in 
 my obscurity I cannot seek him out, surrounded as 
 he is always by a brilliant crowd. Is it not possi- 
 ble that the frankness and originality of our com- 
 munity life might interest him enough to warrant 
 his riding out to Brook Farm? Mr. Chickering 
 or Schmidt would gladly show him the way. Were 
 I in the city, I certainly should know him. I 
 cannot answer your question about counterpoint. 
 With warmest acknowledgments to Mr. Hopper, I 
 am sincerely and gratefully your friend, 
 
 "J. S. Dwight." 
 
BROOK FARM 83 
 
 Brook Farm has been subjected to much of 
 criticism, and to not a little of amusing comment. 
 That it should have been the subject of banter and 
 sarcasm is not in the least strange, especially as it 
 was viewed by those who were not in sympathy 
 with its purposes. It has also suffered from the 
 reminiscences of its own members, who have treated 
 it as one would a youthful escapade, while they 
 commented freely on the serious purposes of its 
 older and more responsible leaders. Though it has 
 been written of often as if it were a holiday picnic, 
 yet it did not wear such an aspect to those who 
 were responsible for its policy and its success. 
 
 Dwight, not less than Ripley, believed in Brook 
 Farm, and devoted to it the whole of his capacities 
 while it continued in existence. He belonged to 
 the inner circle of its leaders, helped to shape its 
 policy, and felt the responsibility of its success or 
 failure resting upon him personally. While he was 
 one of the leaders in the social life of the com- 
 munity, he was also a wise counsellor in the admin- 
 istrative management. Not a fluent speaker, and 
 restrained by his diffidence from public utterance, 
 his voice was often heard in the meetings of the 
 community when visitors were to be welcomed or 
 the general interests discussed. During the period 
 when the teachings of Fourier were under consider- 
 ation and the policy of the community was being 
 reshaped, he was one of the most practical in sug- 
 gestion and fertile in plans and wise in counsel of 
 any of the leaders. No one else, not even Ripley, 
 
84 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 was superior to him in the work of distinctly shap- 
 ing the future plans of the community. 
 
 It may be frankly said, however, that Dwight had 
 no financial skill, and that his administrative gifts 
 were limited; but he had in him a deep, strong, 
 practical common sense, a capacity for touching life 
 on the side of its every-day interests, and he greatly 
 admired men of common sense and executive 
 power. While of a most refined and sensitive 
 organization himself, delicately alive to every aes- 
 thetic interest, and of exquisite tastes, he was no 
 dilettante, and in no sense over-refined or finical. 
 He mingled freely with the people of the Farm, 
 keenly sympathized with the toils and deprivations 
 of workingmen, and was eager to do what he could 
 to improve the condition of those hard beset in 
 the struggles of life. He had no inclination to de- 
 spise those who were not cultured, but freely appre- 
 ciated the genuine gifts of all persons. He loved 
 genuineness and thoroughness wherever they were 
 found, and he exercised a large and wholesome in- 
 fluence in putting these virtues into the working 
 policy of Brook Farm. 
 
 Far too much emphasis has been laid on the 
 social side of Brook Farm by those who have 
 written about it ; but, in fact, at all the meetings of 
 the community — even little tea parties — the talk 
 was likely to run on high and serious themes. 
 During the first two or three years it is true that 
 the social interest was a prominent feature, and 
 much time was given to amusements and entertain- 
 
BROOK FARM 85 
 
 ments of all kinds. As those who have written of 
 the life at the Farm were nearly all quite young at 
 this time, it is very natural they should have given 
 most attention to describing what to them was 
 then the interest which left the deepest impres- 
 sion. The life was never sombre or lugubrious, 
 but always bright and sympathetic, a wise freedom 
 being allowed to all. Yet it is true that a thought- 
 ful and earnest spirit pervaded the whole life of the 
 people. Serious subjects were discussed more than 
 is usual elsewhere, and a tone of culture and refine- 
 ment made itself felt on every hand. 
 
 A hint of what the social life was at Brook Farm 
 may be gained from a letter written Jan. 27, 1845, 
 describing a little coffee party planned by Amelia 
 Russell, and attended by Mr. and Mrs. Ripley, 
 Charles and Maria Dana, Albert Brisbane, John 
 Orvis, John, Marianne, and Frances Dwight, Os- 
 borne, Eunice, and Fanny Macdaniel, Sarah White- 
 house, and Frederic Cabot : " Coffee was handed 
 round, a few puns perpetrated. Meanwhile a holy 
 aspiration from high heaven was- stealing quietly 
 and unseen over the souls of all present. Mr. Rip- 
 ley proposed for a toast Albert Brisbane, the first 
 apostle of Fourierism, and made some interesting 
 and rather humorous remarks about the great assist- 
 ance he had afforded us in the convention and in 
 the framing of the new constitution. Mr. Brisbane 
 disclaimed it all, grew eloquent in reply, spoke of 
 Brook Farm society and the friendship he had en- 
 joyed here, the pleasure of receiving many kind 
 
86 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 offices at the hand of friendship, etc. I cannot at- 
 tempt to repeat the toasts that were given, they 
 were so numerous and all good, nor the excellent 
 remarks that were made by Ripley, Dana, Bris- 
 bane, and Dwight. Suffice it to say that I never 
 heard either of them speak better. It was all 
 beauty and inspiration. There was true humor, elo- 
 quence, elegance, deep earnestness, and sacred so- 
 lemnity. After those present were toasted, beau- 
 tiful tributes were paid to the absent. Fourier ; 
 William H. Channing, the priest and poet of asso- 
 ciation ; Greeley ; and other New York friends, — 
 were remembered, and each toast prefaced by inter- 
 esting remarks. Charles Dana proposed his friend, 
 Parke Godwin, spoke of him with deep feeling and 
 all the earnestness of affection, and, just as he was 
 concluding, Fred added, ' God wins always in the 
 end.' So appropriate and good a pun was univer- 
 sally applauded. We set it down for Fred's best, 
 but afterwards found that he also was encircled 
 with a heavenly halo, and everything he did that 
 evening was his best. 
 
 " As the speeches became higher and holier and 
 more beautiful, and the broadest principles were 
 uttered from golden lips, and our emotions grew 
 more elevated and solemn, Charles Dana spoke of a 
 meeting in New York where they all joined hands, 
 and pledged themselves to the cause of association; 
 and he called upon us warmly and fervently to do 
 the same. With one impulse we all arose, and 
 formed a circle around the little table; and, hand 
 
BROOK FARM 87 
 
 in hand, we vowed ' truth to the cause of God and 
 humanity.' It was a solemn moment, never, never 
 to be forgotten. Then our circle of friendship was 
 toasted. What beautiful allusions Dwight made 
 to our circle, and to circles within circles, that it 
 was not exclusive, but that endless circles might 
 be drawn around it, all having the same centre ! 
 Mr. Ripley wished, very humorously, that our Pha- 
 lanx might grow till we could join hands around 
 Palmer's woods, around Cora Island, across the 
 river. Mr. Brisbane would have the circle sur- 
 round the globe. Then Mr. Brisbane, after Mr. 
 Ripley had been speaking of circles, said he had 
 omitted the ellipse, — the emblem of love centred 
 in two foci, — and made beautiful remarks upon 
 that. Dwight made a good pun, saying Mr. Bris- 
 bane had supplied the ellipse — or omission — in 
 Mr. Ripley's speech. Dwight toasted the coffee-pot 
 in this wise : ' Our patient friend, the coffee-pot, — 
 though drained of its contents, it has not lost its 
 patience : if it is not spiritual, it certainly is not 
 material (is immaterial).' Mr. Ripley jumped a 
 foot and turned directly round at so good a pun. 
 Fred gave a toast with no little wit and humor: 
 ' John Allen, — may his wisdom grow to his love.' 
 Immense applause. Dwight gave a beautiful toast 
 to the memory of the dead, — the dead moon, and 
 all the events in the dead past which have led us 
 on to possess any real life. I wish I could remem- 
 ber every word, it was so poetical and beautiful. 
 Allusion had been made to Mr. Orvis as Orpheus, 
 
88 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 Dwight ending with saying, ' God bless the sun, 
 and also Orpheus : God bless the moon, and also 
 Morpheus.' Mr. Ripley made quite a long and hu- 
 morous speech upon a glass of punch — quintescent 
 punch — which he drank at a New York meeting, 
 and which roused a dull company into great activ- 
 ity, since it was so exquisitely compounded that, if 
 it had made a man quite drunk, it would not have 
 injured his intellect. This called out two puns. 
 Dwight asked if the party was a Punch and Judy 
 spree (jeu d' esprit) ; and Fred said that it seemed 
 only necessary to punch Mr. Ripley to get a good 
 speech from him. In the early part of the evening 
 Mr. Brisbane alluded beautifully to Dwight, calling 
 him the fringe in the great associative movement, 
 not a common fake, civilized fringe, but one that 
 was centred deep in inward principles, and mani- 
 fested itself outwardly in various forms of beauty, 
 like the odor and color of flowers. Very beautiful 
 were his words, but my memory fails. So it ended 
 at twelve o'clock ; and we separated to pass a sleep- 
 less night in the company of solemn, pleasing, and 
 exciting thoughts. You must imagine a great deal 
 I have described so poorly ! Our entertainment 
 was one of a regular series, ascending gradually 
 from a few jokes to the highest spiritual emotions, 
 and then gradually descending again." 
 
 All this was sentimental and somewhat extrava- 
 gant, but it shows the enthusiasm of youth. An 
 enthusiasm like this, however aroused, has a real 
 meaning, and shows soundness of life in that which 
 
BROOK FARM 89 
 
 produces it. There was something here to bind 
 these men and women together in closest ties of 
 fidelity to an idea. 
 
 In religion the greatest freedom existed. Very 
 little of formal piety showed itself, and the attitude 
 of the leaders was one that was radical almost to an 
 extreme. In an unconventional and informal way, 
 religion was a powerful influence throughout the 
 life of the community ; and a strong religious feel- 
 ing and conviction existed. Though Ripley and 
 Dwight had left the church, and many of the others 
 did not attend church services regularly, yet there 
 was a truly religious spirit in the community and a 
 deep devotional feeling. It took the form of a 
 strong desire for social justice, and was a pervasive 
 influence in this direction among the more thought- 
 ful and intelligent. When William Henry Chan- 
 ning spent a Sunday at Brook Farm, he preached 
 to the people, and with great effect. He was the 
 oracle and religious guide of the community, its 
 confessor and saint. He had a wonderful gift for 
 planting in the minds of the impressionable the 
 seeds of devotion and consecration to high ideas 
 and ideals. In this way he exerted a powerful in- 
 fluence over the minds of all the younger members 
 of the community. 
 
 Dwight lived in the Eyrie, the first house 
 built by the community, and so named because it 
 was located on a rock, — the highest point on the 
 Farm. Here he had the Ripleys for house neigh- 
 bors, here the library was located, and here, also, 
 
9 o JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 the classes met their teachers. In this house the 
 more intelligent members of the community met 
 for recreation and discussion in the evenings, and 
 within it the musical culture of the community was 
 developed in personal study or in club training. 
 
 After he had been at the Farm for some time, 
 Dwight was joined by his parents and sisters, who 
 remained members until the end came. On Christ- 
 mas Eve, 1846, his sister Marianne was married to 
 John Orvis. Marianne Dwight had been an assist- 
 ant and then a preceptress in Mr. Bailey's " High 
 School for Young Ladies " in Boston. She was 
 the teacher of drawing at Brook Farm, and an 
 assistant in Latin. Frances Dwight was as much 
 a lover of music as her brother, shared in his study 
 of it at this time, and assisted him in teaching it to 
 the children. 
 
 At the end of 1844 a change began at Brook 
 Farm in the agitation about the teachings of 
 Fourier. His chief apostle in this country was 
 Albert Brisbane, and a visit of his to Brook Farm 
 is described in a letter written by one of Dwight's 
 sisters, Dec. 22, 1844: — 
 
 " Brisbane arrived last evening. This morning 
 we assembled at half-past ten to hear what he had 
 to say. He promised us for the forenoon merely 
 the history of his travels in Europe ; but it was 
 mingled with so much philosophy, his views were 
 so broad and deep, his language so eloquent and 
 forcible, that we could not but feel gratified and 
 instructed. What he said of nationalities was very 
 
BROOK FARM 91 
 
 fine, — that in each nation we see a predominating 
 sentiment, which characterizes it throughout. In 
 England familism is predominant. This marks 
 the English landscape, dotting it with cottages and 
 manor houses. This pervades the industry of the 
 nation, in which the useful always predominates. 
 In France cabalism is the ruling sentiment. Social 
 feeling, love of variety, amusements, etc., mark the 
 people. In all their manufactures they have the 
 elegant in view. The destiny of France has been 
 to break down the feudal spirit of the Middle Ages, 
 to destroy Catholicism and aristocracy. He gave 
 a fine picture of the history of France up to her 
 present speculative time, and asserted that only in 
 that country, amidst such a people, could such a 
 genius as Fourier have been born. 
 
 11 This afternoon Mr. Brisbane spoke on the pros- 
 pects of association in France, which he considers 
 rather miserable and hopeless. Here is the field, 
 and here at Brook Farm must the efforts of all 
 be concentrated. Probably Mr. Brisbane will come 
 and live with us. But I have no time to tell you 
 anything that was planned and devised for this next 
 year's operations. It is hopeful, is it not, that we 
 have this first year a dividend of profits amounting 
 
 to $1,445? 
 
 u Our sister associate, M. A. Williams, was this 
 morning released from her severe sufferings by 
 death, — the first death that has occurred here. 
 A beautiful grove of cypress-trees back of our 
 house has been selected for her grave. She has 
 
92 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 been taken care of in the best and kindest manner, 
 and received universal sympathy. Nowhere else 
 could this poor woman, who has no near relatives 
 and no property, have fared so well. Here is one 
 of the pleasantest blessings of association." 
 
 The same person gave an account of a visit of 
 Robert Owen to Brook Farm, and her letter opens 
 up an interesting view of the inside life of the com- 
 munity: — 
 
 " To-day I have wished for you to enjoy with us 
 a most delightful visit from Robert Owen. Never 
 was I so agreeably disappointed in any one. The 
 old man has a beautiful spirit of infinite benevo- 
 lence. I really love and reverence him. He is 
 seventy-four, full of energy and activity, very cour- 
 teous, attends carefully to every little etiquette, pats 
 the children on the head, and has a smile and a 
 pleasant word for all. Last evening he gave us 
 a lecture on socialism, and another to-day. I am 
 astonished at his views, — to find that we differ much 
 in speculations and in details, — yet we have one 
 and the same object, and can meet on a common 
 ground. After his lecture he gave us an account 
 of his experiment at New Lanark, which he carried 
 on with two thousand persons for thirty years, and 
 then left in the care of others. These persons 
 were of the very dregs of society, when he took 
 them. Now they are mentioned in statistics as 
 being the most moral population of Great Britain. 
 The whole story was very interesting. So was his 
 account of the Rapp community. I have always 
 
BROOK FARM 
 
 93 
 
 associated his name with New Harmony, but he 
 says this was conducted by people who understood 
 not his principles. 
 
 " After he had finished, Mr. Ripley rose, and paid 
 him a very handsome tribute, inviting him to be 
 with us whenever he could, and expressing our 
 sense of the honor we felt he had conferred upon 
 us, proposed Robert Owen as a sentiment, wishing 
 he might always enjoy in his own mind that sub- 
 lime happiness that will one day be the portion of 
 the human race. Owen expressed himself as much 
 pleased with our experiment, and wondered at our 
 success. He is going to England, to return here 
 in September. He has taken the common sense 
 path to association. I wish I could see you, to tell 
 you more of this interesting forenoon." 
 
 In December, 1843, a large convention was held 
 in Boston of the friends of association. The com- 
 munities at Hopedale, Northampton, Skaneateles, 
 and others were represented. Rev. Adin Ballou 
 spoke for Christian communism, Charles A. Dana 
 advocated the Brook Farm type of social co-opera- 
 tion, and Brisbane strongly urged the claims of 
 Fourierism. Among the speakers were Ripley, 
 Greeley, William H. Channing, and several others. 
 So great was the interest of the meeting that it 
 continued into the first week of 1844, and all the 
 sessions were crowded with eager listeners. The 
 object of the meeting was a free interchange of 
 views on the part of associationists, communists, 
 socialists, and other advocates of a social reforma- 
 
94 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 tion. The desire was to find some common basis 
 of action in furtherance of social reform. Ripley 
 and Channing were, at first, very reluctant to ac- 
 cept the teachings of Fourier, which were advocated 
 with great eloquence and persistency by Brisbane. 
 Gradually, however, they were won over to a more 
 favorable consideration of the methods for organiz- 
 ing industry which had been developed by Fourier 
 in his writings. 
 
 During the year 1844 the Fourierite theory of 
 organized industrial life was put into practice at 
 Brook Farm, so far as it was possible to do so with 
 its limited numbers and resources. From this time 
 on Dwight became much more active in his interest 
 in the community, and more thoroughly identified 
 himself with the spirit of social reform which it 
 exemplified. The change in Brook Farm began, in 
 fact, early in 1844, partly as the result of the discus- 
 sions then going on and partly as the result of news- 
 paper attacks. The New York Herald made such 
 an onslaught on Brook Farm at this time that pupils 
 and boarders withdrew on account of it, and the 
 question of income had to be seriously considered. 
 An effort was now made to increase the productive- 
 ness of the farm and to enlarge the number of pay- 
 ing industries. Two letters of this time will give 
 glimpses into the efforts which were making to 
 adjust the life of the community to the new condi- 
 tions : — 
 
 " I belong to a group," wrote one of D wight's 
 sisters, "for making fancy articles for sale in 
 
BROOK FARM 95 
 
 Boston. We have been very busy at it of late, and 
 Amelia Russell and I are very much amused at the 
 idea of our having turned milliners and makers of 
 cap-tabs. Our manufacture is quite workmanlike, 
 I assure you. We realize considerable money ( J ) 
 from this, and hope, women though we are, to have 
 by and by the credit of doing some productive 
 labor. We are now having frequent teachers' meet- 
 ings to improve our educational practice, and ap- 
 proximate it to our plan. In all this I feel a deep 
 interest." 
 
 " A chosen body of our people are exceedingly 
 busy making a new constitution. I guess we shall 
 have a good one, and such a one as will make civi- 
 lizees open their eyes wide with astonishment. I 
 wish you could have seen the pictures Mr. Brisbane 
 has of a phalanstery and its domain in full har- 
 mony. They are magnificent in design, and give 
 one a pretty clear glance, at least, into the kingdom 
 of heaven that is to come on earth. Mr. Brisbane 
 and Mr. Macdaniel are still here. I like them very 
 much. We have had some very pleasant social re- 
 unions, some walks and glorious coasts." 
 
 The great building, or Phalanstery, begun in the 
 summer of 1844, in which the Fourierite idea of 
 communal life was to find full expression, was burned 
 on the evening of March 3, 1846. The next day 
 Marianne Dwight wrote to one of her friends an 
 account of the fire, which is of much interest as 
 showing the attitude of the people toward this 
 calamity. The account shows the spiritual earnest- 
 
96 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 ness and the moral devotion which Brook Farm 
 developed in its members to a large extent. 
 
 " I must, with what poor words I can, attempt to 
 put you in possession of the particulars about the 
 burning of our Phalanstery. The council had just 
 appointed a committee to superintend the finishing 
 of the Phalanstery, and had dispersed, when Mr. 
 Salisbury, passing the building, saw a light in the 
 upper part, and put his head into a window to learn 
 the cause thereof. Men had been at work there all 
 day, and a fire kept in a stove. He found the room 
 full of smoke, and ran instantly to the Eyrie and 
 told Mr. Ripley, who was the first on the spot. 
 
 " Then came the sudden, earnest cry, ' Fire ! the 
 Phalanstery ! ' that startled us all, and for a moment 
 made every face pale with consternation. I was 
 in my room, and ran to the front of the house. 
 Flames were issuing from one of the remote win- 
 dows, and spreading rapidly. It was at once evi- 
 dent that nothing could be done. It seemed but 
 five minutes when the flames had spread from end 
 to end. Men ran in every direction, making almost 
 fruitless attempts to save windows and timber. The 
 greatest exertions were made to save the Eyrie, 
 which at one time was too hot to bear the hand, 
 and even smoked. Our neighbor Mr. Orange went 
 first on the roof, and worked like a hero, and not 
 in vain. 
 
 "Would I could convey to you an idea of the 
 scene ! It was glorious beyond description. How 
 grand when the immense heavy column of smoke 
 
BROOK FARM 97 
 
 first rose up to heaven ! There was no wind, and it 
 ascended almost perpendicularly. I looked upon it 
 from our house until the whole front was on fire: 
 that was beautiful, indeed. The whole colonnade 
 was wreathed spirally with fire, and every window 
 glowing. I was calm, felt that it was the work of 
 heaven, and was good ; and not for one instant did 
 I feel otherwise. Then I threw on my cloak, and 
 rushed out to mingle with the people. All were 
 still, calm, resolute, undaunted. The expression 
 on every face seemed to me sublime. There was 
 a solemn, serious, reverential feeling, such as must 
 come when we are forced to feel that human aid is 
 of no avail, and that a higher hand than man's is at 
 work. I heard solemn words of trust, cheerful 
 words of encouragement, resignation, gratitude, 
 and thankfulness, but not one of terror or despair. 
 All were absorbed in the glory and sublimity of the 
 scene. 
 
 " In less than an hour and a half the whole was 
 levelled to the ground. The Phalanstery was fin- 
 ished. Not the building alone, but the scenery 
 around was grand. As it was to be, I would not 
 have missed it for the world. I assure you the 
 moral sublimity with which the people took it was 
 not the least part of it. The good Archon [Rip- 
 ley] was like an angel. Mrs. Ripley alone was for 
 half an hour too much overcome to look upon it. 
 
 " People rushed here from Roxbury, Dedham, 
 Boston, and Cambridgeport. Engines could not 
 help us much. There was such a rush of the 
 
98 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 world's people to the Hive. We gave them what 
 we could, — made hot coffee, brought out bread and 
 cheese, and feasted about two hundred of the 
 fatigued, hungry multitude. Mr. Orange brought 
 us provisions from his house, and ran through the 
 street for milk. About midnight I wrote letters to 
 Orvis and Allen, for I thought they would be in 
 agony. for us if they did not get their first intelli- 
 gence directly from home. I had one short sound 
 sleep, and was up early, writing to Frank. I looked 
 at the bare hill this morning, I must say, with a 
 feeling of relief. There was an encumbrance gone. 
 
 " Heaven had interfered to prevent us from fin- 
 ishing that building so foolishly undertaken, so 
 poorly planned and built, and which again and 
 again some of us have thought and said we should 
 rejoice to see blown away or burned down. It has 
 gone suddenly, gloriously, magnificently; and we 
 shall have no further trouble with it. Just what 
 the effect will be to us, it is impossible now to tell. 
 The contract was lately given into our own hands ; 
 and, I suppose, ours must be the loss. About 
 $7,000 had been spent on it. We must take deep 
 to heart a good lesson. We have been through 
 about every other trial : now we have been through 
 the fire. We needed this experience, and I pray 
 we may come from it like pure gold. It leaves us 
 no worse off than before we began it, and, in some 
 respects, better. May Heaven bless to us the 
 event ! 
 
 " I feared it would look ugly, dismal, and smutty 
 
BROOK FARM 99 
 
 this morning ; but the ruins are really picturesque. 
 A part of the stone foundation stands like a row of 
 gravestones, the tomb of the Phalanstery. Thank 
 God, not the tomb of our hopes ! Charles Dana 
 returned from New York an hour since, and, I am 
 happy to say, takes it as cheerfully as the rest of 
 us. We breakfasted an hour later than usual to- 
 day, and our hired carpenters have gone back to 
 Dedham. I see no other change. The day is 
 calm and beautiful. All goes on as usual. We 
 look toward the hill, and all seems like a strange 
 dream. You cannot think how it struck me last 
 night towards the close of the fireworks, when, after 
 watching the constantly rolling flames for two 
 hours, I looked up to the sky, and saw Orion look- 
 ing down so steadily, so calmly, reminding me of 
 the unchanging and eternal." 
 
 Two letters written by the same hand, one in 
 March and one in April, only a few weeks after the 
 fire, give farther proofs of the courage and moral 
 earnestness and loyalty of the people who then 
 made up the Brook Farm community. 
 
 " Last evening," she wrote, " we had a new 
 flowering of the tree of life that seems to have 
 taken such deep root in this spot, in spite of the 
 soil. Our friend and associate, W. H. Cheswell, 
 wishing to celebrate the anniversary of his arrival 
 at this Eden, invited everybody to attend his regu- 
 lar dancing school. I felt very unlike it, had been 
 almost ill with the headache all day ; but, as friend 
 Cheswell has always looked with a jealous eye upon 
 
ioo JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 the aristocratic element, John thought it would be 
 best to go, and persuaded me into it. And right 
 glad we are that we went. The dancing went off 
 in fine style : it could not have been better. About 
 ten o'clock, two by two, we were all marched out of 
 the dining-hall into the parlors, to await the setting 
 of the table. When notice was given, each gentle- 
 man took his lady, and we marched back again, 
 and seated ourselves at the table, which extended 
 through the centre of the room from end to end, 
 and offered us the tempting luxuries of hot coffee, 
 cake, crackers, and cheese. After partaking of 
 these dainties, Charles Dana rose, and announced 
 that he would read the toasts which had been pre- 
 pared for the occasion. They were very excellent, 
 and some of them not a little amusing. The differ- 
 ent groups were toasted, from the printing group to 
 the plain sewers, and individuals called upon for 
 speeches. These were ready and admirable. We 
 had fun and wit, poetry and sober good sense, 
 earnestness and solemnity. There was a new con- 
 secrating of each and all to our work here at Brook 
 Farm, — a pledging of the groups to faithful, de- 
 voted, needful action, and the very heartiest expres- 
 sion of hope, faith, and union. 
 
 11 The one discordant note that has sounded in 
 our ears lately came round into harmony ; and 
 thunders of applause burst forth as Charles Dana, 
 with recovered strength and energy, expressed his 
 deep faith that the cause of association and its 
 work must and would be carried on to some extent 
 
BROOK FARM 101 
 
 here at Brook Farm. The Archon, unluckily, was 
 not present, and says he wants to have it over 
 again. It was such a meeting as never happens 
 but once. Charles Dana and John Orvis were 
 the only persons present of our usual speakers. 
 Indeed, it was all the better for that ; for there was 
 no restraint. Anybody could get up, and, in his 
 way, say the good word ; and I do say it was one 
 of the very best parties I ever attended. Do tell 
 Mr. Channing, if you see him, that I would have 
 given the world to have had him present, or per- 
 haps behind the scenes. It would have done his 
 heart so much good to have seen this new develop- 
 ment of the good spirit that is working in us and 
 binding us together in strength. In truth, we are 
 a Phalanx." 
 
 11 We are now starting in what appears a com- 
 mon-sense way," she wrote a month later. " We 
 have reduced our plans somewhat, but I trust a 
 higher ideal is before us than ever. One thing is 
 certainly very encouraging, and to me it is really 
 providential. How is it that the people who are 
 not calculated to help us, who, though good in their 
 way, yet lack that refinement which is indispensable 
 to give a good tone to the place, do actually with- 
 draw in the pleasantest manner, wholly unasked, 
 and without any chance of feeling that their with- 
 drawal is desirable to us ? I cannot call it chance. 
 God wills it. God means something by it. We 
 have lately felt it really necessary that certain 
 people should leave. We have not known how to 
 
102 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 bring it about. Well, all at once comes a call 
 to them, a better prospect opens to them outside. 
 In these changes there is something trying to our 
 feelings, but they are well. We are thankful that 
 they have come about so pleasantly. Those of us 
 left are capable of improving by living together, 
 and feel very closely drawn together. We feel our 
 brotherhood with those who have gone, but it 
 always seemed to me a great mistake to admit 
 coarse people upon the place. Now we need not 
 fear subjecting our pupils to evil influences from 
 such quarters. Indeed, I see not why we cannot 
 now offer as good or better moral influences than 
 could be found at any other boarding-school. 
 
 " My interest now must centre in the school. I 
 do know what a good school is. I know well why 
 we have not had a good one here, and I see clearly 
 that we can easily have the very best. I am sol- 
 emnly determined to use my utmost efforts to bring 
 it about. I have offered myself to the work, have 
 just been elected chief of the teachers' group, which 
 gives me, together with Mrs. Ripley (chief of the 
 educational series), and, indeed, more than she, the 
 superintendence of the school. Her health requires 
 that I should give her this relief ; and I enter upon 
 the duties with alacrity and cheerfulness, with dif- 
 fidence, to be sure, and yet with confidence. Think 
 what aid I can command, — the Ripleys, Charles 
 Dana, John S. Dwight, Fanny, Miss Russell, etc. 
 
 " The change we make in our organization will 
 secure to each group greater independence than 
 
BROOK FARM 103 
 
 before. Each will transact its own business, make 
 its own sales and purchases. We need money to 
 invest in some departments, and for this purpose 
 a subscription is now going on. We feel that we 
 have a right to call upon citizens to help us with 
 their money to accomplish what we can toward 
 building up a true system of life." 
 
 One effect of the change made in the internal 
 organization was the establishment of a printing- 
 office at Brook Farm, and the publication of a 
 weekly sixteen-page, three-columned paper called 
 the Harbinger, It was devoted to the interests 
 which Brook Farm represented; but it had wide 
 sympathies, and was not in any sense partisan. 
 A tone of intellectual earnestness pervaded the 
 whole paper, its literary character was of the best, 
 and a spirit of cultured manliness infused itself into 
 every page. Into the Harbinger went a good part 
 of the best life of John S. Dwight for the next three 
 years. He wrote much for it, and he was actively 
 connected with its literary management. A few 
 letters will indicate something of the nature of his 
 editorial labors. When the paper was being planned, 
 he wrote to Emerson for aid; and the reply is 
 characteristic. 
 
 "Your letter was very kind and friendly," Emer- 
 son wrote, " and one is always glad that anything is 
 adventured in the midst of so much excusing and 
 impediment ; and yet, though I should heartily re- 
 joice to aid in an uncommitted journal, — not limited 
 by the name of any man, — I will not promise a line 
 
104 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 to any which has chosen a patron. We shall never 
 do anything if we begin with being somebody else. 
 Then, though I admire the genius of Fourier, since 
 I have looked a little into his books, yet it is only 
 for his marvellous tactics. He is another French 
 soldier or rather mathematician, such as France 
 is always turning out; and they apply their 
 wonderful ciphering indifferently to astronomy, 
 chemistry, war, or politics. But they are a sub-type, 
 as modern science now says, deficient in the first 
 faculty, and therefore should never be allowed the 
 lead in grand enterprises, but may very well serve 
 as subordinate coadjutors, where their power as 
 economists will stand in good stead. It seems 
 sadly true that the scholars and philosophers, and 
 I might say also the honest and well-disposed part 
 of society, have no literary organ or voice which is 
 not desperately sectarian ; and we are always im- 
 pelled towards organization by the fear that our little 
 power will become less. But, if things come to a 
 still worse pass, indignation will perhaps summon 
 a deeper-voiced and wiser muse than our cool New 
 England has ever listened to. I am sure she will 
 be native, and no immigrant, least of all will she 
 speak French. But she will, I doubt not, have 
 many wreaths of honor to bestow on you and your 
 friends at Brook Farm ; for courage and hope and 
 real performance, God and man and muses love. 
 
 " You see how little and how much faith I have. 
 As far as your journal is sectarian, I shall respect it 
 at a distance. If it should become catholic, I shall 
 
BROOK FARM 105 
 
 be found suing for a place in it. Respectfully and 
 affectionately yours." 
 
 He had better success with Lowell, who not only 
 sent a poem, but wrote of efforts to serve his friend 
 in other ways : — 
 
 " Leigh Hunt, in one of his pleasant essays, says 
 that he often pleased himself while he wrote with 
 thinking that this or that thought or expression 
 would please some one in particular of his friends. 
 In writing the poem which I send for the Har- 
 binger, I said to myself, J. S. D. will like this, and 
 so I send it. The images are perhaps a little too 
 bold for our close-clipped American public, who, 
 nevertheless, would be willing to sit quietly once 
 a week under the reading of the book of Job, think- 
 ing all the while that for inspiration it compares 
 unfavorably with Pope. But I have a notion that 
 it will be very much to your mind. Maria, who is 
 my public, likes it ; but do not print it unless you 
 do. Please see to the proof-sheets, — for I have 
 been martyred several times that way, — and do not 
 let your compositor make lumberer into slumberer, 
 as, from my knowledge of the compositor turn of 
 mind, I am sure he will be desirous to do. Do you 
 think finned isles too outrageous an expression for 
 innocent whales? You remember how they thrust 
 their hilly backs above the water and lie asleep, and 
 Sinbad's adventure also. 
 
 " I carried your sister's drawings to Dr. Gray, but 
 found that he keeps an artist. He did not at all 
 appreciate them, looking at them (though I told 
 
106 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 him over and over that they were not drawn for 
 scientific purposes) with the eye of an anatomist, 
 counting the pistils and stamens, and wholly in- 
 capable of perceiving their wonderful dramatic pro- 
 priety (I know no other term for it), which quite 
 shamed his scientific artist's productions. How- 
 ever, he was Gray-cious enough to say that, with a 
 little botanical study, your sister would do exceed- 
 ingly well, and that, if he lost his ' artist,' of which 
 he had some fears, he should be glad to employ her 
 pencil. It was a furnace-hot day when I carried 
 them down, and I was drenched with sweat enough 
 to have earned my bread for life (if the terms of the 
 Adamic curse could be strictly complied with) ; and 
 Dr. Gray looked so cool and clean, and so insensible 
 to my pictures (for I had made them mine by the 
 interest I felt in them), that I went away provoked 
 to even greater heat. Nevertheless, Dr. Gray is 
 one of the best men I know, — the ideal of a profes- 
 sor, — simple-hearted, and an enthusiast for his 
 science. It is not his fault that Providence did not 
 give him a poetic eye. 
 
 " Duyckinck writes me doubtfully about the 
 essays. He says he likes very much those he has 
 seen, but doubts their salableness, especially as 
 some of them have been printed once. As he him- 
 self knows nothing whatever of music, I think his 
 liking is an equally strong argument for their sale. 
 Perhaps it would be well to send him such as you 
 can. He is only an acquaintance of mine, but I 
 spoke of them as warmly as I could without injur- 
 
BROOK FARM 
 
 107 
 
 ing them in his man-of-the-world opinion by too 
 great anxiety. 
 
 " If you print my poem and have two numbers 
 to spare, send them to me. Do not forget your 
 engagement to visit us at Commencement. I began 
 a review of Lord's poems for you, which I will fin- 
 ish and send to you. The heat cut me short in it." 
 
 The poem was printed in the Harbinger for 
 Aug. 2, 1845, under the title of "To a Pine-tree," 
 and may be found in Lowell's poetical works with 
 a few emendations. 
 
 Dwight was a constant contributor to the pages 
 of the Harbinger during the whole period of its 
 publication at Brook Farm. He wrote for it edi- 
 torials on association, music, and literary topics, he 
 reviewed many books, and he sometimes contrib- 
 uted poems. He also translated several works from 
 the French of Fourier, Victor Considerant, and 
 other associationist writers. During the progress 
 of the third volume he became intimately con- 
 nected with the editorial management of the paper. 
 He assumed with Ripley the responsibility of con- 
 ducting it, and devoted much of his time to its 
 management. In this volume, appeals were made 
 in behalf of the paper ; and a guarantee fund was 
 raised among the friends of association. Before the 
 end of the fourth volume the paper became dis- 
 tinctly the organ of the American Union of Asso- 
 ciationists, which organization assumed its control 
 and the financial responsibility of its publication. 
 At this time Ripley and Dwight were elected the 
 
108 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 editors, and the sum of five dollars each per week 
 was voted them by the Union. 
 
 In the first number of the Harbinger \ D wight re- 
 viewed the musical defects of this country in the 
 past, maintained that the new social spirit gave the 
 highest promise for musical development in the 
 future ; and he set forth his purpose to devote a 
 portion of the Harbinger to the furtherance of mu- 
 sical taste and knowledge. " We wish," he wrote, 
 " to consider music as one of the expressions and 
 as one of the inspiring causes of the restless but 
 prophetic spirit of these times. Of course, then, 
 we shall not say much of mere musical trifles. It 
 shall be our business constantly to notice and up- 
 hold for study and for imitation music which is 
 deep and earnest ; which does not merely seek to 
 amuse, but which is the most enlightened outpour- 
 ing of the composer's life. . . . Three things we 
 shall have in view: (i) the criticism of music as an 
 art; (2) the interpretation of it as an expression of 
 the life of the age ; and (3) the development of its 
 correspondence as a science with other sciences, 
 and especially with the science of the coming so- 
 cial order and the transition through which we are 
 passing towards it." 
 
 This programme was carried out with earnest- 
 ness and success, and the Harbinger became one 
 of the best musical journals the country has ever 
 possessed. The criticisms were strong and effec- 
 tive ; and the interpretative articles were in good 
 literary form, incisive with keen artistic insight, and 
 
BROOK FARM 109 
 
 adapted to give the art real meaning as a source of 
 culture. 
 
 In October, 1847, the Harbinger came to an end 
 at Brook Farm, and was transferred to New York, 
 where it appeared in a new form, but with much 
 the same spirit. Dwight continued his connection 
 with it as one of the Boston editorial contributors, 
 the other being W. H. Channing. To the seventh 
 volume he made thirty-seven contributions, includ- 
 ing a translation from the columns of the Demo- 
 cratic Pacifique, the Fourierite daily journal of 
 Paris, of a work of Victor Considerant on " Har- 
 mony." He wrote on music in Boston, three ar- 
 ticles on " What made you an Associationist ? " two 
 on a plan for an associative dwelling, one on the 
 associative theory of property, and several literary 
 reviews. As an indication of the literary judgment, 
 appreciation, and skill with which Dwight dealt 
 with the books which he reviewed, a letter from 
 Longfellow, bearing the date of Dec. 10, 1847, may 
 here be presented : — 
 
 " I should have written sooner," said the poet, 
 11 to thank you for your most friendly and cordial 
 notice of ' Evangeline ' in the Harbinger ; but by 
 some adverse fate I could not get a copy of the 
 paper till some ten or fifteen days after its publica- 
 tion. It would hardly be modest in me to tell you 
 how much satisfaction it gave me ; but, setting 
 modesty aside, I thank you for it very heartily, and 
 this rather for the sympathy than the praise. 
 There are so many persons who rush forward in 
 
no JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 front of one, and, seizing one's Pegasus by the rein, 
 give him such a jerk as to make his mouth bleed, 
 that I always feel grateful to any one who is willing 
 to go a few paces side by side with me. I think 
 you will agree with me that what a writer asks of 
 a reader is not so much to like as to listen. You I 
 have to thank for both ; and, I assure you, I have 
 seldom, if ever, read a notice of any work of mine 
 which gave me so much pleasure as yours of 
 1 Evangeline.' " 
 
 In its new form and place of publication, at first 
 the Harbinger gave promise of success ; and it was 
 proposed that Dwight should go to New York and 
 devote his time wholly to its pages. To this effect 
 is a letter to him from Parke Godwin, which also 
 shows Dwight's continued interest in association. 
 "Ripley informs me,' wrote Godwin, "that you 
 hesitate about coming on to the meeting of the 
 American Union of Associationists ; but I hope 
 you will be enabled to do so. We want to see you 
 much. There is a great deal to talk about, espe- 
 cially in reference to the Harbinger. It is an 
 important time in other respects. Come by all 
 means ! Besides, we want a word from you touch- 
 ing your Opera here. You will see the artistic de- 
 partment here is wofully neglected. We have no 
 one to do the work, yet it is indispensable that 
 something should be done. Would that you could 
 be with us permanently, or at least a part of the 
 time ! With your co-operation here, we should be 
 able to make the best paper in the United States. 
 
BROOK FARM in 
 
 As it is, I know of none better, me judice ; but, with 
 a few modifications and improvements, everybody 
 else would be made to know the same thing, which 
 is of more consequence to our success. By the 
 way, what has become of the Boston editor? or 
 does he mean to write only once in six weeks ? 
 Please stir him up. The Harbinger has done very 
 well in its pecuniary receipts the last month. 
 Tweedy, who has an eye for business, is quite en- 
 couraged. I see no reason why we cannot make 
 the paper pay for itself; i.e., with a little industry and 
 enterprise. I think it can still be greatly improved 
 in the arrangement and character of its matter, all 
 of which we shall try for, hard." 
 
 We must now return to the period immediately 
 following the burning of the Phalanstery at Brook 
 Farm. Dwight went to New York a few days 
 later, to give a course of four lectures on music. 
 During his stay in that city he was domiciled with 
 his old friend and classmate, Rev. Henry W. Bel- 
 lows. The fire gave another purpose to his visit 
 than that of musical propagandism, and he made 
 the interests of Brook Farm and association an 
 almost constant topic of discussion among his 
 friends. He wrote to George Ripley of his efforts 
 in behalf of Brook Farm, especially. 
 
 " My days are crowded full ; and I get little time 
 for writing, even on my lectures. At the first lect- 
 ure there were about one hundred and twenty per- 
 sons present, some of the subscribers failing on ac- 
 count of short notice and other accidental reasons. 
 
H2 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 The impression was far better than I had hoped. 
 I believe it gave universal satisfaction to those who 
 heard, although I extemporized association at the 
 end of it. Dr. Dewey was highly delighted, and 
 has paid me much attention. On Saturday the 
 weather was so unpromising I was advised to post- 
 pone. By this I gained time to see our associa- 
 tion friends. I had quite a talk with Greeley. He 
 wrote upon the paper which I took with me, ' I 
 give up all my stock unconditionally, and will sub- 
 scribe, besides, the first $100 I get which does not 
 belong to somebody else.' Marcus Spring gives 
 up his, and expresses a wish to subscribe some- 
 thing. He says that he has got something which 
 he is holding in reserve to aid this cause ; but he 
 fears that Brook Farm, in its present locality, can- 
 not do much. I convinced him, I think, that it is 
 indispensable for us to go on, and to go on where 
 we are for some years more, at least. He says he 
 will aid, but he does not wish to encourage any 
 large expenditure on our present operations. He 
 believes that we Brook Farmers are the real and 
 only nucleus of the association to be first realized 
 in this country. 
 
 " I met him again at Miss Lynch's party in the 
 evening, and had more talk. The result was to in- 
 vite me over to Brooklyn last night (Sunday) to 
 meet the Christian Union people. So, after hold- 
 ing private matins with Fred Rackemann, who 
 opened to me the gospels according to Beethoven, 
 Mendelssohn, and other minor prophets, and after 
 
BROOK FARM 113 
 
 dining with George Curtis, and attending ' Ves- 
 pers ' at the Catholic church, and walking six or 
 seven miles, I (with Cranch) arrived at Marcus 
 Spring's, and took tea and had music. Then we 
 adjourned to Mr. Manning's, where some thirty 
 people were assembled. I held forth for the whole 
 evening on the history and condition and prospects 
 of Brook Farm, answering everybody's questions, 
 and going very fully into the matter. I told the 
 strict truth, and found that to most people it was 
 not near so bad as they had expected. Every one 
 seemed deeply interested, and anxious that Brook 
 Farm should go on. 
 
 " Mr. Hicks relinquishes his stock. Mr. Mann- 
 ing gives his to Channing, to dispose of as he 
 pleases. Mr. Hunt is willing to do anything ; and 
 Mr. Benson, of his own accord, said that some ef- 
 fort must be made in New York to help out the 
 subscription in Boston. Tweedy seems deeply in- 
 terested, and is more and more a Fourierist, having 
 attained to it by much* the same internal process 
 that I did. He is a man much after my own 
 heart. You may consider the whole of the stock 
 held in New York as cancelled. As soon as a clear 
 plan shapes itself on our part, there will be some- 
 thing done here. 
 
 " I talk association everywhere. Everybody 
 questions me, and I have removed prejudices from 
 a good many minds. With Mr. and Mrs. Bellows I 
 have talked hours and hours, — in fact, all the time, 
 — and think they entertain the idea rather more 
 
ii4 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 willingly. Of gastrosophic adventures I have too 
 much to tell : that shall be for Brook Farm even- 
 ing chats. Parties, music, dinings out and in, and 
 hosts of visitors, besides the tremendously long 
 walks, and hitherto unfortunate attempts to write 
 on my last lectures, crowd my days to the fullest. 
 Every day I am belated, run away with, lost, and 
 wearied. But I can stand it some time longer ; and 
 it is wholly profitable, I think. I have had real 
 pleasure in Dr. Dixon and lady, and mellifluous 
 Rev. Mr. Hart ; so, too, in Kempel, who is extrava- 
 gantly delighted with my lecture. Had a beauti- 
 ful evening also at Godwin's, where were Miss Sin- 
 clair, Margaret Fuller, Mrs. Kirkland, Dewey and 
 daughter, etc." 
 
 To one of his sisters he wrote : " My lectures in 
 one sense were very successful ; that is, they pro- 
 duced a deep impression, and were even received 
 with enthusiasm. But, pecuniarily, the result will 
 not be what I expected. I shall hardly realize over 
 one hundred dollars instead of two. This is owing 
 to the great expense of hall and advertising. The 
 audience doubled on the second night, and shrank 
 a little after that. It was owing partly to the in- 
 ertia of my enthusiastic friends about noticing in 
 the newspapers. But it will be a fine opening, I 
 think, for another time. More of this when I get 
 home. 
 
 " I have had a wonderfully fine time, socially. 
 William Story and a party of friends from Boston 
 have been here some days. We all, with Cranch 
 
BROOK FARM 115 
 
 and his wife, were at Mrs. Child's on Sunday 
 evening. Mrs. Child's enthusiasm about my lect- 
 ures is unbounded. She presented me a beauti- 
 ful bouquet at the close of the last, and says they 
 have given her the only fresh feeling of interest 
 since Ole Bull. On the subject of that gentleman 
 we frankly differ, but she tolerates my heresy." 
 
 " And so my estimate of your lectures was not 
 one of my exaggerations, after all ! " wrote Mrs. 
 George Ripley to Dwight. " Tributes to the merits 
 of the first one are coming in upon us ; and yet I 
 cannot think the audience, unaccustomed to your 
 mode of expression, to your somewhat associative 
 dialect, can have gone into the depths of the 
 thought. I feel as if a repetition of them would 
 be demanded, and am trying to get used to the 
 thought of a slightly prolonged absence on your 
 part. I wish you could have seen the group in the 
 reading-room last evening after supper, the tall 
 ones stooping over and the short ones standing 
 tiptoe to read the notice of you in the Tribune. 
 Can I tell you the pleasure with which your letter 
 was received ? Your description of the luxuries of 
 civilization seemed very like a story I once read of 
 Aladdin's wonderful lamp, and your deep sense of 
 the more abundant wealth to be found in the cir- 
 cle of pure Phalansterians was most cordially re- 
 sponded to. What a rich and varied life you are 
 at once drawn into ! and, in the midst of it you 
 find your home circle of every-day Brook Farm 
 friends. You have an unusually grand standpoint 
 from which to speak to the public. 
 
n6 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 " Thank you for Mr. King's letter. That little 
 sentence in which he speaks of our loss as bringing 
 us again into harmony with universal laws is worth 
 all he has written for months. How true, too, that 
 we can see a Providential guidance in our all being 
 led back to our primitive occupations, and hav- 
 ing somewhat collected our scattered forces and 
 brought them to bear on definite objects of real 
 value, before we were thrown into dismay by our 
 calamity! We had in some sort, and almost un- 
 consciously, planned our new mode of life before 
 we were burned out of the old one. 
 
 " We earnestly wish for you back at every 
 moment and every turn ; and yet, surely, this is a 
 better time for your absence than later. Everything 
 now is preliminary. The general council meets 
 every night. They have been reviewing all depart- 
 ments, looking over accounts, etc., I think all 
 minds tending towards the decision that it will be 
 best to give up our property and begin anew (this, 
 of course, entirely private), let school, paper, paint- 
 ing and domestic industry necessarily connected 
 with them, constitute the associative centre, and 
 our band of farmers (stanch and noble-minded yeo- 
 men as they are) take the farm under some new ar- 
 rangement, including more responsibility on their 
 part. Mr. Shaw says the school and paper must 
 not be given up for a single week. His interest is 
 reviving under the light of a new hope, and he 
 comes with cheerful spirits almost every day. Mr. 
 Russell is much engaged about the school, and 
 says he can do something for it. ... 
 
BROOK FARM 117 
 
 " Mr. Orvis came home Tuesday, rather worn 
 down and disappointed, but with undying hope, 
 faith, and devotion. He went to town yesterday to 
 make some more active arrangements about the 
 subscription. Much can be done if we are in a 
 situation to avail ourselves of it, which we are not 
 just at present. One thing you will be glad to 
 know, — that all minds in the least degree capable 
 of it are thinking and deciding for themselves. 
 There is no crushing influence bearing upon them. 
 I never knew them more free. Last night a grand 
 letter came from John Allen, full of glowing love, 
 expressed in his primitive style." . . . 
 
 In a letter to Charles Dana the lectures were 
 spoken of by Parke Godwin in this wise : " As to 
 Dwight's lectures, let me say, that they have been 
 the best things we have ever had here. All who 
 heard them were delighted. He excelled himself, 
 and for me they were ' a refreshing from the presence 
 of the Lord.' If this city were not wholly given up 
 to idolatry, it would have rushed in a body to hear 
 such sound and beautiful doctrine." 
 
 In a letter to the Boston Courier^ Mrs. Lydia 
 Maria Child gave her estimate of the man and 
 his lectures. " He possesses qualifications for 
 such a task," she wrote, " rarely combined in 
 one person, — a delicate musical organization, ac- 
 curate scientific knowledge, and the far-reaching 
 glance of a poet which enables him to perceive that 
 music is the golden key to unlock all the analogies 
 of the universe. But such a man must necessarily 
 
nS JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 always speak to a select few. The mechanical musi- 
 cian, occupied with counting the beats in a bar, 
 is by no means deeply interested when informed 
 that man, in his social progress, has arrived at the 
 dissonant Seventh, which clamors vociferously for 
 the coming octave. He who merely enjoys sweet 
 sounds, as he would the gurgle of brooks in the 
 springtime, cares just as little about the spiritual 
 significance of three, seven, and twelve, without 
 which music could never have lived as an art or 
 taken form as a science. I was, in fact, surprised 
 that so many of the audience appeared excited by 
 his comprehensive thoughts and charmed with his 
 poetic fancies. I was myself especially pleased that 
 such an intense admirer of Beethoven was able to 
 do full justice to the graceful brilliancy of Rossini 
 and the sparkling fairy play of Auber. The same 
 mind has rarely a true appreciation of such diverse 
 forms of beauty. 
 
 11 The great difficulty with Dwight is that he 
 always wants to say a great deal more than he can 
 say. Inwardly rich and outwardly unpractical, his 
 artless and beautiful soul is strangely out of place 
 in these bustling and pretending times. He always 
 seems to me like a little child who has lost his way 
 in the woods with an apron brimful of flowers, 
 which he don't know what to do with ; but, if you 
 can take them, he will gladly give you all." 
 
 The Tribune said that " Mr. Dwight's lectures 
 mark an epoch in the musical history of New York ; 
 for, although we have had the opportunity of hear- 
 
BROOK FARM 119 
 
 ing so much fine music, it is perhaps the first time 
 that we have had a clear and wise assertion of the 
 dignity and compass of the art. Those who regard 
 it as something too subtle to be discussed in lectures 
 or in any other way will find that these are only 
 expositions of the exact laws of infinite analogy and 
 correspondence which govern music as a science, 
 and, further, only a simple and sincere expression of 
 the experience wrought by it upon a delicate and 
 poetical mind to which music is the celestial ex- 
 pression of the sublimest hope. Mr. Dwight hap- 
 pily unites the characteristics of the three classes so 
 well described in his first lecture, to which music is 
 either sentiment, science, or recreation, so that he 
 shows himself a wise lover and a sympathetic critic. 
 His course is so short that he has been necessarily 
 restricted to a bold sketching to convey his whole 
 impression, but it lies so accurately outlined in his 
 own mind that it is very beautifully presented to 
 others/' 
 
 From this time on the future of Brook Farm 
 constantly engaged the interest of Dwight and his 
 earnest colaborers. The number of members was 
 reduced, each person was made responsible for his 
 own personal support, and an effort was made 
 to introduce the most remunerative employments. 
 For a little time it seemed possible that the new 
 methods might succeed. In September, while this 
 adjustment was being made, Dwight wrote to Mrs. 
 Child: — 
 
 " Your ' Poet's Dream of the Soul ' I have read 
 
120 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 with delight. I believe in its essential philosophy, 
 and I was equally surprised with the result. Men- 
 delssohn has been a great object of interest with 
 me this summer. A friend gave me in the spring 
 a set of his ' Lieder ohne Worte.' Hearing my sis- 
 ter play them, and working over them myself, has 
 been the sweetest thing of this summer's life. I 
 was just preparing to write down some fitting tes- 
 timony to this pleasure in the Harbinger, when 
 your story came. You will see I have made some 
 use of it. But how to go on or keep a foothold in 
 this element at all, just now, I scarcely see ; for I 
 am beset and preoccupied and exhausted with most 
 perplexing and incessant cares. 
 
 " Brook Farm must either stop or change its 
 form and operations most entirely. And I am in 
 the midst of this, — everything to settle, nothing 
 that is not altogether loose and unsettled, and mean- 
 while the Harbinger to edit, and ever so much of 
 other work to which I had pledged myself. How- 
 ever, a week or two now will decide all, I trust. I 
 think we shall go on, but on a much reduced scale, 
 and every one who stays responsible for support- 
 ing his own business and his own material person. 
 
 " You date, I see, from the resolution of the flat 
 Seventh into the Sixth, or composite. That is a 
 very lovely region. Mendelssohn is there, it is true ; 
 and I sometimes effect a transition into it. But 
 you may judge from what I have said above that I 
 hail from the sphere of all distraction and discord- 
 ance, perhaps I might say from the chord of the 
 
BROOK FARM 121 
 
 Diminished Seventh, the type of universal transi- 
 tion, wild, impatient, tortured with uncertainty and 
 suspense. As I can hardly expect to reach the 
 octave, the sublime height of universal unity, I 
 humbly hope I also may resolve into the lovely A." 
 
 Another year brought Brook Farm to its end. 
 Ripley went to New York to struggle with the 
 Harbinger for a year and a half longer. He wrote 
 the bravest letters to Dwight through this period 
 of bitter struggle and severest drudgery. Dwight 
 went to Boston to find an opening as a literary 
 worker, and had a struggle not less severe than 
 that of his friend. Gradually the interest in asso- 
 ciation died out, though the most vigorous effort 
 was made to keep it alive. The faith in it of both 
 Ripley and Dwight lost no bit of its depth and 
 force with the closing of Brook Farm; and they 
 still hoped that new methods would bring larger 
 results, or results more conducive to final success, 
 Gradually they came to see that the struggle was 
 in vain, at least for that time. They did not, how- 
 ever, lose faith in that for which they had labored 
 so hard and sacrificed so much ; and they were as- 
 sociationists at heart to the hour of death. 
 
 It has been assumed by many that Brook Farm 
 came to an end in complete eclipse, and left no in- 
 fluence behind it except that it wrought upon indi- 
 vidual lives. This is a mistake in every way, for it 
 was in reality the forerunner of movements more 
 important than itself. Out of the associationist 
 movement of the later forties, of which Brook 
 
122 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 Farm was the chief feature, came the efforts to 
 organize the laboring men of the country. When 
 W. H. Channing preached association in Boston, 
 he drew about him a number of workingmen. One 
 of these men said : " This is the first time I have 
 found a church. Mr. Channing is the first preacher 
 who has given me bread instead of a stone." When 
 they found that they could not go to Brook Farm, 
 they cast about for means of helping themselves 
 in an associative way. A co-operative purchasing 
 agency was established by them. The interest grew 
 rapidly. Soon there were in Boston and vicinity a 
 dozen such societies ; and in ten years there were 
 five hundred and fifty in New England, with an 
 annual business of one and a half million dollars. 
 In a considerable degree this result grew out of the 
 lecturing done in behalf of Brook Farm and asso- 
 ciation by Rev. John Allen and John Orvis, who 
 were kept in the lecturing field during the winter 
 months after Brook Farm took up the teachings of 
 Fourier. When Brook Farm came to an end, Orvis 
 continued his labors in behalf of association, aiding 
 in the formation of co-operative stores, lecturing in 
 the interest of workingmen, and editing The Voice 
 of Industry, a weekly paper which he published in 
 Boston. 
 
 The lectures of Allen and Orvis throughout 
 New England served everywhere to arouse the 
 workingmen, and to lead them to agitate and or- 
 ganize. The efforts of these men, especially of 
 Allen, led to systematic action for ten hours as the 
 
BROOK FARM 123 
 
 length of the working day. A delegates' meeting 
 of workingmen, convened in Lowell at his call in 
 1844, resulted in the organization of the New Eng- 
 land Workingmen's Association ; and Louis K. 
 Ryckman, chief of the Brook Farm " Shoemaking 
 Series," was chosen the president. The object of 
 the association was to secure a persistent agitation 
 for a ten hours' day and the general social im- 
 provement of the laboring class. Allen was an 
 earnest and intelligent man, and exerted as a 
 speaker a marked influence over workingmen. 
 He had been a Universalist clergyman ; but his 
 anti-slavery sermons gave offence to his denomina- 
 tion, and he withdrew from the ministry. 
 
 John Orvis, the brother-in-law of Dwight, was a 
 zealous believer in associative life. It was to him 
 an ideal and a religion, and for it he labored all his 
 life. His Voice of Industry he edited for about 
 two years in Boston as the organ of various work- 
 ingmen's movements. It was spoken of by 
 Greeley as "one of the best weekly papers pub- 
 lished in New England." During the panic of 
 1873, when the laboring class was in greater dis- 
 tress than it had ever known before, he was instru- 
 mental in the organization of the Sovereigns of In- 
 dustry. As the national lecturer of that organiza- 
 tion, he was for more than two years constantly in 
 the field, lecturing to workingmen upon the princi- 
 ples and methods of conducting co-operative stores 
 after the Rochdale plan, which he had studied on 
 the spot, and in organizing councils of the order in 
 
124 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 ten States and in the District of Columbia. Large 
 numbers of stores were started; and, while they 
 mostly failed in New England on account of mis- 
 management, they were successful in the Middle 
 and Western States, especially among the miners 
 and workers in the large iron industries. He com- 
 piled from standard English authorities rules and 
 regulations for the management of these stores, 
 which were adopted both by the National Council 
 of the Sovereigns of Industry and the National 
 Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, as authorized 
 by these bodies respectively, for conducting co- 
 operative stores. 
 
 There can be little doubt, as Mr. Orvis claimed, 
 that Brook Farm was the chief instrument in set- 
 ting on foot all the movements since 1840 for the 
 betterment of the wage-earners and the toilers of 
 every kind. Directly it may have done little ; but 
 it set the agitation under way, and pointed out the 
 lines of effort which have so far been pursued, for 
 the most part. 
 
 No one who was at Brook Farm has ever been 
 willing to admit that the association was a failure 
 in any but a financial sense. It is maintained 
 by all who were there that the life was genial and 
 happy in a larger degree than they have known 
 elsewhere. This might be explained by saying that 
 care and responsibility were removed from the in- 
 dividual, that a comfortable home was certain, and 
 that there was no need of individual worry or dis- 
 content. However true this may have been of the 
 
BROOK FARM 125 
 
 majority, it certainly could not have been true of 
 the leaders, upon whom fell the responsibility of 
 providing ways and means under difficult condi- 
 tions. The secret of the satisfaction that the com- 
 munity gave is to be found in another direction. 
 Mr. Charles A. Dana described it in words which 
 are as truthful as they are characteristic : " Each 
 person chose what he wished to do, and none of the 
 boys and girls tried to shirk. There was more en- 
 tertainment in doing the duty than in getting away 
 from it. Every one was not only ready for his 
 work, but glad to do it. This brings me to a 
 peculiar feature of the system : the person who did 
 the most disagreeable work was the one to receive 
 special honor and distinction, because he was the 
 servant of the others, and was rendering to his 
 brothers a service not pleasant in itself, but which 
 under other circumstances they would render to 
 him. That was a universal quality and character- 
 istic of the society. Just as a sculptor, who is carv- 
 ing an Apollo, goes to his work with joy and passion, 
 so among us every duty and every kind of labor 
 ought to be performed with the same enthusiasm, 
 zeal, and sense of artistic pride." 
 
 This kind of life had a charm of its own, and one 
 that impressed itself deeply upon all who came 
 within its influence. It was something idyllic, full 
 of grace and beauty, and satisfying to the highest 
 aspirations of the heart and mind. This charm 
 consisted, as George P. Bradford testified, " in the 
 free and natural intercourse for which it gave oppor- 
 
126 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 tunity, and in the working of the elective affinities 
 which here had a full play, so that, although there 
 was a kindly feeling running through the family 
 generally, little groups of friends, drawn together 
 into closer relations by taste and sympathy, soon 
 declare themselves. The relief from the fetters and 
 burdensome forms of society was a constant delight 
 to those who had suffered from them in the artificial 
 arrangements of society, the inmates were brought 
 together in more natural relations, and thus realized 
 the charm of true and hearty intercourse, and at the 
 same time the relief and pleasures of solitude were 
 not wanting." Higginson adds to this testimony 
 by saying that, "whatever might be said of the 
 actual glebe at Brook Farm, the social structure 
 was of the richest. Those who ever lived there 
 usually account it to this day as the happiest period 
 of their lives." 
 
 It speaks well for Brook Farm that all the per- 
 sons who were there for any considerable length of 
 time regretted its failure, and wished to have it go 
 on. They attributed its want of success to outside 
 causes, and not to any inherent defect in the associa- 
 tion itself. The earlier years were undoubtedly the 
 most happy and the most idyllic, with a charm 
 superior to those which succeeded, when the press- 
 ure of industrial interests was greater, and when 
 the membership was more varied and less har- 
 monious. If the members looked upon the outside 
 world as in some degree barbarian, and spoke of its 
 people with a tone of contempt as civiliz'ees, it was 
 
BROOK FARM 127 
 
 a justifiable expression of faith in their own form of 
 life and its superior merits. Where peace reigned 
 and good will was universal might be justly claimed 
 as a place worthy of imitation. 
 
 The merits of Brook Farm were those of all 
 similar societies wherever they have been success- 
 ful. The clan life of primitive races and the house 
 communities of more advanced peoples have shown 
 forth conspicuously the same advantages. Brook 
 Farm had the distinct merit of bringing together a 
 large number of superior people who devoted them- 
 selves to an experiment in education of a unique 
 and interesting character. In no other respect was 
 their community different from those undertaken 
 in considerable numbers at the same period, and on 
 the same general principles in all times and coun- 
 tries. The advances in civilization have not been 
 so made, and no superior form of social institution 
 has ever been organized without free competition 
 and individual struggle. Yet such an experiment 
 shows clearly enough that life is finer and more 
 beautiful, kinder and happier, where men are de- 
 voted to each other's good, and where the constant 
 struggle for the mere means of subsistence is made 
 less urgent and distracting. No one can find the 
 real charm of life who is ar::ious each day that those 
 dependent on him may have enough to eat and 
 wear. 
 
 Such experiments, even in their failures, make it 
 clearer that a natural and spontaneous community 
 of interests is necessary to a true social and moral 
 
128 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 life. The method of the associationists was not 
 large enough to secure the results they desired, but 
 it hints of how men are helped by serving each 
 other. Co-operation will secure what competition 
 has never yet been able to attain, — a united and 
 happy community, — whether tribe, state, or nation, 
 — wherein the interests of all are the interests of 
 each one, and wherein each member finds his own 
 highest good in seeking that which will conduce to 
 the good of the whole. The way to this happy 
 issue will be found through the science of soci- 
 ology rather than by means of any of the panaceas 
 offered by communism and socialism. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 A TIME OF EXPERIMENTS. 
 
 After leaving Brook Farm, Dwight took up his 
 residence in Boston, and continued the literary em- 
 ployments which had largely engaged his attention 
 for some years. He at first joined with a company 
 of persons who had been residents of Brook Farm, 
 or connected with the several associationist organi- 
 zations in Boston, in trying an experiment of asso- 
 ciation in the management of a boarding-house. A 
 house was taken in High Street, and the members 
 applied the co-operative method in its management. 
 The experiment was undertaken partly for the sake 
 of economy and partly that as many of the Brook 
 Farm members as possible might be kept together. 
 This effort at association was continued for only 
 about a year, when, some of the members failing to 
 share their part of the burden, it came to an end. 
 
 A member of this co-operative family has given 
 the following account of the occasion of its forma- 
 tion and of the arrangements by which it was held 
 together : " There had often been talk of a ' com- 
 bined household,' and in the fall of 1848 we decided 
 to try the experiment for a year. It was with great 
 reluctance we took the house in High Street, as it 
 was too far out of the current to suit our purposes ; 
 but it was hard to find a house with rooms enough 
 at a rent that we could meet. The rent of each 
 room was appraised; and they were all quickly 
 taken, mostly by members of the three unions of as- 
 
130 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 sociationists, — the Boston, Religious, and Woman's 
 Unions, — five of whom had been members of 
 Brook Farm, — John S. Dwight, Jonathan Butter- 
 field, Rebecca, John, and Charles Codman. I can- 
 not think of any other. One party, who had been 
 greatly interested in the movement, was obliged to 
 give it up ; and the vacant place was taken by 
 strangers who had expressed great interest, but who 
 had no part previously in the work. The Boston 
 and Religious Unions held their regular meetings 
 and social entertainments in the large parlors, and 
 the Woman's Union had its little salesroom back. 
 All the household was boarded satisfactorily by the 
 Woman's Union, which cleared all expenses, the 
 women being charged $1.50 and the men $1.75 a 
 week. At the end of the year we separated in va- 
 rious directions, some retaining the house for an- 
 other year. Mr. Dwight went with his friends, 
 who took a house on Pinckney Street, and re- 
 mained with them until after his marriage." 
 
 Dwight did not abandon in any degree his in- 
 terest in association on leaving Brook Farm, and 
 his efforts in its behalf continued for at least five 
 years nearly as active as they had been at the com- 
 munity. One form of this activity was his connec- 
 tion with the Religious Union of Associationists, 
 which grew out of the preaching of Rev. W. H. 
 Channing at Brook Farm and a small religious 
 society he there organized. The Religious Union 
 was organized in Boston, Jan. 3, 1847, at the house 
 of James T. Fisher, who was made the recording 
 
A TIME OF EXPERIMENTS 131 
 
 secretary, and was one of the most earnest and 
 efficient members. Channing felt that association 
 must be distinctly based on a religious foundation, 
 hence the organization of the society. Its history 
 has been fully told in Frothingham's biography of 
 Channing. Dwight had charge of the music at the 
 religious meetings held by the Union ; and during 
 the greater part of the existence of the society he 
 was an earnest worker in its behalf, often presided 
 in Channing's absence, and sometimes conducted 
 the services. Among those who sang in the choir 
 were Nathaniel Chapin, O. W. Withington, W. W. 
 Story, Frances Dwight, Mary Bullard, Helen M. 
 Parsons ; and Harriet Grauptner was the pianist. 
 At the first service, held January 3, 1847, the 
 " Sanctus " from Mozart's Twelfth Mass was sung 
 by the Misses Bullard and Helen M. Parsons, and 
 by Messrs. Dwight, W. W. Story, and O. W. With- 
 ington. Most of these persons were warmly inter- 
 ested in association. 
 
 To the music of this society Dwight gave much 
 attention, selecting the best, and that most truly 
 adapted to religious purposes, whatever the source 
 from which it was obtained. Mrs. Ednah D. Che- 
 ney says she first heard the Kyrie eleison at these 
 meetings. Only the best music was sung, that 
 which was classical in character and by the great 
 composers. The grand old church music was fre- 
 quently made use of, as were parts of the great 
 masses of the Catholic Church. As Dwight had 
 entire charge of selecting and directing the music, 
 
132 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 he would have nothing which was not of the very 
 best aesthetic quality; and he especially aimed to 
 harmonize the music with the broad and catholic 
 spirit of the religious services as conducted by 
 Channing. 
 
 In the American Review for May, 1847, an ac- 
 count of these meetings was given, and the musical 
 part of the service was criticised. In the Har- 
 binger for June 19 Dwight made reply, and gave 
 his reasons for selecting classical music. The critic 
 found fault that the singing was not such as he 
 could hear elsewhere, that the mass music was made 
 use of, and that the words were in Latin. " The 
 only aim of the singers," Dwight replied, "was to 
 have good and practicable music, whether they 
 found it in Catholic masses, in Protestant oratorios, 
 in Gregorian and Lutheran chants, or even in Yan- 
 kee psalmody. The taste and experience of the 
 choir led them for the time being to selections from 
 these masses, because the music seemed to them so 
 warm, so reverent, so beautifully expressive of the 
 heart's best aspirations, and of the true religion, 
 which is love and joy. The Latin words they did not 
 consider an objection, because they are so beautiful 
 and true in themselves, because they are consecrated 
 by long usage in a great part of the Christian 
 world, and because, being so simple and few, and 
 always the same for the same theme and sentiment, 
 they explain themselves in connection with the 
 music ; while the ordinary practice of singing a long 
 didactic poem to a psalm tune is unmusical and in- 
 
A TIME OF EXPERIMENTS 133 
 
 congruous in every point of view. But they have 
 never bound themselves to this more than to any 
 other music. It has reigned with them thus far 
 because it proved convenient, and because the 
 singers and the majority of the hearers felt a grow- 
 ing love for it. But the reviewer heard a common 
 congregational psalm sung in the same place as a 
 part of the same service on each day that he was 
 present, which he does not mention ; and let him 
 not be surprised if on some other occasion he 
 should hear there Protestant Handel instead of 
 Catholic Mozart. For music is more catholic than 
 all the churches, — the faithful, many-sided ser- 
 vant of the human heart ; and whatsoever is good 
 music is a harmony and help to what is most re- 
 ligious, loving, and profound in human souls, whether 
 it was born on Catholic or heretic or even on a 
 heathen soil. 
 
 " And this is all our answer to the charge of cut- 
 ting a sublime thing out of its appropriate setting. 
 Doubtless a whole mass would be better than a 
 piece of one, a full choir and an organ would be 
 better than a quartette and a pianoforte, and a cathe- 
 dral, with its solemn lights and aisles, would be the 
 fitting complement of such high strains. This none 
 could feel more clearly than the persons who are 
 drawn towards this music by its own intrinsic 
 beauty and expressiveness. But because we can- 
 not have all, may we not have a part? Is there no 
 intrinsic meaning and beauty in the music by itself? 
 If it inspires the singer and hearer, if it imparts a 
 
134 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 warmth such as cold common psalmody cannot, if 
 it lifts the thoughts more nearly to the state which 
 we call worship, if it weaves a spell of holy com- 
 munion round us, why reject it and put up with 
 duller things because we cannot have it in the full 
 glory of all its accompaniments? As to its being 
 'sacrilegiously stolen,' we say this music came from 
 Mozart and from Haydn, and not from the Roman 
 Catholic Church ; and it belongs to every soul 
 which can respond to it, which can appreciate it, 
 which has states answering to its solemn, cheerful 
 tones. It belongs to humanity, to the one church 
 universal which is not yet, but which waits until 
 humanity be one. For music is a universal lan- 
 guage: it knows nothing of opinions, creeds, and 
 doctrines that divide. It knows only the heart of 
 the whole matter, which is one. It speaks to hearts, 
 to that which all men have in common, and in 
 cherishing which resides our only hope of unity, our 
 only hope of ever seeing a truly catholic and uni- 
 versal church. In Christ we hear a kindred lan- 
 guage ; and by a natural and worthy correspondence 
 do associationists commune together in the thought 
 of Christ, and in the atmosphere of music, which is 
 both human and divine, as he was." 
 
 Immediately after leaving Brook Farm, Dwight 
 began to write on musical topics for the Daily 
 Chronotyfie, edited and published by Elizur Wright. 
 His work was that of giving an account of concerts 
 and other musical entertainments, reviewing new 
 music, and writing articles on special topics of 
 
A TIME OF EXPERIMENTS 135 
 
 musical interest. During the year 1849 he did the 
 same kind of work for the Daily Advertiser. 
 
 When the Harbinger came to an end, early in 
 1849, Dwight was ready to continue his efforts for 
 association, and made an arrangement for conduct- 
 ing a department in that interest in the Daily 
 Chronotype of Boston. In the number of that paper 
 for Aug. 23, 1849, the editor of this one-cent daily 
 said, " By an arrangement with some friends of so- 
 cial reform we have given up to them the control 
 of three columns on the first page. For the con- 
 tents of them they alone are responsible. Their 
 sentiments, we have every reason to believe, will 
 correspond with our own ; but we shall hold our- 
 selves at perfect liberty to combat them when we 
 see fit." 
 
 Among those Dwight was able to gather about 
 him to assist him in this work were W. H. Chan- 
 ning, W. F. Channing, C. A. Dana, and Albert 
 Brisbane. Poetry was furnished by C. P. Cranch 
 and others. Dwight translated Victor Consider- 
 ant's " Attractive Industry, or else the Slavery of 
 the Masses." Among other topics on which he 
 w T rote were workingmen as their own employers, 
 Fourier's writings, Hungary, systems of socialism, 
 protective unions for workingmen, and dilettante- 
 ism as opposed to the interests of the people. 
 The statement of purposes in the first number 
 was written by Dwight, and some parts of it are 
 worthy of notice as a summary of his opinions on 
 the subject of association. 
 
136 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 " We mean that the great social problems of the 
 times," he wrote, " the problem of labor and of a 
 true society based upon labor rightly organized, 
 shall have some justice done in these columns. . . . 
 We propose to present a fair, kindly, and intelli- 
 gent account of the great socialistic movement in 
 all branches, to note all progress in the science and 
 the practice of domestic and industrial association, 
 to show the symptoms everywhere about us of the 
 approach of the whole toiling and producing mul- 
 titude to an era of complete and universal mutual- 
 ism or guarantism, and, finally, to trace the several 
 movements to the end in which they all converge ; 
 namely, to labor made attractive in complete asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 " We are disposed to take the name of socialist 
 for better or for worse, and challenge all the world 
 to prove that there can be a better Christian, a 
 truer friend of order, a more sincere respecter of 
 the rights of property and family, a more delicately 
 careful guardian of every individuality and every 
 sacred sphere of life, than is the genuine socialist 
 who feels and understands his reconciling mission. 
 He asks for guaranties of much more such protec- 
 tion to these principles than civilized society af- 
 fords. He sees that, after all, there is no property 
 secure, no union lasting, no family sacred, no indi- 
 viduality consulted, no true education possible, save 
 by the happiest fortune of a few in a society whose 
 spring is competition, and whose only order is the 
 blind resultant of old anarchy that proves itself 
 
A TIME OF EXPERIMENTS 13; 
 
 even now too strong for its governing principle of 
 force. He feels that there is a common life which 
 sets through all humanity, and that humanity col- 
 lectively ; in other words, society on this globe 
 must first be set in order before the individual can 
 be himself or know the meaning of the Christian 
 communion with his neighbor and with God. He 
 asks himself what it is that interests all men most 
 widely, that silently creeps under the political bar- 
 riers of nations, that understands itself in every lan- 
 guage, and knits the widest and most complex 
 relations between the people of all countries, con- 
 trolling every legislature, cabinet, and throne. It 
 is the industry and commerce by which wealth is 
 created and distributed. This of itself can weave 
 a brotherhood of nations and transform any despot- 
 ism, but only on one grand condition, — only on 
 condition that the principle of laissez-faire or com- 
 petition, by which it now tends to industrial Van- 
 dalism, shall be made to give place to association, 
 which shall reconcile all interests and open oppor- 
 tunities to all. 
 
 " We are associationists, but we are not * promis- 
 cuous aggressionists.' We believe in an organic 
 solidarity, a harmony, and not in a confusion of in- 
 terests. We believe a true society should guarantee 
 the ' right to labor,' without which every other right 
 is futile ; but we do not believe in public bounties 
 upon idleness, — the right to labor, but not neces- 
 sarily the duty of interference by the State, which 
 may be left to times and places. Meanwhile our 
 
138 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 hope is strongest in the power of the laborers them- 
 selves by peacefully associating their industry to 
 guarantee to one another this right in its fulness. 
 
 " We believe in individual property. We are 
 not communists. Organization of labor will enrich 
 all, as no rash spoliation or division ever could. 
 We hold the laborer entitled to the fruits of his 
 own earnings, and that the employer will be the 
 gainer by making him a partner in the profits of 
 the production. We believe that labor, capital, and 
 skill, all three have rights, and must not be denied 
 remuneration. We are not for withholding interest 
 on capital, however it may bring us at issue with 
 some schools of socialism. We are of the party of 
 peace. Our watchword is the peaceful transforma- 
 tion of the subversive, false societies of competition 
 into the co-operative society of unity and harmony 
 under God's perfect code of love. 
 
 " We are not red republicans. We have no 
 sympathy with the red banner. Nor do we believe 
 that the spirit and tendency of socialism has been 
 anything but peaceful. Indeed, socialism altogether 
 is a peaceful protest against the red rule of force, 
 by which the privileged party of the past alone 
 maintains its sway. . . . 
 
 " Are we, then, masters of a social science, that 
 we are emboldened to address ourselves to such a 
 mighty task of reconciliation ? . . . Frankly, we be- 
 lieve we hold the key to it. It is our privilege to 
 be born into a time when some of the great har- 
 monies of such a reconciling law have been struck, 
 
A TIME OF EXPERIMENTS 139 
 
 and our ears did not chance to be closed against 
 them. A work of years, it may be, and of many 
 minds united to show the full and fair proportions 
 of the social science, to state in all its length and 
 breadth, and all its infinite beauty of detail and 
 special application, God's law of harmonic society 
 on earth. But the only way — and to evade it 
 would be treason to our souls — is to trust, and fol- 
 low up such glimpses as we have. And we say that 
 even now, in the confused whirl of noisy and im- 
 patient opinions which bears the name of socialism, 
 there is mixed up some of the serenest wisdom 
 which ever visited the human soul. There are 
 clear outlines, benign intimations caught by some 
 souls in the movement of a law, a science which 
 shall reconcile all interests, all parties, do away all 
 terrors, and effect a peaceful transition out of these 
 ages of industrial competition, with its attendant 
 train of poverty, ignorance, crime, war, slavery, and 
 disease, into an age of universal co-operation, union, 
 competence, refinement, peace, and Perfect Liberty 
 with Perfect Order. « T g D » 
 
 This venture did not prove a success, and the 
 arrangement was continued only for a few months. 
 The publishers of the Chronotype were not able or 
 willing to carry out their part of the agreement. 
 Various other plans were discussed by Dwight and 
 his friends, but nothing came of them. In the 
 mean time his interest in association did not abate, 
 and he was one of the most active workers in the 
 
140 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 Boston Union of Associationists. He gave much 
 time to its meetings and to keeping the organiza- 
 tion in a healthy condition. He helped to provide 
 music, to organize entertainments, and to make the 
 meetings attractive. He was a leader in celebrat- 
 ing the birthday of Fourier each year in April, 
 securing music, writing toasts, preparing the pro- 
 gramme, and making the meetings a success. Two 
 of the toasts prepared by him for the celebration 
 of 1849 may here be given as indicative of his atti- 
 tude towards the social problems of the day : — 
 
 " To Joy ! to Liberty ! to Childhood's Mirth ! to 
 Youth's Enthusiasm ! to the warm life-thrill of At- 
 traction felt through every fibre of existence! The 
 times are coming — the Harmonic Times of Unity 
 and Love — when the Passions in their purity shall 
 prove themselves divine; when Liberty shall not 
 be license, nor amusement folly; when every fac- 
 ulty, the humblest as the highest, shall find supreme 
 delight in Uses ; when Labor shall be Play ; and 
 Joy and Beauty crown the works of men. Let 
 rhythmic feasts and songs and dances still renew 
 the prophecy of the Harmonic Times ! " 
 
 " The Wrongs and Hopes of Labor ! Long 
 has been its martyrdom. A year ago the sounds 
 of its deliverance in the Old World pealed across 
 the ocean into the midst of our festival. The 
 struggle outwardly has been in vain. Still thou- 
 sands starve in Ireland. Still, goaded to madness, 
 the impatient crowds rising to claim their rights 
 have been shot down. But not in vain has been 
 
A TIME OF EXPERIMENTS 141 
 
 their martyrdom. A peaceful deliverance is nigh. 
 The spirit of God is moving in this age in the in- 
 stinct of association. Its ways are devious, frag- 
 mentary, many. But they will all unite, and indus- 
 try be organized, and man be free and honored in 
 his functions by his brother man." 
 
 During this period Dwight was in demand as a 
 lecturer on musical subjects. In 1850 and in 1851 
 he furnished to Sartairis Magazine of Philadelphia 
 a monthly article on some musical topic, and each 
 article was accompanied by a popular piece of mu- 
 sic selected by him. He wrote frequently for a 
 musical journal published in New York, and called 
 the Messenger Bird. He contributed to other pub- 
 lications on the great composers and their works, or 
 on current subjects connected with music. During 
 the first six months of 185 1 he was the musical 
 editor of the Boston Commonwealth. In this con- 
 nection the following letter may find a place: — 
 
 West Newton, Nov. 23, '51. 
 My dear Sir, — I understand that you wish to 
 ascertain, on Mr. Sartain's behalf, whether I could 
 supply him with an article for his magazine. It so 
 happens that I have recently written a story, and 
 have it now on hand. As regards the important 
 point of remuneration, Gresham made an offer a 
 year since of one hundred dollars for an article ; and 
 I suppose (but am not quite certain) that his pro- 
 posal would still hold good. Dr. Bailey, of the 
 National Era, has likewise offered me the same 
 
142 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 sum. I should prefer to publish the story in a 
 magazine rather than a newspaper; and on this 
 account, and because I do not know whether 
 Gresham wants the article now, I would let Mr. 
 Sartain have it at the above-named price. 
 
 If it will increase the value of the article, Mr. Sar- 
 tain may be assured that I shall not write anything 
 else for the magazines at present, being about to en- 
 gage in a large work. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne. 
 
 P.S. — I am established here for the winter, and 
 it would give Mrs. Hawthorne and myself much 
 pleasure to see you. 
 
 During the years 1850 and 185 1 Dwight seri- 
 ously discussed a removal to New York, and the 
 connection of himself with the Tribune. His 
 friends Ripley and Dana had secured for them- 
 selves places on that newspaper, and they wished 
 to have his aid as a coworker. Ripley urged his 
 making the venture of joining the staff of the 
 paper, and making for himself a permanent place 
 there. In February, 1850, Ripley wrote to him: 
 " We stand in the greatest need of you here, how- 
 ever little you may need New York or anything 
 that therein is. You can not come too soon." 
 
 In September, Ripley wrote, urging his friend to 
 come to New York at once and begin work ; but 
 no definite remuneration was guaranteed. A little 
 
A TIME OF EXPERIMENTS 143 
 
 later he and Dana made an effort to secure a place 
 for Dwight on the Herald, and Parke Godwin 
 the next year endeavored to connect him with the 
 Evening Post. Dwight seems to have tried the 
 work on the Tribune for a short period, but it 
 evidently was not wholly to his liking. During 
 the year 185 1 Ripley secured the promise of publi- 
 cation, by J. S. Redfield, of New York, of a bi- 
 ography of Mozart which Dwight was then prepar- 
 ing. In October of that year Dwight wrote from 
 New York to his brother : " As to the Mozart book, 
 I have almost decided to let Mason & Law pub- 
 lish it. They offer me ten per cent, on all sales, 
 and wish to stereotype and bring out the whole at 
 once in two volumes, say in July or August." This 
 work was not published, probably owing to the fact 
 that Dwight soon gave his attention to the publica- 
 tion of a musical journal in Boston. 
 
 John S. Dwight and Mary Bullard were married 
 Feb. 12, 185 1, by Rev. W. H. Channing. Miss 
 Bullard was a frequent visitor at Brook Farm. She 
 was a member of the choir of the Religious Union 
 of Associationists, and she was an active worker 
 with Dwight in all his efforts to keep alive the 
 Boston Union of Associationists. From 1849 
 he had been living in Pinckney Street, an inmate 
 of the house of Mrs. Parsons, who, with her 
 daughters, was a member of the Union of Associa- 
 tionists. Here Miss Bullard also had her home, 
 here they were married, and in the same house they 
 remained for several months after this event. In 
 
144 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 1853 they rented a house in Charles Street, near 
 Cambridge Street; and here they resided for sev- 
 eral years. 
 
 Mary Bullard was a beautiful, winning, unselfish 
 woman, a fine singer, and a person of many attrac- 
 tions of body and mind. She had a serene and 
 charming face, was a fine talker, and had a most 
 gracious and attractive manner. At Brook Farm 
 her coming was hailed with delight by all ; for she 
 was a superior singer, and she lent herself pleas- 
 antly to all the interests of the place. A Brook 
 Farmer says that " she was vivacious, quick, and 
 sprightly ; was fond of conversation, but, no matter 
 how trivial the subject of discourse, it grew into 
 earnestness in her mind, unless she was wholly play- 
 ful. But her chief distinction was her love and 
 talent for music, and in the capacity of beautiful 
 singer she was first introduced to us." At the farm 
 she was known as " the Nightingale," because of 
 her gifts as a singer. By this name Ripley men- 
 tions her in his letters to Dwight, and by that of 
 " die lieblichste." One of her intimate friends has 
 written of her : " Mary was a lovely person for a 
 housemate. She was frank, outspoken, but always 
 just and harmonious." William H. Channing said 
 that, without being morbid, she was the most thor- 
 oughly conscientious person he ever knew. 
 
 The five years which had now passed since Brook 
 Farm closed had been years of struggle and disap- 
 pointment for Dwight. They had also been years 
 of poverty and failure. He had tried many things, 
 
A TIME OF EXPERIMENTS 145 
 
 had struggled hard to find a permanent place, and 
 all had ended with small results. His marriage had 
 been delayed through four or five years for these 
 reasons, and was entered upon with few prospects 
 for the immediate future. At last he was to find 
 the place for which he was fitted ; and, though it 
 did not give him much money, it did give him 
 congenial employment and a task suited to his 
 genius. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 "DWIGHTS JOURNAL OF MUSIC." 
 
 The reason why ''D wight did not connect himself 
 with the Tribune was doubtless because he had an 
 ambition for a periodical of his own, to be devoted 
 exclusively to music and to be entirely under his 
 own control. Early in the year 185 1 that project 
 had taken definite shape in his own mind, and he 
 wrote to Ripley in detail of his plan. He proposed 
 to secure a guarantee fund that would enable him 
 to carry the paper on for one year without loss, to 
 become both publisher and editor, and to devote 
 his paper entirely to music and the kindred arts. 
 Ripley objected to his undertaking to act as his 
 own publisher, and the' taking any responsibility of 
 a personal character which would involve financial 
 loss to himself. " You will not bother yourself, I 
 hope," Ripley wrote, "by incurring any personal 
 responsibilities on the strength of anticipated sub- 
 scriptions. The friends of music should shoulder 
 the burden, raise the money, while you give to it 
 the aid of your talents and taste." 
 
 This advice was taken so far as securing a guar- 
 antee fund was concerned, and the next year was 
 devoted to obtaining the aid of those interested in 
 the project. In February, 1852, the plan was so 
 far matured that a circular was prepared by Dwight, 
 setting forth his purposes in establishing a musical 
 journal of a superior character. How he proposed 
 to conduct it he stated in these words : — 
 
"DWIGHT'S JOURNAL OF MUSIC" 147 
 
 " The tone to be impartial, independent, catholic, 
 conciliatory, aloof from musical clique and contro- 
 versy, cordial to all good things, but not eager to 
 chime in with any powerful private interest of pub- 
 lisher, professor, concert-giver, manager, society, or 
 party. This paper would make itself the ' organ ' 
 of no school or class, but simply an organ of what 
 may be called the Musical Movement in our coun- 
 try, of the growing love of deep and genuine music, 
 of the growing consciousness that music, first amid 
 other forms of Art, is intimately connected with 
 Man's truest life and destiny. It will insist much 
 on the claims of ' Classical ' music, and point 
 out its beauties and its meanings, not with a pe- 
 dantic partiality, but because the enduring needs 
 always to be held up in contrast with the epheme- 
 ral. But it will also aim to recognize what good 
 there is in styles more simple, popular, or modern, 
 will give him who is Italian in his tastes an equal 
 hearing with the German, and will even print the 
 articles of those opposed to the partialities or the 
 opinions of the editor, provided they be written 
 briefly, decently, and to the point." 
 
 In this effort to establish an independent journal, 
 devoted to the interests of music, Dwight had the 
 active support and co-operation of the Harvard 
 Musical Association. He brought his project before 
 that society at the annual meeting of 1852, which 
 was held in January ; and, at a special meeting held 
 in February, measures were taken to afford him 
 such aid as he needed. The securing of the guar- 
 
148 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 antee fund was in considerable degree due to the 
 co-operation of the members; and he had their 
 efficient help in procuring subscribers, as well as in 
 getting the business details of the paper into work- 
 ing order. So long as the paper was published, the 
 association stood by him, and gave him its active 
 support. 
 
 " Be not startled at my prospectus," Dwight 
 wrote to Cranch, " but try to get me ten names 
 upon it, and mail it back to me in a few days. You 
 see I am bent on establishing a journal of music 
 and aesthetic matters, which shall be my own. I am 
 sick of writing off and on for other people, for unre- 
 liable publishers, etc. I propose to print a small 
 weekly paper, — say eight quarto pages, — without 
 printed music, but filled with notices of concerts, 
 composers, musical publications, etc., essays on 
 styles, analyses of compositions, with some brief 
 notices of other arts, and a small sprinkling of 
 original poems, songs, tales, etc. Now in this last 
 you perhaps can help me. Send me a little poem 
 or two of yours. I should like one for the first 
 number. I shall have to rely on friendship for all 
 my variety, since it will take a year or more to make 
 the paper pay for itself. But I shall not start until 
 I am guaranteed for one year against debt, partly 
 by a guarantee fund of fifteen hundred to two thou- 
 sand dollars (which some moneyed friends of music 
 here are organizing), and partly by such subscrip- 
 tion list as I can raise in a couple of weeks by these 
 papers. The Harvard Musical Association took 
 
"DWIGHT'S JOURNAL OF MUSIC" 149 
 
 the plan up warmly at the annual supper (when 
 your note was read), and are to have another meet- 
 ing about it next week. If each member will get 
 me ten subscribers, it will make five hundred at 
 once. I shall want some letters, too, from New 
 York about the concerts and operas there. Will 
 not the spirit move you occasionally ? 
 
 " If you see the Howadji, can you not enlist his 
 active sympathies a little in my cause? A letter 
 now and then from him on music or other art 
 would be a feather in the cap of my enterprise. It 
 is my last, desperate (no very confident) grand 
 coup d'etat to try and get a living ; and I call on all 
 good powers to help me launch the ship, or, rather, 
 little boat." 
 
 The name to be given the new journal called for 
 much of consideration. Dwight objected to the 
 use of his own name as a part of that of the paper, 
 not liking to hear persons say that " Harpers has 
 come," and decidedly objected to the statement 
 that " Dwight" s has come." Curtis wrote him that 
 he had submitted the problem to the editorial coun- 
 cil of the Tribune, and that the conclusion was he 
 should call the paper " Dwight's Musical Journal," 
 with the sub-title, " A paper of Art and Litera- 
 ture." To Longfellow, Dwight wrote for contribu- 
 tions and for suggestions as to the name. 
 
 Cambridge, March 25, 1852. 
 Dear Dwight, — I should have been more rapid in 
 my reply to your friendly note if I had had anything 
 
i 5 o JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 to send you which would make my answer agree- 
 able. But, since I have taken to writing long 
 poems, I have given up writing short ones ; and I 
 find I have nothing which I should be willing to 
 publish. 
 
 But much more important is the name you may fix 
 upon. " Pon lo tuyo en consejo, uno te dira que es 
 bianco, otro que es bermejo," says the Spanish prov- 
 erb, and I have always found it true. I agree with 
 you in thinking the simpler the better. Why not, 
 then, say " Musical Journal," and no more, without 
 troubling yourself about a second title ? No one 
 can object to that, I fancy. 
 
 Speaking about this with Batchelder the other 
 day, I made the same suggestion that the Howadji 
 made. But I feel your personal objections, and 
 now make the proposition to retain only two words 
 out of three. Yours truly, 
 
 Henry W. Longfellow. 
 
 Finally, the name settled upon was " Dwight's 
 Journal of Music : A Paper of Art and Literature." 
 The first number was dated April 10, 1852, but was 
 issued several weeks earlier. This number began 
 with the prospectus, and was followed by a " Son- 
 net to my Piano," by C. P. Cranch ; a short article 
 on Jenny Lind's devotion to her art ; a letter about 
 music in New York, signed by " Hafiz," — in other 
 words, George W. Curtis ; a letter on the Music 
 Hall then beinor erected in Boston ; and reviews of 
 
"DWIGHT'S JOURNAL OF MUSIC' 151 
 
 books. Much space was given to music in Boston ; 
 and the musical news of Paris, Italy, England, and 
 Germany, was reported. The " Introductory " was 
 an earnest and explicit statement of the purposes of 
 the new journal, in part restating what has already 
 been given, and adding some personal considera- 
 tions which may be given here, because of its hon- 
 est recognition of his own strong interest in music, 
 and the limitations under which he labored in de- 
 siring to promote its interests. 
 
 " Without being in any sense a thoroughly edu- 
 cated musician either in theory or practice, we have 
 found ourselves, as long as we could remember, 
 full of the appeal which this most mystical and yet 
 most human art — so perfectly intelligible to feeling, 
 if not to the understanding — has never ceased to 
 make to us. From childhood there was an intense 
 interest and charm to us in all things musical. 
 The rudest instrument and most hackneyed player 
 thereof seemed invested with a certain halo and 
 saving grace, as it were, from a higher, purer, and 
 more genial atmosphere than this of our cold, self- 
 ish, humdrum world. We could not sport with 
 this, and throw it down like common recreation. 
 It spoke a serious language to us, and seemed to 
 challenge study of its strange, important meanings, 
 like some central oracle of oldest and still newest 
 wisdom. And this at a time when the actual world 
 of music lay in the main remote from us, shooting 
 only now and then some stray vibrations over into 
 this western hemisphere. We felt that music must 
 
152 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 have some most intimate connection with the so- 
 cial destiny of Man, and that, if we but knew it, 
 it concerns us all. 
 
 " A few years have passed, and now this is a 
 general feeling. Music is a feature in the earnest 
 life and culture of advanced American society. 
 It enters into all our schemes of education. It 
 has taken the initiative as the popular art par ex- 
 cellence in gradually attempering this whole people 
 to the sentiment of Art. And whoever reflects 
 upon it must regard it as a most important saving 
 influence in this rapid expansion of our democratic 
 life. Art, and especially Music, is a true conserva- 
 tive element, in which Liberty and Order are both 
 fully typed and made beautifully perfect in each 
 other. A free people must be rhythmically edu- 
 cated in the whole tone and temper of their daily 
 life ; must be taught the instinct of rhythm and 
 harmony in all things, in order to be fit for freedom. 
 And it is encouraging, amid so many dark and 
 wild signs of the times, that this artistic sentiment 
 is beginning to ally itself with our progressive en- 
 ergies, and make our homes too beautiful for ruth- 
 less change." 
 
 At the end of the year the editor made a hope- 
 ful report, saying that he had not accomplished 
 as much as he desired, but all that seemed possi- 
 ble under the circumstances. He said that the 
 paper paid its own way, but that " the editor's 
 remuneration, beyond the barest minimum, is in 
 the future." " When we commenced," he said, 
 
"DWIGHT'S JOURNAL OF MUSIC" 153 
 
 " there were not a few to warn us that we under- 
 took a perilous and almost impossible voyage ; but 
 there were believing friends that helped to provi- 
 sion and insure the ship. Our success has not been 
 brilliant; but we have got decently through, and 
 with such encouraging response from those whose 
 good opinion we most valued that we feel small 
 fear for the future." 
 
 The contents of the paper during this first year 
 were notable, as they continued to be to the end 
 of the last volume published. The editor himself 
 carefully, sympathetically, and yet fearlessly re- 
 viewed the music of Boston during the year. His 
 reports were not mere newspaper chroniclings, but 
 intelligent and appreciative studies of the music 
 of the day and the way in which it was presented 
 to the public. Next in importance was the pres- 
 entation of the art of music through translations 
 from leading writers and journals. In the third 
 number began a series of articles by Franz Liszt 
 on Frederic Chopin, translated by the editor from 
 the German. A study of Weber's " Der Frei- 
 schutz," by Hector Berlioz, was also translated, as 
 well as critical accounts of Berlioz's latest musical 
 work. In an early number was begun the publi- 
 cation of A. Oulibicheff's " Life and Times of Mo- 
 zart," a work of great merit by a Russian. This 
 was the book on Mozart about which Dwight 
 was negotiating with publishers the year before. 
 The greater part of it appeared in the Journal 
 of Music, being continued through several years. 
 
154 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 Numerous other translations appeared from Ger- 
 man, French, and Italian writers on music. In 
 this connection it may be stated that Wagner was 
 mentioned in the first volume, — six months, — and 
 that much notice was taken of him in the second. 
 Three long articles were devoted to a statement of 
 what was then known of him, — his life, theories, 
 and music. No less than three translations from 
 his own writings were given, and four or five ar- 
 ticles by leading German or English writers on mu- 
 sical subjects. The same breadth and generosity 
 of treatment appeared in his other selections and 
 translations. In all the matter of this kind which 
 he published, his aim was educative and catholic ; 
 and it was of a sort calculated to bring the reader 
 into closest sympathy with the best in music, and 
 with the aims and spirit of the great masters who 
 most truly represented this most emotional and 
 spiritual of the arts. 
 
 The list of contributors to the Journal of Music 
 was not a long one, for the editor was not able to 
 pay more than a mere pittance for even the best 
 articles. For two or three years George W. Curtis 
 wrote occasionally from New York. So long as 
 the paper was published, Cranch was an occasional 
 contributor of poems ; and here for the first time 
 appeared many of the best of his shorter pieces. 
 Rev. Charles T. Brooks was also wont to send to 
 Dwight his lyrical outpourings, many of which 
 found the public in the Journal. It may be said 
 that this paper was notable for its poetical selec- 
 
"DWIGHT'S JOURNAL OF MUSIC" 155 
 
 tions, every number usually having two or three of 
 the best short poems of the day. Another feature 
 of the paper was its correspondence from all the 
 music centres of Europe, and its careful selection 
 of the musical intelligence of the day. From all 
 American cities where there was any interest in 
 music came full reports, and several able writers 
 on music were in this way trained to their work as 
 music interpreters and critics. One of the most 
 frequent contributors to the Journal in this way 
 was Alexander W. Thayer, who began by sending 
 news notes from New York. For several years he 
 contributed his thoughts on musical topics under 
 the title of " From my Diary," which attracted 
 much attention ; and he came to be known as " The 
 Diarist." A later series of his contributions were 
 reprinted in book form. He spent several years in 
 Europe, — was the United States consul at Trieste, 
 and published the most important life of Beet- 
 hoven which has appeared. He contributed to 
 the Journal more largely, and for a longer period, 
 than any other person except the editor. 
 
 Another frequent writer was Frances Malone 
 Raymond, who afterwards became Mrs. Frederic 
 Ritter. To early volumes of the Journal she sent 
 poems, music criticisms, and translations ; and her 
 connection with it continued to the end. She has 
 published many volumes on music, including a 
 translation of Robert Schumann's " Music and 
 Musicians," and original works on " Some Famous 
 Songs " and " Troubadours and Minnesingers." 
 
156 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 Her volumes of poetry include " Madrigals " and 
 " Songs and Ballads." Dr. Frederic L. Ritter was 
 a contributor to some of the later volumes. Mr. 
 W. S. B. Matthews, now the editor of Music, an 
 able monthly published in Chicago, wrote often 
 during the later years of the Journal's history. 
 
 In turning over the volumes of the Journal of 
 Music to-day, one is impressed with the variety and 
 high character of its contents. Its excellent literary 
 quality appears on every page, as well as the pro- 
 found love of art in its musical form everywhere 
 manifested by the editor. The twenty volumes in 
 which it is bound make an almost complete ency- 
 clopaedia of music, so wide is the range of interest 
 shown, and so catholic are the appreciations dis- 
 played. This statement will seem to be quite out 
 of harmony with the criticism often made, that 
 Dwight cared only for German music, and that of 
 the older schools. It may be granted that his taste 
 was formed before the newer schools came into 
 vogue, and that he was intensely German in his 
 preferences. It is thoroughly true, however, that in 
 his selections and translations he took the widest 
 range, and that he thus gave every school an oppor- 
 tunity to speak for itself to his readers. No one 
 could have been more generous towards Wagner, for 
 instance, who occupies a large space in the Journal, 
 not only with extensive translations from his own 
 writings, but with the commendations of his ad- 
 mirers. It is true that the other side is presented, 
 and that the editor gives his own opinions honestly 
 
"DWIGHT'S JOURNAL OF MUSIC" 157 
 
 and without reserve ; but let it be noted that he is 
 most generous in his recognition of the music of 
 Wagner and of his theories. He did not like the 
 music; and he did not agree with the theories, and 
 he said so plainly, giving good reasons for his dis- 
 likings. He was a candid critic, speaking his own 
 mind freely ; but he was an appreciative and a sym- 
 pathetic critic, as well. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the Journal of Music 
 would have been a much greater financial success if 
 its literary and musical standards had not been so 
 high. The editor had no gift for appealing to merely 
 popular tastes. His standard was of the highest 
 kind, and he had no wish or capacity for lowering 
 it for the sake of outward success. He took the 
 course, undoubtedly, which was of the largest benefit 
 to music, most truly educative of public taste ; but 
 he appealed to only a limited circle of readers. 
 The paper fixed the musical standard, not only of 
 Boston, but of the whole country ; and genuine 
 lovers of music turned to its pages as to a supreme 
 authority. 
 
 At no time did the Journal of Music give Dwight 
 more than the scantiest remuneration for his labor 
 bestowed upon it. It tied him down to a life of the 
 severest drudgery, to work he did not love, and 
 kept him from that kind of work for music which 
 would have been to him a delight. So scanty was 
 the remuneration which came to the editor that on 
 two occasions, at the end of the second year of the 
 Journal and again at the end of the fourth year, 
 
158 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 the musicians of Boston gave complimentary bene- 
 fits to the paper. These were cheering indications 
 of the interest taken in it by those best able to 
 appreciate its work. On the first occasion the 
 musicians of Boston said to the editor : " We look 
 upon the Journal of Music as an institution which 
 it is the interest and duty of all artists to sustain. 
 We owe it a debt for mediating between us and the 
 public, and laboring to raise that public to a fuller 
 appreciation of the things we do from our own 
 hearts and for the love of art rather than for the 
 praise and money of the crowd. We know enough, 
 too, of the world to know that, in the nature of 
 things, a musical journal, conducted on such high 
 principles as yours, though sure of fair success in 
 the long run, and not without encouragement thus 
 far, cannot in times like these remunerate its editor 
 according to his labors. We artists would sustain 
 it, as in some sense our common organ, as we 
 would a temple or an academy of music, as one of 
 the public instrumentalities for the due furtherance 
 of our art." 
 
 How keenly Dwight felt the drudgery of much of 
 the work he was compelled to perform as best he 
 could may be seen from some bits of his correspond- 
 ence. In March, 1856, he wrote to Charles T. 
 Brooks, in answer to that friend's request for aid in 
 buying a piano : " Do not despair of me as a corre- 
 spondent. I have not forgotten about the piano, 
 although I have taken the benefit of your Uhland 
 poem. A capital translation it is, too. I must take 
 
"DWIGHT'S JOURNAL OF MUSIC" 159 
 
 a little more time to look about among the pianos. 
 For the last two or three weeks I have been so 
 beset and harassed by my miserable Journal — es- 
 pecially the many matters thereto pertaining — that 
 I could think of nothing else. Besides lack of 
 time, too, I have lack of quiet, lack of clearness and 
 effective . movement, lack of brains. These latter 
 seem to be getting ' muddled ' in the old cocoanut ; 
 but the warm spring sun and running rivulets (of 
 melting snow in the gutters) promise peace and 
 sense of freedom. 
 
 " I was surprised and greatly interested to hear 
 of your ' Faust ' labor. Verily, it must have been 
 a great work ; and I trust it will be rewarded. I am 
 anxious to see it, and shall hint to some of our pub- 
 lishers. If Ticknor relucts, I think it quite pos- 
 sible that Phillips & Sampson would like the 
 glory of such an enterprise, and turn it to profit, 
 too, as readily as anybody. I will speak to their 
 literary partner, with whom I am well acquainted. 
 Will you pardon, and yet have patience with, yours 
 truly ? " 
 
 At the very end of the same year Christopher P. 
 Cranch, in a letter written from Paris, said to 
 Dwight : " As to yourself, my dear fellow, I grieve 
 that you must grind and grind, and still be poor; for 
 you haven't even a poor painter's eternal satisfac- 
 tion of attractive labor to put in the other scale 
 against poverty. It is a hard thing, if a man must 
 make a machine of himself, that he can't accom- 
 plish a machine's work, and coin money with his 
 
160 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 cranks, wheels, and pistons; for dollars stand in 
 the relation to this incessant intellectual grinding 
 that the future life does to this. What's it all for, 
 unless there's a crown of glory waiting for us? I 
 wish to heavens you could step out of your ' tread- 
 mill,' as you call it. Isn't there a fat professorship 
 somewhere in reserve for you ? That would be the 
 thing for you. I find it a devilish hard case that 
 a man of your powers and acquirements shouldn't 
 be seized upon and chaired with huzzas, and floated 
 over the people's heads into some academic or other 
 throne. You ought to have a larger sweep than 
 you have with your musical, critical, literary broom ; 
 and I don't see why Boston and Cambridge don't 
 open its eyes and its purse to the fact." 
 
 In October, 1856, Alexander W. Thayer wrote in 
 this wise : " It will wear you all out to go on this 
 way ; and I want you, at all events, to get so situ- 
 ated that you can think out your thoughts and give 
 them to us fresh and full. Take up with almost 
 any terms, I should say, at least for a certain length 
 of time. Courage, if possible." 
 
 This refers to negotiations with Oliver Ditson & 
 Co. for them to become the publishers of the 
 Journal of Music. Such arrangement was soon 
 made ; and with the beginning of the sixth year, in 
 April, 1859, that firm relieved Dwight of the drudg- 
 ery of being his own publisher and office clerk. 
 This enterprising and well-established firm of 
 music-sellers and publishers took the entire respon- 
 sibility of the publication of the paper, giving to 
 
"DWIGHT'S JOURNAL OF MUSIC" 161 
 
 Dwight the full control of its editorial management, 
 leaving him free to conduct it in his own way. 
 The paper was to remain the same in size, price, 
 and in other details, the publishers adding such ad- 
 vertising pages as they desired ; and they paid 
 Dwight twelve hundred dollars a year as salary. 
 Such compensation was miserably small ; but it gave 
 a regular income, paid weekly, and the arrange- 
 ment enabled Dwight to devote himself more un- 
 reservedly to the higher interests of his journal. 
 In announcing the new arrangement in the 
 Journal of Music, the editor said : " Ever since we 
 started it we have united all the functions of editor, 
 business manager, clerk, collector, and paymaster 
 in our own person. This has been a heavy weight, 
 full of untold annoyances, and sadly interfering 
 with the full and free carrying out of those very 
 editorial ideals which we had most at heart. 
 Neither in the high sense nor in the popular sense, 
 neither to the exacting few nor to the many who 
 require ' milk for babes ' in art, has our paper been 
 all it would have been, had cares of business left us 
 more free hours for thinking out and serving up all 
 the right varieties of matter. Of this shortcoming 
 no one has been more conscious than ourselves. 
 Our main reliance, meanwhile, has been in the evi- 
 dence of true intention, in the spirit of impartial 
 loyalty to art which, we are assured, has first and 
 last shone clearly through the columns, and in such 
 not altogether hopeless approximation to our de- 
 sign as, with the aid of noble helpers and con- 
 
162 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 tributors, we have, in spite of all, been enabled to 
 make. Now we shake off the business chains, and 
 shall be more free to think and feel and write and 
 seek welcome and instructive access to the sympa- 
 thies of a much larger circle of friends." 
 
 The paper went on much as it had done before, 
 but the work of the editor was easier and much 
 more satisfactory. He found in some degree the 
 leisure he had desired, and the improved quality of 
 the paper showed this result. The paper was more 
 widely circulated, and became more truly an au- 
 thority in everything musical. One new feature 
 was the addition of music to each number. This 
 was printed by itself, and had no distinct connec- 
 tion with the paper. In selecting this music, 
 Dwight exercised his superior taste, so far as pos- 
 sible, and sent out nothing which was not of the 
 highest merit. During the first year the selections 
 were taken from Mendelssohn, Schubert, Bach, 
 Bellini, Wagner, Gluck, Donizetti, Mozart, and 
 Alfred Jaell. Compositions of length were pub- 
 lished in parts, " Don Giovanni " being issued in 
 this way during 1859, and " Der Freischtitz " during 
 i860. A considerable number of the great works 
 were in this way sent to the subscribers to the 
 Journal of Music. 
 
 A few personal letters will more clearly indicate 
 how busy was Dwight's life at this period, and how 
 greatly he enjoyed the few days of leisure which he 
 was able to secure during each year. In the sum- 
 mer he was able to get away for a few days to 
 
"DWIGHT'S JOURNAL OF MUSIC" 163 
 
 North Conway, where his friend, Mr. F. W. Chan- 
 ning, placed a charmingly located house at his dis- 
 posal, or he went to visit friends other few days in 
 Newport. 
 
 In June, 1854, Dwight received this rather sur- 
 prising letter from Lowell, who said : " It has oc- 
 curred to some of your friends that you might find 
 your account in establishing something of this 
 sort, — a bureau for governesses. Don't you see ? 
 There is a great and constant demand for them, 
 and they as constantly are asking to be taken ; but 
 neither wanter nor wantee get to hear of each 
 other. Now the kindly office I propose for you is 
 to take these wandering hooks and unite them 
 with the forlorn eyes that somewhere await them. 
 
 " Applications are constantly made to teachers 
 by both hooks and eyes ; but, owing to want of 
 responsibility and system, everything is at loose 
 ends. You could have a book in which the name 
 of the applicant, the date of application, and the" 
 names of references, etc., could be entered, and 
 then act as hooker, receiving a proper commission. 
 You could advertise at first in other journals, but 
 by degrees could make your own paper the exclu- 
 sive bulletin for such matters. 
 
 " I am certain from what I hear and know that, 
 with no great trouble to yourself, you might make 
 a profitable business, and be thanked all round 
 into the bargain. I am in an immense hurry just 
 now, but I will only add that character and every- 
 thing of that sort make you just the man." 
 
1 64 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 This letter evidently puzzled Dwight, as it will 
 any one reading it now, as to how much or how 
 little it meant. Probably it was Lowell's purpose 
 to suggest something like a " teachers' agency," and 
 that he was quite sincere in the advice he gave. 
 No one could have been less fitted for such a task 
 than Dwight, and he was already too much occu- 
 pied with similar labors to give him peace of mind 
 or body. 
 
 " I really am unable," was Dwight's reply, " to see 
 that I have any calling in the direction you suggest, 
 — or that has been suggested to you, — unless it be 
 a call to earn money by any honest means what- 
 ever, and that with the least possible squeamish- 
 ness. What should have led anybody to think of 
 me in such a connection, I can hardly imagine. I 
 am altogether too easily bored (sensitive, selfish, 
 touch-me-not that I am) to wish to be any more of 
 an intelligence office than I already involuntarily 
 am, as part of the penalty of editing a musical 
 paper. I hate so much of the personal go-between- 
 ism even of the musical world, and would like (if 
 possible) to deal with that world more at arm's 
 length instead of having to personally meet so 
 many of the music-teachers and the applicants for 
 such. If it came to governesses, what should I do? 
 
 " I am surprised to learn, too, that there can be 
 any lack of such a medium. How can it be that 
 the wants of society have not already organized the 
 matter? I should think some lady would be most 
 competent and suitable for such an office. Why 
 
"DWIGHT'S JOURNAL OF MUSIC M 165 
 
 would not our sister E. P. P.'s back room in West 
 Street be just the place ? 
 
 " I should have written and said all this, in 
 answer to your kind note, before. But first I was 
 puzzled, and therefore dumb ; and then I was busy, 
 and time flew unawares. Pardon me, will you not ? 
 I wish I might see you in Boston, and our How- 
 adji with you." 
 
 In November of the next year there came to 
 Dwight this note from George W. Curtis : " I am 
 engaged to Anna Shaw, daughter to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Frank. Do you remember her in Brook Farm 
 days ? She was a child then : she is twenty years 
 old now. There was never anything that made 
 parents and children happier. She is so inexpres- 
 sibly dear and beautiful to me that I cannot con- 
 ceive you should not love her dearly. To outsiders 
 she is a superb and silent Shaw: but her heart is so 
 true and tender, she is so noble and pure and affec- 
 tionate, that you will be afraid to be the friend of 
 such a Polycrates as I. When do you come to 
 New York ? I so want you to see her and know 
 her: then, of course, you will love her. Give my 
 love to your wife. — think that love is not for this 
 world, but forever, — and remember your friend 
 who remembers you." 
 
 To this most confidential note Dwight made 
 reply : " Happy friend ! Your little note was the 
 ray of sunshine in a miserable, hurried week. All 
 of us, your friends here, thought it the best of good 
 news, especially I. Believe me, my dear friend, it is 
 
166 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 an event upon which I can heartily congratulate 
 you, and on which I somehow unmisgivingly found 
 the fairest hopes for you. This time I am sure 
 there can be no mistake. I hope you will be mar- 
 ried soon. 
 
 "You are right, George. Link your destinies 
 with youth. I scarcely believe in anything else — 
 except Spring and Morning. But, then, there is 
 a way of making these — the soul of them — per- 
 petual ; and you have the secret of it, I am sure, 
 better than most of us. 
 
 " To think of that child, who used to play about 
 Brook Farm, and make young master Ally K. 
 * stand round,' as the boys say, and go through 
 finger drudgery under my piano - professorship, — 
 Heaven save the mark! — the child of our young 
 friends Mr. and Mrs. F. S., — how can you think of 
 them as parents? — being the future Mrs. Howadji! 
 or I a dull drudge of an editor. I do wish, indeed, 
 to see and know her, and doubt not I shall find 
 your glowing statements all confirmed, and that in 
 your height of joy you need not be ashamed to 
 1 blush it East and blush it West.' There is a cer- 
 tain ' Maud '-like ecstasy in your note that makes 
 me think of that. 
 
 " A small bird had already sung the news in my 
 ear. But it was doubly pleasant to have it straight 
 from you. It was good in you to remember me 
 so. I should have written you immediately my 
 thanks for that, as well as congratulations on the 
 general issue, had I not been overwhelmed with 
 
"DWIGHT'S JOURNAL OF MUSIC" 167 
 
 cares just then, as I have been since, and sick, 
 besides. But you know I never did catch up with 
 the world's flight, and you can pardon slowness 
 to the account of constancy. You were always so 
 good in trusting me through all my silence. It will 
 be very pleasant to associate ' our George ' with our 
 friends the Shaws, whom I have not seen since 
 their return. Pray commend me cordially to them, 
 not omitting la belle Anna. Would that I might 
 see you in New York ! but I must content myself 
 with the not very remote prospect of having you by 
 the hand here. Till then believe me happy in your 
 happiness, and faithfully as ever your friend." 
 
 One of Dwight's literary friends of this period was 
 Henry James, with whose religious opinions he was 
 much in sympathy. Mrs. Dwight was especially 
 interested in the thought of this mystic thinker, 
 so that Dwight said of her, " James has a church 
 of one member, and I am the unbelieving sexton." 
 A few years later Dwight invited James to his room 
 to meet a few friends, and received the following 
 request: "Don't, I beg of you, put yourself out to 
 invite any one to meet me to-morrow night. Espe- 
 cially, don't invite any literary men purely, like 
 Holmes or Woodman, who would keep me from 
 talking, as they have no beliefs in God or man ; 
 while you and I live only by such belief. If any 
 publican or sinner of your acquaintance would like 
 to come, invite them ; but no saint." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 A YEAR IN EUROPE. 
 
 Early in July, i860, D wight set out for Europe, 
 to spend a year in the study of music and in travel. 
 He left the Journal in charge of Henry Ware, a 
 young journalist of musical and literary tastes ; and 
 he sent to it editorial correspondence during the 
 greater part of his absence. He made but a brief 
 stay in England, spent seventeen days in Paris, 
 rambled for several days over Switzerland, and then 
 pushed on to Germany. At Frankfort, October 7, 
 there reached him the startling news of the death 
 of his wife, who had been ill almost from the time 
 of his leaving Boston, but who had been reported 
 to him as nearly well, when he last heard from 
 home. 
 
 He wrote at once to his brother : " Your two 
 letters, September 6 and 11, with many other kind 
 letters of dear friends, came upon me all at once 
 to-day. I have waited in Munich, in Heidelberg, 
 and here for letters until now. The Paris banker 
 must have been at fault. And, oh, what news ! I 
 know not what to say or do. I must break away 
 from this loneliness. I must get to Bonn, and see 
 Thayer, and there rest and realize and decide. I 
 take the steamer direct down the Rhine to-morrow. 
 Oh, with what eyes I shall pass that lovely scenery ! 
 The Rhine ! Dear Frank, how in my heart I thank 
 you for your letter ! It was a true brother's letter, 
 and all you say most wise and tender. 
 
A YEAR IN EUROPE 169 
 
 " My life is gone from me ! Oh, may God send her 
 sweet spirit to visit mine daily, and help me to bear 
 the blow, and become more worthy to have had that 
 beautiful life so long bestowed on me. No more 
 now. Thank all my dear friends for their kind 
 words and their kind acts to Mary. I shall write 
 to them in time, but now my eyes are dim and my 
 hand trembles." 
 
 The story of the wife's illness and death may be 
 told in the words of a letter written by Dr. O. W. 
 Holmes, who lived only a few doors away in Charles 
 Street, to the bereaved husband, and dated from 
 Boston, November 11: "I have been wishing for 
 many weeks to write to you, but felt it more fitting 
 to wait until I heard from you through your friends. 
 I have shed many tears over those letters of yours ; 
 and I am sure by the feelings they express that I 
 cannot intrude upon you by sending you first of all 
 my tenderest sympathy, and then such few recollec- 
 tions as I can add to the story you have heard so 
 fully from those who are now nearest to your heart. 
 I never knew in my life a more genuine feeling of 
 brotherly love and. interest than this affliction called 
 forth from all who spoke of it. Be sure that, with 
 the message of grief which took so long to reach 
 you, there went many prayers that God would give 
 you strength to bear your great trial, that your kind 
 and gentle soul might bend without breaking under 
 the blow. I think all your friends feel that their 
 prayers have been answered, that you have a faith 
 and a hope which can support you even in this 
 
170 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 extremity. May God still continue to bless and 
 comfort you with his presence, and may the recol- 
 lection of the sweet life you have shared so long be 
 a light in the midst of this darkening sorrow ! 
 
 " I was walking by to Cambridge Street one morn- 
 ing, perhaps a week or two after you had gone, 
 when I noticed that the street for some distance 
 was covered with tan. On inquiring, I found that 
 Mrs. Dwight was ill, threatened with a fever, if not 
 suffering from one. At the house I learned that 
 she had been gradually growing weak for some 
 time, with feverish turns, and much nausea, but no 
 other very marked symptom that I could hear of, 
 though I asked particularly for those which I most 
 apprehended. The disease did not seem to excite 
 much apprehension, except for that one symptom 
 of nausea. Perhaps I ought rather to say that not 
 much apprehension was expressed by those I saw, 
 but a cheerful expectation of recovery appeared to 
 be entertained. After this I called frequently, 
 sometimes alone, sometimes with Mrs. Holmes, to 
 inquire after Mrs. Dwight. The accounts were 
 mostly, as I have said, encouraging. Sometimes 
 we saw the servant-girl only, sometimes Miss 
 Jenny or her mother. I did not for a while think 
 it best to ask to see Mrs. Dwight, doubting whether 
 it would be well for her to see any company. 
 
 " At last, finding that she continued languishing 
 and suffering from nausea, I got uneasy, and left 
 word at the house that I should be very glad if her 
 physician (whom I did not know, and who was, as I 
 
A YEAR IN EUROPE 171 
 
 was led to think, a homoeopathic practitioner) would 
 call at my house after his visit, and talk over her 
 case with me. The physician, Dr. Newell, accord- 
 ingly came, and gave me a full history of all the 
 principal facts of the case. He told me all that he 
 had done, which, as far as I could see, was essen- 
 tially the right thing. It did not seem to me a case 
 for heroic treatment, but for cautious palliations and 
 patience ; and that was the way it had seemed to 
 him. I made every suggestion I could think of, — 
 not at all as having any claim to meddle with the 
 treatment, but knowing that a hint oftentimes 
 proves useful when a physician's attention has be- 
 come fatigued by long attendance. Dr. Newell 
 behaved very well about it, seemed to be glad that 
 I had taken it upon me to make suggestions to 
 him, and proposed, I think, that I should see Mrs. 
 Dwight. At any rate, he favored my seeing her; 
 and the next day I sat by her bedside ten or fifteen 
 minutes. This was the last time I saw her, and I 
 know you will treasure this last glimpse I had of 
 her living face as a fond recollection. 
 
 " Mary — for so I must call her, speaking to you 
 now — was lying with her head raised upon her 
 pillow, looking not like herself as you remember 
 her, and yet less changed than I had feared. She 
 was much wasted ; but her look was natural and 
 bright, and the tones of her voice were cheerful. 
 Her beautiful hair lay loosely upon the pillow (she 
 was too weak for all those nice arrangements she 
 might have cared for in health), but she looked so 
 
172 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 sweetly that I would not have that last image 
 changed. It was of perfect serenity and all herself, 
 only shadowy and faint as compared with her 
 natural luxuriance of life. I did not wish her to 
 talk much, spoke to her as cheerfully as I could, 
 encouraged her to hope that she would be well 
 when the cool autumn days had come, and left her, 
 feeling that she might probably do well, but that 
 she must not be excited by too much visiting or 
 talking. After this I commonly got favorable ac- 
 counts. She had begun to take food, they said; 
 and at last every day I was told she was better. I 
 began to feel quite easy about her. One morning 
 my daughter Amelia brought a bunch of fresh 
 flowers from the Public Garden. 'Go carry them 
 to Mrs. Dwight,' I said. ' She is getting better, 
 and they will please her.' Amelia went over, and 
 brought back word that she was in a very critical 
 situation, — that they had thought she was dying 
 that morning. It was a surprise and a shock to 
 me, utterly unexpected. I had become easy about 
 her, and expected soon to see her riding out. That 
 forenoon I met Dr. Newell, who told me of alarm- 
 ing symptoms which had appeared. He had called 
 Dr. John Ware in consultation, a wise and good 
 man, who doubtless counselled whatever medical 
 art could do. But it was in vain. Towards even- 
 ing I called. The servant-girl, who had always 
 seemed truly devoted and interested, came to the 
 door. Her look told me that I need not question 
 her; but I said, with a hesitating voice, ' How is 
 
A YEAR IN EUROPE 173 
 
 Mrs. Dwight?' The poor girl said never a word ; 
 but she slowly shook her head, and on her face 
 there was a look that said as plainly as words could 
 say it, ' She is in heaven.' 
 
 " I listened to the sweet music which was sung 
 over her as she lay, covered with flowers, in the 
 pleasant parlor of her house, by the voices of those 
 that loved her, — I and my wife with me, — and then 
 we followed her to Mount Auburn, and saw her laid 
 in the earth, and the blossoms showered down upon 
 her with such tokens of affection and sorrow that 
 the rough men, whose business makes them callous 
 to common impressions, were moved as none of us 
 ever saw them moved before. Our good James 
 Clarke, as you know, conducted the simple service. 
 It was one which none of us who were present can 
 ever forget ; and in every heart there was one feel- 
 ing over all others, — that for the far-distant husband, 
 brother, friend, as yet unconscious of the bereave- 
 ment he was too soon to learn. 
 
 " I cannot help speaking of the affectionate care 
 with which your Mary was encompassed during all 
 those weeks of illness. Her mother was tenderly 
 devoted to her; and, as to her sister, I do not know 
 when I have ever seen devotion and love carried 
 further, and that with a gentle firmness and placid- 
 ity which filled me with admiration. At the very 
 last moment at Mount Auburn I saw Miss Jenny 
 standing and looking down upon the last resting- 
 place with a face as of an angel, as she threw the 
 last wreath upon her. 
 
174 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 " I hope all these details, while they seem to open 
 the wounds of grief afresh, may yet be, on the 
 whole, a sad kind of relief. Your great affliction 
 has touched all our hearts ; and there is not one of 
 us who does not long in some way to help you to 
 bear it, and to endure through that period of ab- 
 sence which must separate you from your many 
 friends. My wife desires to be most kindly re- 
 membered to you, and I need not again assure you 
 that you are continually in my affectionate remem- 
 brance. Thank you for thinking of Wendell in the 
 midst of all your distractions. It was like your 
 kind self. God bless you and comfort you." 
 
 Four days later D wight wrote from Bonn, having 
 found his friend : " I wrote you last Sunday, in 
 Frankfort, a few hurried lines to let you know that 
 I had at last received your agonizing but most 
 brotherly and tender letter. I hardly know what 
 I wrote. It was growing dark : I wrote in tears, in 
 a little dark, cold room, — a rainy, gloomy, cold day, 
 with but an interval of Novemberish sunshine in 
 the middle of the day, during which I had rushed 
 out (after reading all those kind letters, as well as 
 tears would let me) and walked entirely round the 
 outside of the city, under the trees that dropped 
 their brown leaves and their nuts upon me ; for the 
 cold, autumn days had come, — ' the melancholy 
 days, the saddest of the year.' I was bewildered, 
 stunned almost. I could not realize the terrible 
 fact. At moments in the walk my thoughts turned 
 to Mary as naturally as they did in Switzerland, and 
 
A YEAR IN EUROPE 175 
 
 wherever I saw that which in my mind I always 
 shared with her. Indeed, she did seem with me ; 
 and the kind words of your own and of the other 
 letters were not without their soothing, cheering 
 influence even then, — that first bitter day. 
 
 " The heavy news had been long in coming. The 
 letters seemed to have lingered on the way, as if 
 conscious of what they bore, and shrinking from 
 their duty. So they all came at once, — seven en- 
 velopes : your two, for which I thank and love you 
 more than ever; a most full, minute, kind, beautiful, 
 and comforting account of all from Anna Parsons 
 (to whom give my love and thank her, — I shall 
 write her soon) ; a true, manly, tender, strengthen- 
 ing, wise word from Woodman ; also from Fisher 
 and from Apthorp ; and a most beautiful and 
 touching one from Henry Ware, — all beautiful 
 letters, making me feel rich in friendship, and as if 
 dear Mary, our dear Mary, were indeed still present, 
 very near in the love that unites us all. Dear 
 Jenny's letter, too, though brief, was full of heart 
 and high and tranquil sentiment, full of cheering, 
 strong belief; and every word meant much to me. 
 How is it with me? What have I done? What 
 shall I do ? you ask. 
 
 " First, Frankfort was a gloomy, intolerable place 
 to me. I had only waited there for letters ; and, 
 though I was sustained and calm that day to a 
 degree that made me wonder at myself, and seem 
 almost like heavenly or Mary's influence, when the 
 short autumn day waned into night, there was 
 
176 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 only grief and sleep to occupy its long watches, — 
 no human soul to talk or sit with ; no light ; no 
 eyes to read or write with. I got through as I 
 could, God helping, and in the dull and cloudy 
 morning started by rail and boat to go down the 
 Rhine to Bonn, where Thayer had several days 
 awaited me. 
 
 " All sense of cold and rain vanished when the 
 good Thayer welcomed me in the little dark hotel 
 (the 'Swan'). How soon he felt my feeling! and 
 so sympathetically met me that it was a relief to 
 tell him all. I have really been quite cheerful with 
 him ; and without him, when he is at work, I find 
 a sweet, sad pleasure in reading over and over the 
 dear letters from home. They are a real treasure 
 to me. Yesterday I got more of them. . . . 
 
 " You see, the second question is already an- 
 swered. That is, I shall try to stay in Europe. I 
 felt at once the wisdom of the advice of you all; 
 but the first impulse was, the present yearning is, 
 — how strong you hardly can imagine, — to come 
 back and be among my friends, — those who loved 
 Mary, those who, with her, have formed my human 
 sphere and home of life. I am terribly isolated 
 here. The difficulty of language cuts me off from 
 all but necessary intercourse with others ; and, even 
 if it were not so, I am so wedded, rooted, in all my 
 feelings and affections, in the familiar circle there 
 at home, that it is all exile while I am away from it. 
 I felt it very much so before this sad news : how 
 much more so now ! My only comfort is to peruse 
 
A YEAR IN EUROPE 177 
 
 the letters I get ; but it takes many weeks to 
 answer and exchange words. I want you all near 
 me. Spiritual nearness I shall learn, perhaps — 
 God grant it ! — through this very trial. But home, 
 home, — where shall I again find home ? 
 
 " As you say, there appears no actual need — 
 outward need — of my coming home. The dear 
 home in Charles Street is already broken up, and 
 all have scattered. This is very, very sad to me. 
 It would have been a great comfort still to revert 
 in feeling to that spot, and to know that Jenny and 
 Harriet and other dear friends still kept a gentle, 
 homelike sphere there ; but I know it was impos- 
 sible. Jenny must and should be with her mother, 
 and the old house would be* a sad place henceforth 
 to them. We will trust to God ; and all that is 
 good and true in past affinities and harmonies will 
 certainly be saved and reappear and recombine in 
 new forms (still the same life), if not here, in an- 
 other and a better world. 
 
 " I have entire confidence in all that you have 
 done or will do in regard to my affairs. ... I have 
 scarcely thought of these things. But one dis- 
 posal occurs to me which I desire to have made. I 
 wish you to send the piano to Grace Hooper, to 
 use as long as I am away. She needs an instru- 
 ment on which she can practise ; and I am too 
 happy to be able to offer her this, such as it is. 
 Any of my music, too, which she may like, is at 
 her service. Pray do this. I certainly must keep 
 the instrument, — it is sacred ; and I know there 
 
178 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGH1 
 
 is no one with whom Mary would more like to 
 have it left in charge and in use than Grace. 
 
 " Thank you, dear brother, for all the kind care 
 you are taking for me ; and, believe me, I am, on 
 the whole, more cheerful and composed — at all 
 events, resigned — than I could have supposed pos- 
 sible under such a blow. But perhaps I do not yet 
 feel its full weight. I am desolate enough. The 
 coming days and months and years look dark, to 
 be sure; but I feel that it is all for the best. I 
 know that it is a blessed change for Mary, and 
 that she was ripe and fit for it, and lives now in joy 
 and peace ; and this alone ought to lend a deeper, 
 richer, though a sad, joy to my life. When all of 
 you, who are all afflicted, take such high and cheer- 
 ful views, and find her death so beautiful, I should 
 feel that I was a hopeless sinner, did I not partake 
 some of the same cheerfulness." . . . 
 
 A few selections only from his correspondence 
 can be given here, and these from his own inward 
 experiences and his music studies rather than from 
 his delightful accounts of travel. 
 
 " I think I omitted in my last to mention one 
 pretty little adventure which I had on my foot-tour 
 in the Oberland. Walking from the Grimsel down 
 the wild and exquisite Hash Thai, one perfect 
 morning, I stopped just below Guttanen, in a lovely 
 pastoral meadow or Matten, at a little hut, to drink 
 some milk, which was as sweet as the smiling 
 promise of the good woman's face. I sat at a bench 
 outside the cottage, resting myself and enjoying 
 
A YEAR IN EUROPE 179 
 
 the beauty of the scene. Meanwhile my guide 
 had gone into the house, and, I suppose, had told 
 the woman that I was an American ; for, when she 
 returned, she asked me if I was, and then with 
 beaming face said, ' Und kennen Sie vielleicht den 
 Herrn Agassiz ? ' On my reply in the affirmative, 
 she seemed quite delighted. ' Komm hier, hier,' she 
 said, and pulled me into the house, took down a 
 large and curious silver watch containing the in- 
 scription, ' L. Agassiz to Leuthold,' and said 
 
 it was a gift to her good man, now dead, who seven 
 years ago built the hut in which Agassiz lived upon 
 the Aar glacier. She cherishes the professor's 
 memory with the utmost enthusiasm, called him 
 the ' best man in the world,' asked me all manner 
 of questions about him, whether he was rich, etc., 
 and made me write down his address carefully in 
 English and German, and promise her I would tell 
 him I had seen die Witwe Leuthold. As I rose to 
 go, she called me back again, and ran to get the 
 freshest bunch of Alpenrosli (rhododendron) she 
 could find, and stuck it in my hat ; and with a 
 warm pressure of the hand, and many blessings, 
 sent me off rejoicing. Was not that a pretty addi- 
 tion to the charming memoirs of the day ? " 
 
 From Berlin he wrote : — 
 
 " With leading musicians here it is hard to have 
 much intercourse. They have very little with each 
 other. No one seems to know what another is 
 about or how to find him. Of course, it would be 
 easier to me if I could talk German better. I like 
 
180 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 Haupt the best, — the best organist, perhaps, in 
 Germany; a thinking, high-toned, learned, non- 
 friendly, wise, and cheerful man, but hardly heard 
 of abroad, because he sticks to his place without 
 ambition. It is just so with Franz. You would be 
 surprised to find how few Germans know anything 
 about him. I have not heard a song of his since I 
 have been in Germany. Yet Haupt, Franz, Dresel, 
 are the men who ought to be gathered together 
 somewhere, and radiate an influence, as smaller men 
 do in Leipzig, simply by virtue of their combined 
 position. 
 
 " One of the kindliest to me here is jolly old 
 Wieprecht, grandmaster of all the military band 
 music of Prussia, who probably knows more about 
 instruments than any man living, and to whom 
 Berlioz, Liszt, and others owe not a little of their 
 fame as masters of instrumentation. Taubert I 
 hope to know, — I admire his face and appearance, 
 — the most perfect model of manner as an orchestra 
 conductor. Bulow, Liszt's son-in-law and chief rep- 
 resentative, almost as good a pianist as himself (in 
 execution), who plays whole programmes of Bach, 
 Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, and every- 
 thing without looking at a note (he has a concert 
 to-night), I was once introduced to by Liszt. That 
 famous personage stopped at this hotel the other 
 day ; and I had a half-hour's interview with him, of 
 which I will tell another time. I must now fly to 
 Leipzig, — a concert all of Mozart." 
 
 After a stay of four months in Berlin, Dwight 
 
A YEAR IN EUROPE 181 
 
 spent a few days in Leipzig the first of March, and 
 then passed on to Italy. He went by the way of 
 Vienna and Venice, in each of which cities he spent 
 a few days. Then he visited Padua, Florence, 
 Turin, Genoa, Leghorn, went back to Florence, and 
 then on to Rome, which city he reached the middle 
 of May. 
 
 Rome, June 2. " I couldn't help going in to 
 Story's studio, who was out; and I was led from 
 room to room, looking at statues while I waited for 
 Story. And I sat a half-hour there amid his white 
 ideals, — his ' Cleopatra,' ' Hero,' ' Gretchen,' 4 Beetho- 
 ven,' and last of all, and really great, his ' African 
 Sibyl.' It was a fine introduction; and it had 
 the feeling of Rome and of home in it to me, so 
 long accustomed to entire strangers only. Then I 
 sought him at his house, and was most warmly 
 welcomed. Mrs. Story took me out to drive with 
 her two dear little boys, to Trevi fountain and to 
 St. Peter's, and then bore me bodily, bag and bag- 
 gage, up to their Quirinal Hill, to their home in 
 the Barberini Palace (spacious, grand old place, 
 containing the original Beatrice Cenci portrait, 
 etc.); and here from that time I have been most 
 comfortably and cheerfully domiciled, in a spacious 
 room, overlooking all Rome, with St. Peter's loom- 
 ing in the background. Nothing could be more 
 cordial nor complete than the hospitality of these 
 good friends. They have made me perfectly at 
 home ; and I have passed daily several hours in the 
 society of Robert Browning, and have had several 
 
182 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 pleasant interviews with Mrs. Browning, both of 
 whom I like very much. They have given me their 
 photographs. The first evening I was taken to a 
 little company, to hear Hans Christian Andersen 
 read some of his little stories ; and a day or two 
 after he came to a children's party of the little 
 Storys, and read to them. And Browning read 
 them his 4 Piper of Hamelin,' and then a whole 
 troop of beautiful children acted it out. Sam. 
 Longfellow, too, appeared on that occasion ; and he 
 and I have hunted in couples, seeing the sights of 
 Rome. Of these and my many great enjoyments 
 here, I must tell you another time." 
 
 June 5, on steamer to Marseilles, to his little 
 niece. " Did you ever read any of Hans Christian 
 Andersen's charming little stories? The other 
 day he came to a children's party where I was, and 
 read some of them to a pretty little group, the little 
 Storys and their friends. How happy they all 
 were ! The two sweet little boys, ' Bobo ' and 
 1 Gudie ' (Waldo and Julian are their real names) 
 were very eager to see Mr. Andersen, and to ask 
 him if his story of the ' Ugly Duckling ' was true. 
 So the party was made, and the tall man came, — the 
 tall, homely Dane, the friend of little folks ; and a 
 nice time they had of it, I assure you. It was in 
 the upper story of a great splendid palace (Palazzo 
 Barberini), which looks off over all Rome. This 
 palace is very large, all built of gray-white stone; 
 and very broad marble stairs lead from the ground 
 to the topmost story, five or six flights. And on the 
 
A YEAR IN EUROPE 183 
 
 stairs you meet a great marble lion (an old Roman 
 work) and many statues ; and in the palace live a 
 cardinal and a duke of the Barberini family. My 
 friends hire and occupy one-half of the upper story, 
 which contains forty great square rooms. What a 
 grand range for the children to run and play in ! 
 There was a poet, too, in the party, — Robert Brown- 
 ing ; and he sat down on the carpet, in the centre 
 of the ring of boys and girls, and read them his 
 4 Piper of Hamelin,' whose pipe drew all the rats 
 out of the town, and the children after them. And 
 then Mr. Story dressed himself up like the piper, 
 and tooted on a flute ; and all the children followed 
 him, shouting and screaming, up and down the 
 long, long range of rooms." 
 
 After spending a few days in Paris, Dwight went 
 to London, from which place he wrote July 6: "I 
 was very glad to get the photograph, and liked it in 
 many respects much better than the first one, al- 
 though that has perhaps more of her living expres- 
 sion ; but this one gives her beautiful head, and is 
 besides a finer picture. William Story, who seems 
 to retain a lively impression of her, thought neither 
 of them did her justice. Oh that a mould had been 
 taken from her head after death ! Story was so 
 kind as to say that, if he only had that for a guide, 
 he would gladly model me a bust of Mary. And 
 his portrait busts are admirable. One which he 
 made of Robert Browning (begun and finished in 
 one week, while I was there) is wonderfully true 
 and lifelike. Poor Mrs. Browning was delighted 
 
1 84 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 with it. Yesterday I was shocked to read of her 
 death, in Florence. Just as they were leaving 
 Rome, she had her photograph taken ; and she 
 promised to send me one. I saw Cavour, too, only 
 a month before his death, — saw him in full health 
 and life." . . . 
 
 He sailed for home on the " Great Eastern " 
 September 10; but the steamer encountered a fear- 
 ful storm, and after desperate efforts succeeded in 
 reaching the coast of Ireland, having been almost 
 wholly crippled for several days. Dwight landed 
 on the Irish coast, and found his way back to Lon- 
 don, where he wrote a long account of his experi- 
 ences, which was published in his Journal. 
 
 London, October 30. " I feel strangely confused 
 about it [returning home], but presume it will be 
 for the best. I had, while waiting in vain for ad- 
 vices from home, almost settled down in the feel- 
 ing that I was to stay in Europe. I have had the 
 impression all along that my friends rather favored 
 the course, in view of the war, the want of all music, 
 and of my desolated home, and poorer chance of 
 health, bodily and mental or moral, there than here. 
 I confess my fear of all this has been growing on 
 me, and I have been almost superstitious about 
 my being driven back so. But tell Fanny that I 
 cannot think God would have so inconvenienced 
 and perilled eight hundred people, just to turn me 
 back from a course I was pursuing." 
 
 November 1, to C. P. Cranch. " I have but a 
 minute to say good-by ! I sail in ' Niagara ' to- 
 
A YEAR IN EUROPE 185 
 
 morrow for Boston. I had been waiting long for 
 advices from home, and had about made up my 
 mind that I should stay in Europe, and was pleas- 
 ing myself with the thought that I should now see 
 you in Paris ; but last Tuesday came letters from 
 home, making my return imperative. My publisher 
 thinks the paper suffers by my absence, and even 
 disinclines to continue the arrangement unless I 
 come back. So I must hurry home before the 
 bottom falls out." 
 
 Writing from London August 10, D wight ex- 
 pressed his pain and depression on hearing of the 
 battle of Bull Run and the defeat of the Northern 
 army. ' The real feeling of the English people is 
 sympathy for the North, and profound sorrow for the 
 war. They think anything would be better than to 
 fight one another. . . . Since the defeat, too, the gen- 
 eral opinion seems to be (and a very obstinate one) 
 that the North will not succeed in subduing the 
 South. They do not understand us, that is plain. 
 Pretty hard, is it not, to have to read and to hear 
 all this continually ? " On his return to his editorial 
 labors, in reporting a chamber concert of the Men- 
 delssohn Quintette Club in the paper dated No- 
 vember 30, Dwight took occasion to speak of the 
 war, his hatred of slavery, his faith in the Union 
 cause, and his conviction that success was certain 
 to come in the end. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 YEARS OF TOIL FOR MUSIC. 
 
 On his return from Europe, Dwight was without 
 a home. He went to his mother's house in Jamaica 
 Plain for a few days, and then, Dec. 4, 1861, took 
 up his residence in the Studio Building, Tremont 
 Street, only a few steps away from the office where 
 his paper was printed, in School Street. In this 
 building he secured a study and sleeping-room; and 
 he took his meals at some hotel or restaurant, usually 
 at the Parker House. After this he spent two winters 
 in Boylston and Derne Streets, with his mother, 
 brother, and sister Frances. On June 15, 1873, he 
 removed to the rooms of the Harvard Musical As- 
 sociation, at 12 Pemberton Square. From his re- 
 moval to this place to. the end of his life he had no 
 domestic establishment of his own, no immediate 
 family circle around which gathered the tender sym- 
 pathies of his warm heart-life. 
 
 Dwight's father had died in 1853, but his mother 
 lived until 1876. After the breaking up of Brook 
 Farm, the Dwight and Orvis families found a home 
 in Forest Hill Street, Jamaica Plain. Dwight and 
 his brother Frank, who established himself in Bos- 
 ton as an architect, were very fond of each other, 
 and faithful to each other's interests. Frances E. 
 Dwight was also a member of the family, and de- 
 voted herself to the teaching of music with marked 
 success. Here Dwight spent whatever time he 
 could take from his work, and was always welcomed 
 
YEARS OF TOIL FOR MUSIC 187 
 
 with delight. His family were fond of him, and 
 took great pride in his success. 
 
 If Dwight had no fireside of his own, he found 
 a welcome place by that of many of his friends. 
 Some hints of his personal life contained in his let- 
 ters may here be given, and these mostly related 
 to his summer outings or to his own monotonous 
 life in the city. The first is a letter to his intimate 
 friend, Otto Dresel, written July 12, 1863, which 
 gives suggestion of how he often rebelled against 
 the drudgery of his editorial task : — 
 
 " It is simply impossible for me now to decide 
 about going anywhere. If I go to the mountains, 
 I shall wish to stay away three weeks or so ; and, 
 therefore, I should have to get all the matter cut 
 and dried for two numbers of the ' old paper,' which 
 I would too willingly ' stop ' if I could, without stop- 
 ping at the same time the bread and butter and the 
 means of travel. I wish I could start off to-morrow, 
 for it is insufferably schwul and sultry here to-day, 
 and I creep round sick and miserable, — in fact, not 
 in a condition to make a journey ; but I shall soon 
 be better." 
 
 He went to Newport more often than to any 
 other place for summer recreation, and found there 
 the human companionship and the nearness to 
 nature which he loved with strong affection. A 
 letter to one of his sisters, written Aug. 25, 1871, 
 shows something of what this brief period of recrea- 
 tion was to him : — 
 
 11 1 came home on Wednesday, having had a de- 
 
1 88 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 lightful week with the Tweedys. Newport is love- 
 lier, fresher, sweeter, than ever. Every day Tweedy 
 took us to drive, — Willie James and me : he is a 
 rare youth, — and I saw so many old friends from 
 New York and elsewhere that it seemed as if one 
 had only to go to Newport to meet everybody he 
 ever knew. I had a very pleasant half-hour with 
 Nilsson. Parke Godwin and his daughter, too, I 
 saw much of. They have had Nilsson a month 
 with them at Roslyn. 
 
 " One occasion of the rarest interest was hearing 
 M. Athanase Coquerel, the eloquent Unitarian 
 preacher of Paris, preach in Brooks's church. He 
 reached New York unannounced ; sought eight or 
 ten of his old friends who had known him in Paris, 
 but found not one except Horace Greeley. Gree- 
 ley advised him to come to Newport, so associated 
 with the names of Channing and Roger Williams ; 
 and only on Saturday morning Brooks received a 
 telegram, ' The Rev. Mr. Coquette will be in New- 
 port to-night, and will preach if desired,'— Gree- 
 ley's bad writing. But Brooks guessed it out, and 
 had him domesticated at Gardner Brewer's beau- 
 tiful residence ; and the little church for once was 
 crowded. Scarcely ever have I been so interested 
 in a preacher. 
 
 " We drove out once to the Howes, and met them 
 once at a picnic of the new literary club in Para- 
 dise and Purgatory. James Sturgis, who is living 
 near Tweedy, went down with me and came up 
 with me. But, ah! the change from that pure, 
 
YEARS OF TOIL FOR MUSIC 189 
 
 sweet air to Boston streets and dog-day heat. I 
 was sick as soon as I got back, so that I could do 
 nothing, and had to huddle my Journal out any- 
 how. I am better, but still not right." 
 
 Music had now become for Dwight the chief in- 
 terest of his life, and almost its sole interest. It 
 was ever in his mind, and for it he was toiling al- 
 most constantly. Besides the work of editing his 
 paper, which involved a regular attendance upon 
 most of the musical entertainments of the city, he 
 gave much time to other phases of the advance- 
 ment of music, was constantly appealed to for ad- 
 vice and assistance, and so thoroughly mastered 
 his subject that he came to be known as the chief 
 musical authority in the country. 
 
 At this period Dwight devoted much time to 
 translation. In 1859 there was published in Bos- 
 ton his translation of H. Wohlfahrt's " Guide to 
 Musical Composition." The same year Ditson pub- 
 lished Bach's " Saint Matthew Passion Music," with 
 a translation of the words by Dwight. He also 
 translated a large number of German songs and 
 poems for Ditson, which were published with 
 music. In 1865 several of the songs in Heine's 
 " Buch der Lieder " were adapted to selections from 
 Schumann's " Dichterliebe." The same year he 
 translated a number of German songs to accompany 
 an edition of the song music of Robert Franz, 
 which was published by Ditson. 
 
 On the first day of January, 1863, a Jubilee Con- 
 cert was held in Music Hall, Boston, in recognition 
 
i 9 o JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 of the Proclamation of Emancipation issued by 
 President Lincoln. The public announcement of 
 the concert was signed by H. W. Longfellow, Ed- 
 ward E. Hale, James T. Fields, O. W. Holmes, 
 R. W. Emerson, John G. Whittier, E. P. Whipple, 
 F. H. Underwood, John S. Dwight, and others. 
 Dwight had much to do with planning this occa- 
 sion of rejoicing, and much of the work necessary 
 to make it a success was done by him. He invited 
 Emerson to prepare and read a poem suitable for 
 the occasion, in reply to which he received the fol- 
 lowing: — 
 
 Concord, 19 Deer., 1862. 
 
 My dear Dwight, — I am sorry not to have be- 
 thought myself at once of the obstacle when your 
 fine project dazzled my eyes. But, when I came 
 home last night and made some rude experiments 
 at verses, I saw at once that, however alluring and 
 most inspiring was your invitation to insert my 
 contribution — if I shall have one — in your noble 
 atmosphere of music, yet this was wholly to break 
 faith with my first inviters, the Fraternity, to whom 
 I had signified no dissent from their desire that I 
 should join them. I could heartily wish the two 
 celebrations could be combined ; but, if that is out 
 of question, I fear I owe all my duty to the Frater- 
 nity. This is a long note to write about only a pos- 
 sible copy of verses. Ever yours> 
 
 R. W. Emerson. 
 
YEARS OF TOIL FOR MUSIC 191 
 
 Emerson was persuaded to make the effort to 
 give a poem on the occasion, although he gave an 
 address before the Parker Fraternity on the same 
 day. His muse would not be inspired at his bid- 
 ding, however; and two days before the time for 
 the concert Dwight received this note from him : — 
 
 My dear Dwight, — At this hour you must cer- 
 tainly print the programme without my name, as I 
 have had little or no good fortune. Still, I flatter 
 myself that, if I should have a good sleep to-night, 
 — for I am a bad sleeper lately, — I may even yet, 
 at the eleventh hour, pray to be admitted. But it 
 is too slight a chance to be at all waited for ; and I 
 am heartily grieved I did not find the fact sooner. 
 
 Yours, R w Emerson . 
 Parker House, Tuesday P.M. 
 
 The programme was printed without Emerson's 
 name ; but he got a good night's sleep, and the 
 concert opened with his " Boston Hymn," one of 
 his most inspired utterances. Noble music from 
 Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Handel, and Rossini, was 
 included in the programme, and some of the best 
 singers and musicians of Boston joined their gifts 
 to make a most inspiring occasion. One special 
 feature was the singing, by solo and chorus, of 
 O. W. Holmes's " Army Hymn," with the fifth verse 
 specially written for the occasion, to music fur- 
 nished by Otto DreseL 
 
 The concert was a great success in the largeness 
 
192 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 of the attendance, the enthusiastic response of the 
 audience to the expressions of patriotism, and the 
 delight with which the final announcement of eman- 
 cipation was welcomed. The music was fitting, 
 and rendered in a manner worthy of the occasion. 
 Dwight said of Emerson's poem : " It was a hymn 
 of Liberty and Justice, wild and strong, and musi- 
 cal and very short, and in his rich tones spellbound 
 the great assembly." " This concert will be long 
 remembered," was his final comment upon it. " It 
 will become an anniversary. Whether regarded as 
 a patriotic celebration or as a strictly musical occa- 
 sion, it has called forth more spontaneous expres- 
 sions of delight than any festival that most of us 
 remember." 
 
 These details in regard to the Jubilee Concert 
 may be justified, in view of Dwight's attitude 
 towards the " National Peace Jubilee," held in 
 Boston, 1869, under the direction of Mr. P. S. Gil- 
 more. Dwight's attitude towards this great musi- 
 cal festival was one of suspicion from the first, and 
 of criticism to the end. In this he was thoroughly 
 consistent, and fully justified by his own standard. 
 A monster celebration, such as the " Peace Jubilee," 
 however noble the primary motive and purpose, was 
 to him objectionable in every way. In the excess 
 of noisy triumph and shouting patriotism, he saw no 
 real advantage to art, no fit expression of its nobler 
 motives, and no just interpretation of its relations to 
 a nation's victories for freedom and peace. 
 
 He could not conscientiously give Mr. Gilmore 
 
YEARS OF TOIL FOR MUSIC 193 
 
 the assistance for which he asked ; but it was from 
 no lack of patriotism, no failure to rejoice in the 
 triumph of freedom and union, and no want of con- 
 viction that music was the fit instrument for giv- 
 ing expression to the rejoicings of the nation. He 
 had already expressed his strong " conviction that 
 the great thoughts of Humanity and Freedom, the 
 progressive moral instincts of the age, although to 
 this day spit upon and crucified, are yet in most 
 intimate alliance with the loftiest inspirations and 
 utmost refinements of creative genius and art, — 
 musical art especially." His objection to the Gil- 
 more celebration was that it was not truly artistic, 
 that it gave no genuine recognition to music as an 
 expression of the deeper sentiments of mankind, 
 and that the whole spirit of it was dominated by 
 show and self-gratulation. Instead of being used 
 to lift music to its highest level, and to lift the 
 people to the same high elevation of patriotism and 
 humanitarian sentiment, it was conceived in the 
 spirit of the cheapest patriotic boasting and the 
 most noisy musical demonstration. It aimed to 
 please the groundlings, and sought for nothing 
 more. It may be said that many truly artistic and 
 patriotic people gave it their support, but considera- 
 tions of a selfish and narrow character largely pre- 
 dominated in its conception and execution. 
 
 In his " History of the National Peace Jubilee," 
 Mr. Gilmore saw fit to treat Mr. Dwight as his 
 enemy, and to speak of him in a most jaunty and 
 insulting manner. It is not necessary to dwell 
 
194 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 upon their relations to each other, or to point out 
 the fact that the one was a showman and that the 
 other was a lover of music for its genuine artistic 
 values. It may be said, however, that Dwight was 
 as fair-minded as he was honest and sincere, and 
 that, though he opposed the Jubilee from the start, 
 yet he recognized its good features, and spoke of it 
 in a friendly manner. Of the first day he made 
 this report in his paper, immediately after: " Much 
 as we disliked the extravagance of the plan origi- 
 nally, and shrank from the boastful style of the an- 
 nouncement of this 'greatest musical festival ever 
 held in any part of the world ' (as if greatness were 
 to be measured by mere magnitude and numbers), 
 we cheerfully make haste to own that the result so 
 far has in many respects agreeably disappointed us. 
 Upon the whole, a better thing has been wrought 
 out of it than a plan so vainglorious in the con- 
 ception, so unscrupulously advertised and glorified 
 before it had begun to be, and having so much of 
 claptrap mixed up with what was good in its pro- 
 gramme, gave one any reasonable right to expect. 
 But the wide, stupendous advertising filled thou- 
 sands of minds with an enthusiasm which, if igno- 
 rant, was entirely honest. . . . We can only say that 
 the success of Tuesday was in the main glorious 
 and inspiring. The vast audience was greatly 
 stirred, delighted. The best effects were achieved 
 by the great chorus." 
 
 The editors of the New York Tribune asked 
 Dwight to write for them a " careful, critical sum- 
 
YEARS OF TOIL FOR MUSIC 195 
 
 mary of the net result " of the concert; and he sent 
 them an extended study of its various features. He 
 fully recognized its pretentious and grotesque ele- 
 ments, the ordinary musical capacity of its projec- 
 tor, and the bombastic manner in which he adver- 
 tised himself and his undertaking. He showed 
 how all this repelled genuine lovers of music and 
 those with cultivated artistic perceptions. He 
 frankly admitted the good in the concert, however, 
 and gave it much enthusiastic praise. He pointed 
 out the incongruous elements in the programme, as 
 well as its ambiguous and pretentious features ; but 
 he gave praise to everything which could be praised, 
 and approved the final outcome of the gigantic 
 undertaking. He said that " as an occasion, of a 
 new kind, of unexampled magnitude, — whatever it 
 may have been musically, — the Jubilee was a suc- 
 cess. It has become a splendid fact, which has to 
 be accepted." On the side of the execution of the 
 music, he said " there was very much to praise. In 
 the great chorus there was far more unity, precision, 
 light and shade in rendering, than almost any one 
 of musical experience could have believed possible. 
 And it grew better as the thing went on. It gave 
 one a proud joy to know that so many thousands of 
 singers, with only one rehearsal of the whole, could 
 sing so well together. It told of musical enthu- 
 siasm, of esprit du corps, of good native average of 
 voices, and of talent, good instruction, and inspiring 
 drill in separate bodies." 
 
 Of the World's Peace Jubilee, held in the sum- 
 
196 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 mer of 1872, and under the auspices of the same 
 director, Dwight wrote with the same honest recog- 
 nition of the good and the bad which it presented. 
 He saw clearly the personal ambition which di- 
 rected it, and the excess of zeal which presided 
 over its development. He pointed out with un- 
 flinching courage and keen musical insight the 
 reasons of its failure from a high musical point of 
 view, and yet he was as sincere in recognizing its 
 good features. He devoted three long articles to 
 a review of its work, and they afford a remarkable 
 instance of what a critic can accomplish in the way 
 of correcting the follies of men of large projects 
 and small artistic ability. 
 
 With the beginning of the twelfth year of the 
 Journal of Music, April, 1864, it was changed from 
 a weekly to a fortnightly publication, the price 
 being continued at one dollar a year, though it was 
 soon after changed to two. These changes were 
 the result of the Civil War, its absorbing interest, 
 and the consequent depression in the artistic life of 
 the nation. None could rejoice more heartily than 
 Dwight when the war came to an end, with the 
 triumph of freedom and with a united country. On 
 Commencement Day of 1865, Harvard University 
 did honor to those of its members who had taken part 
 in the war, and especially to those who had fallen 
 in the strife. The speeches of the occasion were 
 made by General Devens, Governor Andrew, Presi- 
 dent Hill, General Meade, Admiral Davis, and 
 Emerson. Poems were read by Holmes, Lowell, 
 
YEARS OF TOIL FOR MUSIC 197 
 
 Mrs. Howe, and Charles T. Brooks. The music 
 was in charge of Mr. J. K. Paine, then the musical 
 director of the university ; and he was assisted by 
 a chorus from the Harvard Musical Association. 
 Among the other pieces was a " Horatian Ode " 
 written by Dwight, sung to Flemming's " part-song, 
 a strain of simple, solemn, noble harmony," as 
 follows : — 
 
 "Integer Vitve Scelerisque Purus." 
 
 Manly and gentle, pure and noble-hearted, 
 Sweet were their days of peaceful use and beauty. 
 Sweeter than peace or days or years is freedom, 
 Thought our young heroes. 
 
 War's wild alarm drove sleep from every pillow ; 
 Slavery, rampant, stalked athwart the broad land. 
 Prompt at the call of Country and of Duty, 
 Flew the young heroes. 
 
 Darkly the clouds hung o'er a doubtful conflict : 
 Out shone the rainbow, — Liberty to all Men ! 
 Lo ! now a Country grand enough to die for ! 
 Peace to our heroes ! 
 
 Rear we for them no cold sepulchral marble : 
 Fresh in our hearts their very selves are living, 
 Dearer and nearer now, — e'en as God is nearest, — 
 Risen in glory ! 
 
 Cease from thy weeping, rise, O Alma Mater ! 
 Count thy young heroes tenderly and proudly ; 
 Beaming thine eyes, with holy joy confess them : 
 These are thy children ! 
 
1 9 8 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 On March 26, 1870, Dwight gave a lecture on 
 " Music in Relation to Culture and the Religious 
 Sentiment," in the " Horticultural Hall Sunday 
 Afternoon Lectures." Among the other lecturers 
 in the course were John Weiss, O. B. Frothing- 
 ham, T. W. Higginson, Samuel Longfellow, Julia 
 Ward Howe, Ednah D. Cheney, David A. Wasson, 
 William H. Channing, and Wendell Phillips. A 
 few days later the secretary of the lecture course 
 wrote him, " The reports of your lecture on music 
 have awakened so general an interest in it that we 
 are thinking of inviting you to repeat it some week- 
 day afternoon, at such time as shall suit your con- 
 venience." A request for its repetition, in behalf 
 of those who were not able to hear it, was sent to 
 him, signed by O. W. Holmes, J. R. Lowell, James 
 B. Thayer, William I. Thorndike, G. S. Hillard, 
 Samuel Longfellow, F. H. Underwood, and others. 
 In response to these requests the lecture was re- 
 peated on May 6. The next day Dwight received 
 the following letter from one of the leaders of 
 musical interest in Boston : — 
 
 " I listened to your lecture with an interest that 
 would not have flagged if you had given us three 
 hours instead of one. It is so far the best thing 
 that one might say it is the only thing that has 
 been said about music on this side of the water. 
 My only complaint is that you turned over too 
 many pages. You had there material for at least 
 three lectures. Now why cannot you give it all to 
 us, without abridgement, in the Atlantic? They 
 
YEARS OF TOIL FOR MUSIC 199 
 
 would pay you for three articles as readily as for 
 one. Divide thus, for instance : I. The story of 
 the coming-in among us of the true thing, its rela- 
 tions to the new growth of culture and religion, 
 a fuller sketch of the old Odeon days, before the 
 musical recollections of many of us, with perhaps a 
 reference to what George Curtis has also said about 
 them, already made in the Journal. And so on 
 down to the present, with its great smoke without, 
 and its hot fire at the heart, — its display, egotism, 
 vanity, and mercenary sordidness, but, by contrast, 
 the real feeling at the bottom. II. The scope and 
 importance of music as culture and religion, which 
 would comprise the bulk of what you read last 
 night. III. The intrinsic qualities which make it 
 so important, which would give an opportunity for 
 all that you desire to say about the structure of 
 fugue and symphony and other forms, as well as 
 for the analysis which you did not give us of repre- 
 sentative works, such as the ' Passion Music ' and 
 the ' Choral Symphony.' It is time for you to go 
 to Fields with a manuscript of ' Musical Essays, 1st 
 series'; but meanwhile the three Atlantic articles 
 will not be amiss." 
 
 The lecture was published in the Atlantic Monthly 
 during 1870, the first part appearing in Septem- 
 ber, under the title of " Music a Means of Culture," 
 and the second part in December, as " The Intel- 
 lectual Influence of Music." 
 
 In 1879 came another change in the career of the 
 Journal of Music. From the first the publisher 
 
200 JOHN SULLIVAN DVVIGHT 
 
 and the editor were not wholly in harmony as to 
 the best method of conducting the paper. It was 
 the publisher's wish to make it popular and a help 
 to his business interests. The editor was strictly 
 concerned for the good of music as an art, his liter- 
 ary aim was high, and he was not in sympathy with 
 the popular tendencies of the musical profession. 
 With the trade interests of the publisher he had no 
 sympathy, and he was not willing to make any con- 
 cessions in that behalf. It must be remembered, 
 however, that he had made many sacrifices for 
 the sake of pushing the claims of music as an 
 art, that he had a salary of only one thousand dol- 
 lars a year after the paper became a fortnightly, and 
 that he had steadily held to his high aims against 
 many discouragements. The cost of fidelity to his 
 ideals was borne by himself without complaint. 
 
 In July, 1878, Dwight received from Oliver Ditson 
 & Co., his publishers, a letter in which they notified 
 him of their wish to change the character of the 
 Journal of Music, making it more popular, and 
 using it to further their publishing interests. Upon 
 consultation with several of his friends, they advised 
 against the proposed change ; and Longfellow took 
 the lead in finding another publisher and securing 
 a guarantee fund that would enable the paper to go 
 on under better auspices. It was arranged that 
 Houghton, Osgood & Co. should undertake the 
 publication. 
 
 After twenty years of connection with a great 
 music-publishing house the Journal severed its re- 
 
YEARS OF TOIL FOR MUSIC 201 
 
 lations therewith at the end of the year 1878. The 
 new arrangement was announced in the number for 
 August 31, in which the editor said, " We make few 
 promises, — only this one in fact, that we shall do 
 all in our power to keep the Journal true to the 
 character and name it has so long maintained both 
 in this country and abroad. In renouncing all con- 
 nection, all appearance even of identity of interests, 
 with the music trade in any of its representatives or 
 branches, our Journal offers a new guarantee — 
 were any needed — of fearless honesty and indepen- 
 dence in its views and criticisms. We wish to add 
 to its contents new elements, — the contributions of 
 younger minds, as well as of mature experience, — 
 and this we shall do just so far as we shall be en- 
 abled by the prompt support and patronage for 
 which we look to friends of Art and lovers of the 
 best in Music." 
 
 The paper was now a fortnightly of eight pages, 
 published at two and a half dollars a year; but it 
 presented an attractive appearance, and the con- 
 tents were much improved. The old contributors 
 remained, and new ones were secured. It was the 
 plan to secure articles of first-class value and in- 
 terest from leading writers on literary and artistic 
 subjects. The first number opened with a poem 
 by C. P. Cranch, which was followed by a musical 
 article from the pen of William F. Apthorp. This 
 was succeeded by a study of Chopin from the pen 
 of Fanny Raymond Ritter, and to the book reviews 
 Francis H. Underwood was a contributor. In sue- 
 
202 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 ceeding numbers there were articles, poems, or book 
 reviews by Julia Ward Howe, T. G. Appleton, 
 Stuart Sterne, Frederic Louis Ritter, and William 
 M. Hunt. The paper was now abler in its manage- 
 ment, had a greater variety of contents, and was bet- 
 ter calculated to serve the higher interests of music 
 than ever before. 
 
 It was soon evident, however, that the public 
 was not ready to support such a paper as the edi- 
 tor was trying to make. The plan of paid con- 
 tributors had to be given up, and the editor had to 
 fall back upon his own resources. There was a 
 considerable loss the first year, but this was greatly 
 reduced the second. In December, 1880, the friends 
 of the editor and the paper gave them a testimonial 
 concert. A testimonial committee was organized, 
 of which John P. Putnam was chairman, Francis H. 
 Underwood secretary, and A. Parker Browne treas- 
 urer. This committee addressed Dwight the fol- 
 lowing letter : — 
 
 ,, T o t-v Boston. Nov. ic, 1880. 
 
 Mr. John S. Dwight: °' 
 
 Dear Sir, — A number of your friends, who re- 
 member your long and faithful services in behalf 
 of the cause of music, and who are deeply grateful 
 that it has been permitted to you to accomplish so 
 much in elevating the standard of public perform- 
 ances and in refining the public taste, have deter- 
 mined to offer you a Testimonial Concert to be 
 given on a fitting scale, early in the coming month, 
 at the Boston Music Hall. They respectfully ask 
 
YEARS OF TOIL FOR MUSIC 203 
 
 your acceptance of the compliment, with their 
 united good will and affection, and with best wishes 
 for your continued health and usefulness : — 
 
 R. E. Apthorp, W. F. Apthorp, L. B. Barnes, 
 
 F. P. Bacon, W. P. Blake, J. Bradlee, A. P. Browne, 
 
 G. H. Chickering, E. H. Clement, C. P. Curtis, 
 Oliver Ditson, E. S. Dodge, L. C. Elson, Julius 
 Eichberg, Augustus Flagg, John Fiske, Arthur W. 
 Foote, L. L. Holden, H. L. Higginson, F. H. Jenks, 
 G. P. King, H. W. Longfellow, B. J. Lang, S. W. 
 Langmaid, H. K. Oliver, Carl Priifer, George L. 
 Osgood, H. W. Pickering, John P. Putnam, J. C. D. 
 Parker, Ernst Perabo, Charles C. Perkins, John 
 K. Paine, LeBaron Russell, Arthur Reed, Henry 
 M. Rogers, S. B. Schlesinger, W. H. Sherwood, 
 James Sturgis, A. J. C. Sowdon, S. L. Thorndike, 
 F. H. Underwood, R. C. Waterston, Henry B. 
 Williams, B. E. Woolf, Henry Ware, L. Weissbein, 
 Robert C. Winthrop, Erving Winslow, Carl Zer- 
 rahn. 
 
 Dwight's reply was in these words, his letter 
 being given in full, and not in the abbreviated form 
 as printed on the circular of the committee : — 
 
 Boston, Nov. 16, 1880. 
 To the Hon. J. P. Putnam, Chairman, etc.: 
 
 Gentlemen, — Your kind and courteous offer 
 touches me deeply, and demands fitter answer than 
 I know how to make. Such a recognition — en- 
 tirely spontaneous, unexpected, and undreamed of 
 
204 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 on my own part — of my poor persistent labors to 
 convince others of the beauty and the holiness of 
 the Art which I have always loved, and always shall 
 love, comes upon me as an exquisite surprise. 
 After many periods of misgiving, many fears that 
 the old tree had proved fruitless after all, this comes 
 to revive hope and motive, and give me, as it were, 
 the sense of a new life, — at all events, to encourage 
 me to attempt yet further and — let us hope — bet- 
 ter work. 
 
 I am sure I understand you, gentlemen. What 
 you would honor in me is simply the high purpose, 
 the honesty, and the consistent perseverance of my 
 course. To this, and to nothing more, can I lay 
 claim. When my work began, music was esteemed 
 at its true worth by very few among us. I simply 
 preached the faith that was in me. Now we are 
 almost a musical people. Those who come forward 
 now learn music as it should be learned, learn to 
 speak of it with knowledge, — the knowledge that 
 comes of practice, — and will readily outstrip me. 
 What more could I desire ? There is a lesson in 
 all this which every young man should take to 
 heart : it is that every worthy, independent, honest, 
 work, persisted in, in spite of neglect and abuse 
 and years of seeming failure, is sure of recognition 
 all the sweeter in the end. 
 
 To a committee so largely representative of the 
 best elements of the musical profession, of the best 
 and wisest friends of music, as well as of the hon- 
 ored names of dear old Boston, and for the prof- 
 
YEARS OF TOIL FOR MUSIC 205 
 
 fered Concert, which in such hands is sure to be a 
 noble one, I can never be too grateful. But let me 
 come to the point at once, and simply say that I 
 most thankfully accept the compliment you offer. 
 
 I am respectfully and cordially yours, 
 
 John S. Dwight. 
 
 This concert was held in Music Hall on Thurs- 
 day afternoon, Dec. 9, 1880, and was in every way 
 a success. A large number of musicians volun- 
 teered their services, including many not named 
 on the committee. The use of Music Hall was 
 given, without charge, for the occasion, as well 
 as the pianos and printing. The programme in- 
 cluded Beethoven's " Fifth Symphony," Schubert's 
 " Twenty-third Psalm," a concerto from Bach, 
 Schumann's Concert-stueck, a selection from Beet- 
 hoven's " Fidelio," and an overture from Mendels- 
 sohn. This concert awakened great enthusiasm 
 among the musicians of Boston and vicinity, it was 
 largely attended, and the occasion proved an ova- 
 tion to one who had toiled for musicians so many 
 years. It proved to him that his work was appreci- 
 ated, and that there were many people ready to do 
 him honor. The committee was able to put into 
 Dwight's hand the sum of $6,000 as the result of 
 the concert and the contributions of his friends. 
 
 Of this concert Dwight said in the Journal of 
 Music : " Greetings and warmest signs of recogni- 
 tion, kindliest notes of sympathy (often from most 
 
2o6 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 unexpected quarters), prompt, enthusiastic offers of 
 musical service in any concert that might be ar- 
 ranged, poured in upon the editor, who all at once 
 found himself the object of unusual attention. 
 Hand and heart were offered wherever he met an 
 old acquaintance. Everybody seemed full of the 
 bright idea that had struck somebody just in the 
 nick of time. We never knew we had so many 
 friends . . . who, through the press, as well as by 
 voice and pen in private, created an interest in 
 others, and helped to organize the plan so beauti- 
 fully realized on Thursday of last week. . . . For 
 such a testimonial, so sincere and hearty in the in- 
 ception, so admirably prepared, with such consum- 
 mate tact and delicacy, so beautiful, resplendent in 
 the full flower, and so fraught with solid tokens of 
 esteem and friendship, we can hardly trust our- 
 self to find fit words of thanks. We accept 
 it both with pride and with humility, for it is a 
 formidable thought to us that we seem now more 
 than ever bound to go on trying (perhaps in 
 vain) to perform any service that shall in any de- 
 gree vindicate the faith which hosts of friends have 
 in this touching way reposed in us. 
 
 "But, leaving all we wished to say to be im- 
 agined, as it readily will be in a social and musical 
 atmosphere so sympathetic as this in which we just 
 now have the happiness to live and move and have 
 our being (although it seems like passive dream- 
 ing), let us come at once to the concert itself, 
 which was in every way a signal, memorable sue- 
 
YEARS OF TOIL FOR MUSIC 207 
 
 cess, and which we flatter ourself we could and 
 did appreciate about as keenly as any other man or 
 woman in that great and really distinguished audi- 
 ence. Both programme and performance were of 
 so exceptionally fine a character as to claim special 
 mention among the many good things we have 
 heard or shall hear this winter. Never was a 
 finer programme, either intrinsically or in its fit- 
 ness for the occasion, presented in Boston ; never 
 a more conscientious con amore rendering, seldom 
 one with finer means, and all by artists who had 
 kindly, eagerly, offered their co-operation freely, in- 
 cluding the orchestra of the Harvard Symphony 
 Concerts, with Mr. Carl Zerrahn, conductor, and 
 Mr. Bernhard Listemann, violin leader, besides 
 a small army of our best vocalists, pianists, violin- 
 ists, more than could possibly find place in a single 
 concert. . . . Now was not that a concert to be re- 
 membered all one's life ? " 
 
 As Dwight seems in some measure to have an- 
 ticipated, the continued effort proved to be in vain. 
 In the number of the Journal f or July 16, 1881, he 
 announced that one more number would bring the 
 paper to an end, and said : " Instead of the prom- 
 ised increase, the income from subscribers and 
 from advertisers has fallen off, showing for the first 
 half of the year a serious loss, which falls entirely on 
 the editor himself, who has no heart to ask or to ac- 
 cept any further guarantee from friends. Prudence 
 counsels him that it is better to stop now than to 
 risk double loss by letting the paper run on to the 
 end of the year." 
 
208 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 From all sides came the warmest expressions of 
 sympathy, and regret that the Journal of Music 
 should be at last obliged to give up its brave 
 struggle. There was the warmest recognition from 
 the press of the country of its able efforts to further 
 the cause of music, mingled with some criticism of 
 the editor's conservative attitude. The last number 
 of Dwighfs Journal of Music bore date of Sept. 
 3, 1 88 1. In his valedictory article the editor 
 said that he was convinced there was no real 
 demand in the country for a high-class journal 
 devoted to the interests of music ; and he spoke of 
 the severe competition which made the publication 
 of such a journal impossible, of the fact that musical 
 criticism was presented in the daily and weekly 
 papers to an extent which satisfied most people, and 
 of the wide diffusion of musical knowledge since he 
 began his work. Parts of this final estimate of his 
 editorial labors make it clearer than anything else 
 he ever wrote what were Dwight's ideals, and what 
 the task which he set before him, at which he had 
 labored for so many years. 
 
 " There is no putting out of sight the fact," he 
 wrote, in discussing the causes why it was desirable 
 to discontinue the paper, and why he had grown 
 weary of his task, " that the great themes for dis- 
 cussion, criticism, literary exposition and descrip- 
 tion, which inspired us in this journal's prime, the 
 master works and character and meaning of the 
 immortal ones, like Bach and Handel, Mozart, 
 Beethoven, Schubert, and the rest, although they 
 
YEARS OF TOIL FOR MUSIC 209 
 
 cannot be exhausted, yet inevitably lose the charm 
 of novelty. . . . The thoughts we then insisted on 
 from inmost conviction, with a zeal for inciting 
 others to seek, and helping others to appreciate the 
 divine power and beauty and great meaning of 
 those inspired art creations, are now become the 
 common property of all the world. Of course, we 
 never owned them ; but we felt them, and endeavored, 
 somewhat successfully within a narrow, slowly wid- 
 ening circle, to make others feel their truth. All 
 true thought, truly stated, inevitably crumbles in the 
 course of time into the smallest current coin. Lack- 
 ing the genius to make the old seem new, we can- 
 didly confess that what now challenges the world 
 as new in music fails to stir us to the same depths 
 of soul and feeling that the old masters did, and 
 doubtless always will. Startling as the new com- 
 posers are, and novel, curious, brilliant, beautiful 
 at times, they do not inspire us as we have been in- 
 spired before, and do not bring us nearer heaven. 
 We feel no inward call to the proclaiming of the 
 new gospel. We have tried to do justice to these 
 works as they have claimed our notice, and have 
 omitted no intelligence of them which came within 
 the limits of our columns ; but we lack motive for 
 entering their doubtful service, we are not ordained 
 their prophet. If these had been enthroned the 
 Dii majores of the musical Olympus, and there had 
 been no greater gods; if the contributions of the 
 past thirty years to musical production were the 
 whole of music,- — we never should have dreamed of 
 
210 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 establishing a musical journal, nor would music 
 have been able to seduce us from other paths, in 
 which, by persevering, we might possibly have done 
 more good. It may be all a prejudice, perhaps we 
 are one-sided, perhaps too steady contemplation of 
 the glory of the great age has seared our eyeballs 
 for the modern splendors ; but we prefer to leave 
 these and their advocacy ' to whom it may concern.' 
 Doubtless here is one secret of much of the indiffer- 
 ence to this journal : the ' disciples of the newness ' 
 feel that it has not been in sympathy with what 
 they would call the new musical spirit of the times, 
 and innocent inquirers take the cue from them. . . . 
 " But whatever may have been the causes of our 
 failure to make this journal what it should be, we 
 are disposed to find them mostly in the editor 
 himself. . . . We have long realized that we were 
 not made for the competitive, sharp enterprise 
 of modern journalism. That turn of mind which 
 looks at the ideal rather than the practical, and the 
 native indolence of temperament which sometimes 
 goes with it, have made our movements slow. 
 Hurry who will, we rather wait and take our 
 chance. The work which could not be done at 
 leisure, and in disregard to all immediate effect, we 
 have been too apt to feel was hardly worth the 
 doing. To be the first in the field with an an- 
 nouncement or a criticism or an idea was no part 
 of our ambition. How can one recognize competi- 
 tors or enter into competition, and at the same 
 time keep his eye upon truth ? If one have anything 
 
YEARS OF TOIL FOR MUSIC 211 
 
 worth saying, will it not be as good to-morrow as 
 to-day?" . . . 
 
 All which needs to be said in the way of com- 
 ment on this final word of Dwight's as an editor is 
 expressed in a letter to him from Richard Grant 
 White, written on receipt of the closing number: 
 " The sight of the last number of your Journal, and 
 the reading of your valedictory article, were not 
 pleasant," wrote this able critic ; " and this was the 
 first time that either the Journal or your writing 
 gave me any other feeling than one of pleasure. 
 I had regarded the Journal as a Boston institution, 
 one of the spokes of the Hub. What will musical 
 Boston, what musical New England, do without 
 it? For surely there is nothing that will fill its 
 place. I note with sadness the intimation that 
 musical New England does not want its place filled ; 
 but, if there is to be a special musical journal that 
 is worthy to be published, of what other sort can it 
 be than yours ? 
 
 "Your article is filled with manly good sense. 
 You mourn without whining, and yet say severe 
 things in a mild way. The sort of musical journal 
 which you describe as your successful rival is detest- 
 able. A mess of gossip and ' newsy ' paragraphs, — 
 hideous word for a disgusting thing. But I came 
 long ago to the conclusion that what professional 
 people want is merely that you should serve their 
 interests. Your discussion of art, and your en- 
 deavor to teach the public, they care nothing about. 
 The singer wants you to tell how she was applauded 
 
212 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 at Boston, so that she may have a larger audience 
 at her Providence concert. The pianoforte maker 
 wants you to help him sell twenty more pianofortes 
 next year than he did this, and the publisher wants 
 you to make his publications popular. All natural 
 enough, and right enough ; but they want you to do 
 this directly. They have no respect, or little, for 
 the indirect influence which elevates and diffuses 
 taste. They are not willing to play the long game. 
 
 11 1 regret very much this close of your valu- 
 able editorial labors. You have done great work, 
 and have that consciousness, to be sure, — some 
 comfort, but it should not be all. There is not a 
 musician of respectability in the country who is not 
 your debtor." 
 
 In Harper s Magazine, George W. Curtis spoke 
 in the most appreciative way of the work which 
 Dwight had done for music, and said of his closing 
 word in the last number of his paper, " A more de- 
 lightful valedictory it would not be easy to find in 
 the swan song of any journal." There will be 
 found elsewhere the first part of a letter in which 
 Dwight asked Curtis to give an address before the 
 Perkins Institution for the Blind. The last part of 
 it was an expression of his warm appreciation of the 
 friendly tribute which Curtis had paid him, as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 u George, how many times I have been on the 
 point of writing to you since that delightful week 
 we spent at dear old Tweedy 's ! To me it was a 
 sweet renewal of good old days, and I came away 
 
YEARS OF TOIL FOR MUSIC 213 
 
 feeling that it must have added some time to my 
 life. Then, too, I wished to thank you for your most 
 friendly, hearty, and delightful talk about me and 
 my Journal \n the ' Easy Chair.' It was so like you, 
 like the dear old George. I tell you, it made me 
 feel well, as if life wasn't all a failure. And now 
 I am finding laziness agreeing with me too, too 
 well. You know I was always lazy in the matter of 
 correspondence. I let you write me so many nice 
 long letters from Europe, and so seldom answered. 
 Now I am indulging in society much more than 
 ever before, and with a zest ; and truth is, society 
 here takes the form of music to a great extent of 
 late. And if I were not so very, very old, if it 
 were not my fate to have been sent into the world 
 so long before my time, I verily believe I should 
 confess myself over head and ears in love. At any 
 rate, I love life. Yet nearly all my old friends seem 
 to be dead or dying, Robert Apthorp chief of all. 
 When I write you again, I hope to be able to say 
 that I am well at work again ; but how ? on what ? 
 Thank God, I am not a ' critic' ! " 
 
* CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE AUTOCRAT OF MUSIC. 
 
 A biography of John S. D wight, on a compre- 
 hensive plan, would be a history of music in Boston 
 from 1840 to 1890. His sketch of the history of 
 music, in the last volume of " The Memorial His- 
 tory of Boston," simply recited that with which he 
 was personally familiar, and in a large part of which 
 he was in some way a participant. He not only 
 reported the musical events of all these years, and 
 discussed them critically in the Journal of Music, 
 but in many of them he was an actual participant 
 in their inception and direction. This was emphati- 
 cally true in regard to the Harvard Musical Asso- 
 ciation and its symphony concerts, the professor- 
 ship of music in Harvard University, the giving of 
 musical instruction in the public schools, the build- 
 ing of the Boston Music Hall and the securing of 
 its great organ. These are only indications of his 
 influence, — an influence which was for half a century 
 potent for good. 
 
 His life was so intimately connected with the 
 Harvard Musical Association that it is impossible 
 to separate the two. As has already been seen, it 
 was largely through his enthusiasm and his earnest 
 efforts that this society was organized. He was its 
 first vice-president, and chairman of the board of 
 directors. In 1841 he was chairman of the nominat- 
 ing committee, and he proposed that some one be 
 invited each year to give an address on music before 
 
THE AUTOCRAT OF MUSIC 215 
 
 the society. At this meeting he gave an address 
 on " Music as a Means of Culture," which was soon 
 after published in pamphlet form. In succeeding 
 years similar addresses were given by George B. 
 Emerson, William W. Story, and Christopher P. 
 Cranch. In 1842 Dwight was again elected vice- 
 president, and he also held the office the two suc- 
 ceeding years. In 1848 he was one of the directors, 
 and chairman of the committee for the purchase of 
 books for the library. In 1849 ne was chairman 
 of the nominating committee, and was elected a 
 director, as well as chairman of the library com- 
 mittee. On his motion the time of holding the 
 annual meeting was changed from Commencement 
 Week to the month of January; and the place was 
 changed to Boston, in order that the society might 
 be more nearly in touch with the musical life of the 
 members. 
 
 Dwight was active in providing an attractive 
 musical programme for the meetings of the associa- 
 tion, the first effort in this direction being made in 
 1 84 1. There soon after followed a number of 
 Chamber Concerts in Cambridge, given under the 
 auspices of the association. From 1844 to 1850 
 three series of such concerts were held in Boston, 
 the first two at Chickering's warerooms, and the 
 last in Cochituate Hall These were then quite 
 a novelty, proved attractive, and were widely imi- 
 tated. 
 
 The coming of Jenny Lind to this country in 
 1850 made it apparent to the lovers of music in 
 
216 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 Boston that a large music hall was greatly needed 
 in the city. At the annual meeting of the Harvard 
 Musical Association, held in Boston, Jan. 31, 185 1, 
 this need was considered; and a committee, of which 
 Dwight was a member, was appointed to make in- 
 quiries and report. In November, 1852, the great 
 Music Hall was opened with a grand musical fes- 
 tival. Eleven years later, in November, 1863, the 
 great organ provided for this hall was dedicated. 
 In the Journal of Music both these events were fol- 
 lowed step by step, and with great enthusiasm. Its 
 pages contain a complete record of their inception 
 and consummation. For their time they were 
 events of much importance to the musical growth 
 of Boston, though both of them have quite lost 
 their significance in the changed conditions of more 
 recent years. 
 
 In 1853 Dwight was again elected vice-president 
 of the Harvard Musical Association. From 1855 on 
 to 1873 he was continuously elected to fill this posi- 
 tion. Almost as continuously he was at the head 
 of the library committee. He took much interest 
 in the effort to build up a musical library which 
 should contain the works of all the great masters of 
 music, as well as such works of history, criticism, 
 etc., as would make a helpful reference library for 
 those interested in the thorough study of music. 
 He was hindered for many years by lack of money, 
 by want of a proper place for such a library, and by 
 the absence of interest on the part of most others. 
 For a time the library was given an alcove in the 
 
THE AUTOCRAT OF MUSIC 217 
 
 Boston Athenaeum. In 1867 the association se- 
 cured a room for the library ; and from that time 
 on it grew steadily, increasing in value with each 
 year. The interest which Dwight took in the asso- 
 ciation during all these years was by no means con- 
 fined to the library ; but it included every phase of 
 the work of the society, and all which concerned 
 the furtherance of the interests of music. He was 
 active in providing for the meetings held in Cam- 
 bridge during Commencement Week, in making sure 
 that the annual meeting in January, now held in 
 Boston, should be attractive, that the dinner should 
 be excellent and the speaking of the best, and that 
 the society should draw into its membership all the 
 college graduates in Boston who were lovers of 
 music, and especially those of Harvard. 
 
 In 1865 Dwight brought before the association 
 the question of doing something for orchestral 
 music in Boston. It was proposed to form a Phil- 
 harmonic Society among the members, for the prac- 
 tice of such music. It was decided to hold four 
 orchestral concerts, and the committee in charge 
 had Dwight for its chairman. Now, for the first 
 time, Dwight was able to carry out his own ideas as 
 to what should be done for the education of musical 
 taste. It was not the aim to make money, the 
 receipts being faithfully devoted to the improvement 
 of the concerts. A fit audience was guaranteed by 
 subscriptions secured before the concerts began; 
 and only the best works of the great masters — those 
 of an established reputation — were to be presented. 
 
218 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 The first of these concerts was given the last 
 week in December, 1865, and for the first time 
 realized the wish Dwight had expressed in the Dial, 
 that there might be given in Boston a series of pop- 
 ular concerts of a high artistic order. Six con- 
 certs were given in all, and with eminent success. 
 The next season the number was extended to 
 eight ; and they went on steadily for seven or 
 eight years, increasing in popularity and success. 
 Then came a change. The fund already accumu- 
 lated became necessary to meet expenses, and the 
 concerts were finally abandoned in 1882. This 
 was due to the popularity of the Theodore Thomas 
 concerts, the Symphony Concerts sustained by 
 Mr. H. L. Higginson, and to the rapid growth of 
 musical interest in many other directions. The 
 association accomplished the object with which it 
 set out. It had thoroughly trained the Boston 
 public to know good music, and to demand that 
 which was better than it could itself produce with 
 its limited resources. It is to be said, however, that 
 the " Symphony Concerts " of the Harvard Musical 
 Association form a most important phase of the 
 growth of musical culture in Boston. They pre- 
 pared the way for much which has followed, and for 
 the first time almost gave complete expression in 
 Boston to the musical genius of our century. They 
 were largely the outcome of Dwight's taste in 
 music, and they developed his conceptions of music 
 as a means of true culture for the people. So long 
 as these concerts continued, he was the chairman of 
 
THE AUTOCRAT OF MUSIC 219 
 
 the concert committee, the programmes were largely 
 prepared by him, and he had charge of the details 
 of the management of the concerts. Whatever 
 success they achieved and whatever influence they 
 exerted for musical culture was primarily due to 
 him. He had the valuable help throughout, how- 
 ever, of such men as B. J. Lang, Otto Dresel, John 
 C. D. Parker, and others of like ability. 
 
 In 1869 the Harvard Musical Association secured 
 rooms at 1 2 Pemberton Square for its meetings, for 
 the better using of its library, and for social gather- 
 ings of its members. In 1873 Dwight was elected 
 president of the association, — a position which he 
 continued to hold until his death. On June 15 of 
 that year he took up his residence at the rooms 
 of the association, and henceforth he acted as its 
 librarian. From this time until his death he was 
 most intimately associated with everything con- 
 nected with this society, and he gave to it much of 
 his attention and interest. It was his wife and child, 
 claiming the warmest affections of his heart. In 
 1886 the association moved to 11 Park Square, and 
 in 1892 to 1 West Cedar Street. 
 
 It would be difficult to say to what extent the 
 Harvard Musical Association was directly instru- 
 mental in'bringing about the chief object of its exist- 
 ence, — the introduction of music to a recognized 
 place in the curriculum of Harvard University. It 
 certainly never wholly lost sight of this object ; and 
 it was urged from time to time with such skill as the 
 association could command, and through such means 
 
220 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 as seemed most likely to lead to success. In time 
 what Dwight and the association desired was 
 brought to pass, partly through constant agitation 
 of the subject and partly through criticism of the 
 music which was presented at the university. For 
 a number of years Levi P. Homer was employed by 
 the university as instructor in music and organist 
 at Appleton Chapel. On his death, Mr. John K. 
 Paine was called to this position, in 1862. In 1873 
 he was made an " adjunct " professor of music ; and 
 in 1876 he was made full professor, this being the 
 first instance in an American university of the es- 
 tablishment of a professorship of music. These 
 steps forward were carefully discussed in the Jour- 
 nal of Music, which did not hesitate to point out 
 what was needed to put music on a true footing as 
 an academic discipline and as a means of higher 
 culture. In the " Memorial History of Boston," 
 Dwight wrote with great satisfaction of this triumph 
 of musical culture in this country, and of the noble 
 results which have been secured through the means 
 of Professor Paine's labors at Harvard. This was 
 in a large measure a consummation of what he had 
 urged as the true purpose in organizing the Har- 
 vard Musical Association, in his preliminary report 
 of 1837. 
 
 Dwight was not less interested in the progress of 
 music in the public schools; and this was a topic 
 frequently discussed in the Journal of Music. 
 He had no official position which enabled him to 
 aid in this important movement ; but by means of 
 
THE AUTOCRAT OF MUSIC 221 
 
 addresses and lectures, and through his editorial 
 influence, he was able to do much to promote the 
 interests of this form of musical instruction. All 
 which could be done by enthusiastic approval of 
 the efforts of others, Dwight did for this cause. 
 
 For many years he was a trustee of the Perkins 
 Institution for the Blind in South Boston. He 
 devoted much time to promoting its interests, used 
 his influence for bringing to it the help of others, 
 gave much attention to the musical instruction, 
 aided in making the programmes of its commence- 
 ment exercises, at which he sometimes presided, 
 and on several occasions wrote its annual reports. 
 His interest in this institution may be seen in a 
 letter which he wrote to George William Curtis, in 
 March, 1882, inviting him to give an address before 
 it, which was duly delivered. 
 
 "My dear George, — With this I send you formal 
 invitation, on the part of the committee of arrange- 
 ments, for the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary 
 of the foundation, by Dr. Howe, of the Institution 
 for the Blind. The day appointed is Tuesday, 
 June 13; the place, Tremont Temple. The whole 
 blind school will be present and the exercises will 
 consist of music by the pupils (which, I assure you, 
 will be excellent), specimens of the way they read 
 from raised print, brief exhibitions of the various 
 classes, some of their original compositions, decla- 
 mations, etc., a contributed poem or two, short 
 address by Governor Long and perhaps other New 
 
222 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 England Governors, etc. But, chief of all, we wish 
 to have an address, — not long, say half an hour, — 
 partly historical; and we all (committee, director, 
 teachers, pupils) have set our hearts upon having 
 you perform that service. It would delight us all; 
 and I know that you would find the occasion, the 
 very sight of those sightless children made so 
 happy, most inspiring, Director Anagnos (admi- 
 rable continuer of the good Doctor's work) has 
 doubtless sent you the last annual ' Report,' con- 
 taining his most interesting history of all the efforts 
 made, in Europe and this country, for the education 
 of the blind. With that for a guide you will easily 
 make yourself au niveau of the theme historically. 
 A more responsive audience than the blind them- 
 selves cannot be found. Dear George, do think 
 seriously of it, and tell me you will come. Your 
 own wishes in respect to the arrangements and con- 
 ditions shall in all respects be consulted. But 
 come, if you wish to have a good time, a memorable 
 time, and make a good time for us." 
 
 Of his connection with the institution the super- 
 intendent, Mr. Michael Anagnos, said : — 
 
 " Mr. Dwight took a most profound interest in the 
 institution and its ministry to the needs of the 
 blind. For eighteen years he served as a trustee, 
 with rare assiduity and devotion. It was chiefly 
 due to his influence that very little so-called popu- 
 lar music was used in the school, and that the time 
 was mostly given to the classics from Bach to the 
 
THE AUTOCRAT OF MUSIC 223 
 
 masters of the present day. He not only urged 
 this policy upon our teachers with persuasive ear- 
 nestness, but devoted his time and talent to the 
 translation and compilation of books in raised char- 
 acters for the purpose." 
 
 Another way in which Dwight served the inter- 
 ests of music in Boston was by the earnest and 
 enthusiastic welcome which he always gave to 
 musicians, especially to young men of talent and 
 genius. He saw their merits, he praised their 
 work, and he urged their claims upon the public. 
 It is sometimes hinted, in conversation, that he did 
 not welcome such men if they were favorable to the 
 newer schools, and if they did not follow the 
 methods which he most admired. No one will find 
 anything of this in the Journal of Music, not even 
 the faintest hint of it. When such men as John 
 C. D. Parker, John K. Paine, Benjamin J. Lang, 
 George W. Chadwick, Arthur Foote, and William 
 F. Apthorp came forward, the Journal of Music 
 gave them unstinted welcome, cordial, unpreju- 
 diced, and enthusiastic. In that paper, for the 
 years 1861 and 1862, will be found as appreciative 
 notices of the organ-playing of John K. Paine, and 
 of his appointment to the position of instructor of 
 music at Harvard, as any young man, at the open- 
 ing of his career, could desire. When Mr. Paine 
 was made a professor of music in that university, 
 when his important musical compositions were pub- 
 lished, and when his works were given fit interpre- 
 tation in Cambridge and elsewhere, these events 
 
224 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 were welcomed by D wight as true indications of 
 the development of music in this country. In one 
 of the last numbers of his paper he spoke of the 
 presentation of the GEdipus Tyrannus of Sophocles 
 at Harvard, with Professor Paine's music, as " the 
 most complete and thoroughly artistic presentation 
 of a work of pure high art that this part of the 
 world has ever yet achieved out of its own re- 
 sources." And he also spoke of " the beautiful, 
 strong, fitting, manly music composed by Professor 
 Paine." Had not the Journal come to its end so 
 soon after this event, there is no doubt this music 
 would have received fit interpretation at his hands. 
 One more illustration of Dwight's treatment of 
 young men may be seen in the case of Mr. George 
 W. Chadwick. His "Rip Van Winkle" was pre- 
 sented in Boston in December, 1879. Dwight 
 gave his opinion of it in these words : " Mr. Chad- 
 wick's overture more than justified the interest with 
 which it was anticipated. It is a fresh, genial, 
 thoroughly well-wrought, consistent, charming work. 
 As in most overtures with titles, and no opera to 
 follow, it may be hard to trace the story of Rip Van 
 Winkle through it. . . . But all this is of slight ac- 
 count compared with the musical themes and prog- 
 ress and symmetrical unfolding of the work. The 
 slow introduction impressed us as the finest part. 
 It opens rich and broad ; and, when the horns come 
 in, it is positively stirring. The two principal themes, 
 worked up singly and together throughout the long 
 Allegro, are happily chosen and effective. The in- 
 
THE AUTOCRAT OF MUSIC 225 
 
 strumentation is rich and varied, full of pleasing 
 contrasts, never glaring, but all artistically blended. 
 Indeed, the young man seems entirely at home in 
 the orchestra." This is certainly a most friendly 
 and appreciative approval of the first work of a 
 young man, and it does not justify the tradition that 
 Dvvight opposed Mr. Chadwick because of his Wag- 
 nerian and new-style tendencies. Most of the tra- 
 ditions in regard to Dwight's attitude towards other 
 musicians and composers, whom he is said to have 
 opposed, probably have as little foundation in fact. 
 Not less sympathetic was Dwight's welcome to 
 musicians from other countries who came to reside 
 in Boston. Among these may be mentioned Racke- 
 mann, Fries, Kreissman, Zerrahn, Jaell, Eichberg, 
 Henschel, Perabo, Listemann ; and there were 
 many others. These were welcomed, good words 
 said for them in the Journal of Music^ and their 
 way made easy, so far as a kindly interpretation and 
 an understanding approval of their work could do 
 so. Especially was Dwight's attitude towards Otto 
 Dresel, one of the earliest of the Germans to settle 
 in Boston, that of sincerest and most appreciative 
 friendliness. In Dresel he found a man after his 
 own heart, an intimate friend, one whose musical 
 convictions and appreciations were of close kin to 
 his own, and a true intellectual comrade. Otto 
 Dresel came to Boston in 1852, was a cultivated 
 and highly trained musician, a man of a most sensi- 
 tive and refined nature ; and there naturally sprang 
 up between the two men an intimate friendship. 
 
226 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 After his death, Dwight said of him : " With an un- 
 qualified conviction we are bound to say he was the 
 best accompanist we ever heard, — the most refined, 
 poetic, sympathetic, — the most loyal to the com- 
 poser, subordinating and forgetting his own person- 
 ality entirely, the most sure to catch and express 
 the spirit of the music, the most helpful to the 
 singer. . . . When all was right, and when he felt at 
 home, then his playing was in the best sense admi- 
 rable, inimitable, so exquisitely delicate, so full of 
 fire and strength and a poetic unction, so crisp in 
 its long-sustained staccato, so song-like in its beau- 
 tiful legato, and went so directly to the heart and 
 soul, that one wondered that he ever could be 
 eclipsed by even the world-wide celebrities among 
 pianists." Again : " Perhaps no artist ever had 
 in greater purity and strength, ever obeyed more 
 uncompromisingly, more humbly, more unselfishly, 
 what may be called the artistic conscience, than 
 Otto Dresel. It reigned in him unconsciously by 
 the whole bent and force and habit of his nature. 
 His intensity in his devotion to a high ideal, in 
 his work and study and performance, in his unfold- 
 ing of the truth of art to others, was phenomenal." 
 Enough has perhaps been already said in regard 
 to Dwight's attitude towards the music of Wagner 
 and others of his school. His opposition was not 
 always clearly understood, and he was sometimes 
 misjudged. On one occasion he expressed himself 
 strongly on the subject in a conversation which 
 caused Mr. Georg Henschel to write him a letter 
 
THE AUTOCRAT OF MUSIC 227 
 
 of frank criticism in regard to his reported asser- 
 tions. In reply, Dwight explained his own position, 
 and showed that he did not wish to stand in the way 
 of the music of Wagner being heard in Boston. 
 
 " Your informant," he wrote, " must have wholly 
 misunderstood my half playful and (I admit) quite 
 extravagant remark. I had not and could not 
 have the slightest wish to prevent your making a 
 memorial concert of Wagner music, and I should 
 be the last man in the world to vote for any prohibi- 
 tory committee or board of censorship. You have 
 a right to make your own programme according to 
 your own feeling of the occasion, and I admired the 
 earnestness and energy with which you set about it. 
 What I said (either to or in the hearing of Mr. 
 Dannreuther) had no reference to this concert or 
 this orchestra, but was in continuance of some con- 
 versation which began before Mr. D. joined us, in 
 which I expressed the depressing influence which so 
 much of the more ambitious modern music had 
 upon my mind, — so many big words which, by their 
 enormous orchestration, crowded harmonies, sheer 
 intensity of sound, and restless, swarming motion 
 without progress, seem to seek to carry the listeners 
 by storm, by a roaring whirlwind of sound, instead 
 of going to the heart by the simpler and divine way 
 of * the still, small voice.' And then it occurred to 
 me that it might even justify a high court, — a 
 world's court of censorship, — composed of the great- 
 est musicians, to pass upon such works before they 
 should come out, thus clearing the musical atmos- 
 
228 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 phere of many heavy clouds and of much murky 
 musical malaria. It was a sudden freak of thought, 
 and of course an utterly impracticable extravaganza. 
 But, when I meet a ' red-hot ' Wagnerite, I am some- 
 times tempted in a humorous way to say the worst 
 I can upon the other side; and I fear it is some- 
 times, as in this case, taken seriously." 
 
 A curious episode in his connection with "the 
 Music of the Future" was that in 1880 he was 
 appealed to in behalf of Wagner, who had a project 
 of coming to this country to take charge of the 
 presentation of his music-dramas. In the summer 
 of that year he received a letter from Dresden, 
 written by Mr. N. S. Jenkins, who said: "Some 
 time ago I received a letter from my friend, Mr. 
 Richard Wagner, of which I beg to enclose you a 
 translation. Upon passing through Italy some 
 weeks ago, I stayed in Naples (where Mr. Wagner 
 is now residing), and talked over with him the sub- 
 ject upon which he had written me. I found that 
 he was sincerely desirous that his friends in America 
 should be made acquainted with his feelings regard- 
 ing a possible emigration to America, and prom- 
 ised, so soon as I had returned from a journey to 
 the East, to communicate with you. As I am not 
 specially interested in music, and am also by rea- 
 son of a long residence abroad incapacitated from 
 giving an opinion upon the subject of Mr. Wagner's 
 letter, I felt that I could only advise my friend to 
 consult the first musical authority in America, and 
 therefore take the first opportunity of sending you 
 
THE AUTOCRAT OF MUSIC 229 
 
 the enclosed translated copy. May I beg you to 
 kindly send a reply to Mr. Wagner, Villa Augri, 
 Naples. Mr. Wagner is not averse to having this 
 subject discussed among his friends, but he does 
 not wish it to become matter for newspaper com- 
 ment." 
 
 " Your letter of June 1 1 was duly received," 
 Dwight wrote in reply, "and should have been 
 acknowledged before this. But, being puzzled 
 what to say, I have waited to consult various musi- 
 cal people on the subject of Herr Wagner's letter, 
 feeling that I had received it in confidence and 
 could not publish it. 
 
 " I find that it affects almost every one who has 
 read it, even those most inclined to Wagnerism, as 
 an extraordinary and almost insane proposal. You 
 do me too much honor in alluding to me as ' the 
 first musical authority in America ' ; and you will 
 smile, no doubt, to hear that I by no means am 
 counted here among the enthusiasts for Wagner's 
 music, but have been more identified with the 
 opinions of such dissenters as Dr. Hanslick, Ferdi- 
 nand Hiller, Ambros, etc. I cannot, therefore, very 
 well write (as you request) to Wagner himself. 
 
 " The most practical thought that occurs to me is 
 this : Mr. Theodore Thomas, the famous orchestra 
 conductor, and thus far the most active representa- 
 tive of the Wagner movement in this country, is 
 just now in Europe ; and it is said that he went there 
 with the express purpose of visiting Herr Wagner. 
 Probably by this time they have met and talked 
 
230 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 over the whole matter together. Mr. Thomas can 
 speak from a much wider observation of musical 
 matters in all the States than has been possible to 
 me, who hardly ever go away from Boston ; and he 
 can better judge how far the soil is ready for such a 
 planting. 
 
 "Your friend, the Rev. Mr. Twining, has written 
 me a very courteous letter, saying all manner of 
 good things about yourself ; but of this assurance I 
 had no need, since several of my friends here, who 
 have resided in Dresden, knew you well. Among 
 these are Mr. Otto Dresel (now on his way back to 
 Europe) and the family of Mrs. John A. Andrew. 
 
 u Naturally, Herr Wagner's letter, which I have 
 shown to a few, has got pretty widely talked about ; 
 and already the ' irrepressible reporters ' have begun 
 to put paragraphs about it in the newspapers. This 
 may make it necessary for me to print the exact 
 thing. Mr. Twining in his letter to me speaks of 
 your having sent me for publication in my Journal 
 of Music some statements with regard to Herr 
 Wagner's feeling and purposes as to coming to 
 this country." 
 
 Nothing came of this project, of course ; but it is 
 a remarkable fact that, in the midst of his success at 
 Bayreuth, when his fame was established, Wagner 
 had a desire to come to America. It is quite cer- 
 tain, however, that he would have received a greater 
 recognition here than any he met with in Europe, 
 had he carried out his project. 
 
 For many years John S. Dwight was the musical 
 
THE AUTOCRAT OF MUSIC 231 
 
 dictator of Boston, and what he approved was ac- 
 cepted as right and good. He was, in a true sense the 
 autocrat of musical taste ; and no one questioned his 
 opinion, at least with any probability of getting 
 his heresy accepted. He had a remarkable gift for 
 interpreting a musical composition, bringing out 
 its salient points as a work of art, and putting its 
 leading motives into literary form. His aesthetic 
 perceptions were keen, his artistic judgment sound, 
 and his poetic appreciation of a high order. These 
 qualities, along with a vivid imagination, and a 
 charming gift for literary expression, made him an 
 able critic, and one capable of impressing cultivated 
 persons with the value and correctness of his 
 opinions. Those who knew him most intimately 
 felt that he had a wonderful power of expression as 
 a literary interpreter of music, and that his aesthetic 
 sense of what was best in music was very great. 
 To them he always stood for the highest things in 
 music. He held before them a high but sound 
 musical ideal, and they felt that his judgment was 
 not to be questioned. 
 
 At the time when he began to write, Dwight's 
 word was of much value in making cultured people 
 acquainted with the best musical traditions, in 
 pointing out to them clearly what music might 
 become as a means of culture, and in showing them 
 how to translate music into its corresponding poetic 
 meanings. Especially for amateurs, those who re- 
 garded music simply as a means of culture, was this 
 task of real service ; and the effect he produced 
 
232 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 everywhere upon amateurs was great. He showed 
 them what to expect in classic music, how to find 
 it, and how to bring it to bear upon the higher 
 issues of daily living. He preached the gospel of 
 beauty in a way to make it bear fruit of a truly 
 aesthetic kind. But his influence upon musicians 
 of the professional type was also great, in part 
 because he was a most appreciative and sympa- 
 thetic listener, and in part because he criticised 
 without harshness or ill-will. His presence at any 
 kind of musical programme was stimulating to the 
 musicians ; for they knew he came not to condemn, 
 but to admire and approve. He was a personal 
 friend to every musician of any ability in Boston; 
 and he was ready to commend true work of what- 
 ever kind, and to see merit or genius wherever any 
 were to be found. The musical people knew he 
 would treat them well, that he was never unkind 
 or unjust, and he always spoke sincerely what he 
 believed to be the truth. 
 
 For a period of twenty-five or thirty years the 
 general public looked to Dwight to help them form 
 their musical opinions. What he approved was in 
 large degree accepted as right. This leadership he 
 acquired because he earned it and was worthy of it, 
 because he did not abuse it and rarely offended it, 
 because he knew what he wanted and what he 
 believed in, and because he had the gift of convinc- 
 ing other people of the importance and rightness of 
 his point of view. He brought other people to his 
 way of thinking, in a quiet and convincing way, 
 
THE AUTOCRAT OF MUSIC 233 
 
 without dogmatism, and with the conviction that all 
 had been cleared up and made luminous by his in- 
 terpretation. In this he was a master of the art of 
 persuasion, because he knew his own opinions and 
 because he respected the opinions of others. 
 
 The younger men were not always satisfied with 
 the criticisms which Dwight put forth ; and their 
 objections may rightly find utterance here, not be- 
 cause they are wholly accepted, but because they 
 are necessary to a faithful estimate of the man 
 whose labors are under discussion. In the grow- 
 ing period when Dwight was most influential, 
 one of these men has said, it needed a man of 
 literary attainments, of good social standing, re- 
 spected by every one, to supply a pointer, to direct 
 the way to what was best. Dwight filled this place 
 admirably, and influenced the public to see the 
 value of music as a means of culture. Without him 
 Boston would not to-day have reached its high 
 stage of development in music. He had an enor- 
 mous influence for good, did the real thing for the 
 advancement of music in his day, was strong in that 
 he never stultified himself, always was on the side 
 of what was best and noblest, morning and night 
 was faithful to his own convictions, and finally made 
 the public see with him what was good by his sheer 
 love of it, his true appreciation of its merits, and 
 his immense persistence in presenting what was 
 genuinely true. He never cared for what was poor 
 or in any way false, but he had an indomitable 
 loyalty to what is genuine and right. 
 
 Dwight's influence was very important in rousing 
 
234 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 the musical tastes of young people. They read his 
 paper with enthusiasm, and a goodly number of 
 them were guided to a musical career by the stim- 
 ulus of his writings and personal influence. His 
 pure and lofty ideals of music quickened their 
 aesthetic appreciations and stimulated their imagi- 
 nations. Yet the time came when he ceased to be 
 a leader to the young, when the age left him be- 
 hind. His work would be of little value to-day, 
 because his methods and his ideals are outgrown. 
 He had an excessive loyalty to those he learned 
 early in life to appreciate, but he was not able to 
 take up the newer and abler men. He enjoyed 
 music because it was produced by the men he loved, 
 and anything from them he approved ; but, if the 
 name of Wagner, Brahms, or Chadwick, were given 
 to the same composition, he would not accept it. 
 He was not able to make true comparisons in 
 music, his technical knowledge was very limited, 
 and his musical judgment was not trained and skil- 
 ful. He was stubbornly set in his own way, his 
 mind was fixed, and he would not move out of the 
 way in which he had begun to travel. He had 
 made up his mind that such men as Bach and Otto 
 Dresel were right ; and he had no patience with the 
 newer men, was not ready to give them a fair and 
 honest hearing. Not only did he think the music 
 of Wagner ugly, but he had little faith in American 
 composers. Twenty years before he died, Dwight 
 had come to the end of his usefulness, and the age 
 had left him behind. He was not in touch with 
 the newer time, would not move forward with the 
 
THE AUTOCRAT OF MUSIC 235 
 
 development of musical taste, and could not under- 
 stand the rapid growth of music as an art. 
 
 These are the judgments of approval and dissent 
 one may hear about Dwight and his work. In part 
 they are sound, and in part they are the result of 
 pique and jealousy. Without doubt Dwight held 
 his opinions very firmly and with earnest convic- 
 tion. By temperament he was not a Wagnerite, 
 and would not have been so, had he grown up in a 
 Wagner atmosphere. He was by nature an idealist, 
 and belonged to the age when music was the voice 
 of the interior life. The quiet, mystical, introspec- 
 tive mood was his ; and he preferred the music 
 which grew out of the same spirit. The more 
 realistic music of the later time he did not care 
 for, because it did not appeal to him, because it was 
 objective and spectacular, because it grew out of 
 another mood than that in which he lived and had 
 his being. This fact must exonerate him from the 
 charge of a stubborn unwillingness to give heed to 
 the newer music ; for, having given honest attention 
 to it, he deliberately rejected it. Here was Dwight's 
 limitation as a critic, — that he could not rise above 
 personal preference, and judge a work of art by the 
 standard of universal canons. Yet it was because 
 of this very limitation, this intense personal interest 
 and enthusiastic love, that his musical criticisms 
 carried conviction to others. Dwight's power as a 
 critic lay in what he approved, not in what he 
 antagonized. He was able to convince others 
 through his love and enthusiasm; and, where he 
 could not admire, he was powerless. 
 
236 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 Could Dwight have received a thorough musical 
 training, could he have had the wealth which would 
 have enabled him to visit the music centres of 
 Europe freely, and to devote himself without a ques- 
 tion of income to writing what he felt and believed 
 about music, he would have given us as impor- 
 tant and permanent work as any that has ever 
 appeared in the way of musical interpretation. He 
 would have become the great interpreter of music 
 to the English-speaking world. The work he did 
 for a few years in Boston, however, is needed for 
 America to-day, and always will be needed. Such 
 men as Apthorp and Krehbiel, with a technical 
 knowledge and training which Dwight did not 
 possess, because of the very fact that they write for 
 trained musicians, and use the technical vocabulary 
 of the musician, do not reach the general public. 
 Dwight translated music into literary form, showed 
 the public what to find in it, and how to discover 
 its profound spiritual charm and power. This is 
 what no one else has done with anything like such 
 beauty of language or such persuasive skill to con- 
 vince and enlighten. A score or more of his essays 
 on general topics connected with music, scattered 
 through the pages of the Journal of Music and 
 other periodicals, deserve a place alongside the best 
 writings of Ruskin. They have power, insight, 
 grace, and charm. They are not less needed to-day 
 than when they first appeared ; for they discuss the 
 primary and eternal significance of music as an art, 
 its power to enlarge the meanings of life and to 
 purify the soul 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 THE SATURDAY CLUB. 
 
 Dwight had a taste for club life; and he was 
 successively connected with the Transcendental, 
 Town and Country, Saturday, and St. Botolph Clubs. 
 The first of these clubs began in the house of 
 George Ripley, in Boston, in September, 1836; and 
 at the first meeting there were present Ripley, 
 Emerson, Hedge, Francis, Clarke, and Alcott. To 
 the next meeting there came Bartol and Brownson, 
 and soon after Dwight and W. H. Channing were 
 added to the membership. In time came also 
 Theodore Parker, Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Pea- 
 body, and others. Those who attended were drawn 
 together by their common philosophy, and for the 
 sake of the fellowship and sympathy they were able 
 to give each other. Out of this club grew The Dial 
 and Brook Farm ; but, when they were fairly under 
 way, it came to an end. 
 
 When Alcott was living in Boston, in 1849, he 
 brought together at his house a number of his 
 friends for purposes of conversation ; and this meet- 
 ing grew into the Town and Country Club. Its 
 membership included all of those who had been 
 connected with the Transcendentalist Club, and 
 about one hundred others. The club came to- 
 gether at first in order to give a hearing to Mr. 
 Alcott, and it was named by Emerson. There 
 were no dinners. A paper was read in the morning, 
 and a discussion was held in the afternoon. This 
 
238 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 club was described by Lowell, who was a member, 
 as a "singular agglomeration. All the persons 
 whom other folks think crazy, and who return the 
 compliment, belong to it. It is as if all the eccen- 
 tric particles which had refused to revolve in the 
 regular routine of the world's orbit had come to- 
 gether to make a planet of their own." This state- 
 ment was perhaps more witty than truthful ; for 
 among the members were Emerson, Garrison, 
 Phillips, Hedge, Howe, King, Whipple, Higginson, 
 Dwight, Frothingham, and Alger. Higginson early 
 attempted to introduce women into the member- 
 ship, but this movement Emerson brought to an 
 end by crossing off their names from the list of 
 proposed members. In a few months the necessity 
 of having a very small sum from each member, 
 with which to meet the expenses of the club, 
 brought it to a sudden death. 
 
 The Saturday Club originated in Emerson's cus- 
 tom of visiting Boston on the last Saturday of each 
 month to take a look at the new books in the " Old 
 Corner Bookstore " of Phillips & Sampson, who 
 were soon after succeeded by Ticknor & Fields. 
 He was also in the habit of dining on these occa- 
 sions with a few intimate friends at the Albion 
 restaurant or the Parker House. This practice 
 began with him so early as the time of the Town 
 and Country Club, and was perhaps one of the 
 results of the manner in which its meetings were 
 conducted. In his diary, under date of October 14, 
 1854, Alcott made this record: "Dine at the Al- 
 
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 C rU*z J^jL^'L. 
 
 o 
 
 
 'fam 
 
 <& 
 
 o 
 
 O 
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 h 
 
 ,/H** - tc C* 
 
 
 fat 
 
 *&**.. fas*?- 
 
 r^t^Ly 
 
 
 M f. A 
 
 S.0M. 
 
 
 Xr* ie 
 
 
 £ 'jy ^5£^~ 
 
 
 Facsimile of a Diagram of a Saturday Club 
 Dinner, in the handwriting of John S. Dwight. 
 

 a 
 
 '6^U/C- 
 
 AJAJuA 
 
 
THE SATURDAY CLUB 239 
 
 bion with Emerson, Lowell, Whipple, Dwight, 
 Hayne (of South Carolina), and Woodman ; and we 
 arrange to meet there fortnightly hereafter for con- 
 versation." Mr. Frank B. Sanborn records in his 
 Life of Alcott that in December, 1854, he was at 
 the Albion with Emerson, Dwight, Alcott, and an 
 Englishman by the name of Cholmondeley, when 
 various literary topics were discussed. A few 
 months later, during the last week in May, 1855, a 
 dinner was given to Lowell, at the Revere House, 
 by his friends. At the head of the table on this 
 occasion sat Longfellow, and at the foot Felton. 
 On Longfellow's right were Lowell, Agassiz, George 
 T. Davis, F. H. Underwood, Holmes, T. W. Par- 
 sons, Estes Howe, Charles W. Storey, H. Wood- 
 man, and B. Rolker. On his left were Emerson, 
 Edmund Quincy, Charles E. Norton, J. S. Dwight, 
 Thomas G. Appleton, William W. White, John 
 Holmes, Robert Carter, Henry Ware, and Professor 
 Benjamin Peirce. It is evident that the personal 
 and intellectual associations begun in the Transcen- 
 dentalist and Town and Country Clubs continued 
 even after those clubs had ceased their existence, 
 and that from time to time there came together the 
 men who composed them, with others of the same 
 intellectual and literary interests. 
 
 In his biography of Richard Henry Dana, 
 Charles Francis Adams says that, when Emerson 
 visited the bookstore of Phillips & Sampson on 
 the last Saturday of each month, he met there 
 Horatio Woodman ; and by degrees they got into 
 
240 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 the custom of going to the old Albion restaurant or 
 to the Parker House to dine. At this time Dwight 
 was accustomed to dine at the Parker House, and 
 he probably joined Emerson whenever he was 
 there. Then Woodman invited others, including 
 Samuel G. Ward, a banker and one of Emerson's 
 friends. The next person added to the group 
 seems to have been Edwin P. Whipple, the essayist 
 and lecturer, then a rising literary man in Boston. 
 Woodman was a lawyer, a man of attractive social 
 qualities, and one who had a gift for managing 
 such dinners as these. Mr. Sanborn says : " He had 
 no particular sympathy with the Transcendentalists, 
 except as they became famous, but a certain love 
 for literature and literary men. He was also an epi- 
 cure, knowing how to provide good dinners and at 
 which Boston tavern his friends ought to dine." 
 
 It will thus be seen that the Saturday Club owed 
 its existence to accidental causes or to the demands 
 of intellectual fellowship. In 1854 it had taken a 
 definite form, so far at least as it had become an 
 established custom for a few literary friends to meet 
 once a fortnight or once a month for a dinner and 
 literary conversation. Longfellow recorded in his 
 journal that he dined with the club Feb. 28, 1857, 
 at the invitation of Agassiz, and was asked to 
 join it, which he thought he would do. At the 
 meeting of the club in April the fiftieth birthday 
 of Agassiz was recognized. Longfellow presided, 
 and read the poem beginning, — 
 
 It was fifty years ago, 
 
 In the pleasant month of May. 
 
THE SATURDAY CLUB 241 
 
 Clever and humorous poems were also read by 
 Lowell and Holmes. In September, Longfellow 
 says that Charles Mackay dined with the club, that 
 the session was a quiet one, and that the heat of the 
 room took away all life and animation. He men- 
 tions that in May of the next year he again dined 
 with the club, and that he felt vexed on finding 
 plover on the table, and proclaimed aloud his dis- 
 gust at seeing the game laws thus violated. He 
 added that, if any one wanted to break a law, let 
 him break the Fugitive Slave Law, as that is all it 
 is fit for. 
 
 The fullest and most explicit account of the 
 origin of the Saturday Club was that set down in 
 his journal by Richard Henry Dana, the younger, 
 under date of Aug. 6, 1857. " It has become an im- 
 portant and much valued thing to us," he wrote. 
 " The members are Emerson, Longfellow, Agassiz, 
 Lowell, Peirce, Motley, Whipple, Judge Hoar, Fel- 
 ton, Holmes, S. G. Ward, J. S. Dwight, H. Wood- 
 man, and myself. We have no written rules, and 
 keep no records. Our only object is to dine to- 
 gether once a month. Our day is the last Satur- 
 day in every month, and we dine at Parker's. A 
 unanimous vote is required to elect a member. 
 The expense of the dinner is assessed upon those 
 present, and charged at the office, so we have no 
 money affairs to attend to. Guests are permitted, 
 but each man pays for the guest he invites. The 
 club had an accidental origin, in a habit of Emer- 
 son, Dwight, Whipple, and one or two more dining 
 
242 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 at Woodman's room at Parker's occasionally; for 
 Woodman is a bachelor, a literary quidnunc and 
 gossip, or, as Gould says, ' a genius broker.' Ward 
 is a friend of Emerson's, and came. From this the 
 club grew, Ward, Dwight, Woodman, Whipple, and 
 Emerson being the originals. Agassiz, Peirce, and 
 I were early invited to meet with them. This made 
 it more of a regular thing ; and we established our 
 verbal rule as to membership, guests, and expenses. 
 Lowell came in soon after, and then Motley and 
 Longfellow. The first formal vote we had for 
 members was at this stage, for up to this time unani- 
 mous consent was obtained by conversation. The 
 vote brought in Holmes and Felton, which made the 
 number fourteen, as many as we think it best to 
 have." 
 
 The Saturday Club was sometimes known as 
 the Atlantic Club ; but the two were quite distinct 
 from each other, as Dr. Holmes pointed out. Long- 
 fellow says that on May 5, 1857, he dined at the 
 Parker House with Phillips, the publisher, to talk 
 about the new magazine the latter was proposing to 
 publish. The other persons present were Emerson, 
 Lowell, Motley, Holmes, Cabot, and Underwood. 
 
 A letter written by Moses Dresser Phillips, the 
 head of the firm of Phillips & Sampson, and given 
 in Dr. Hale's " James Russell Lowell and his 
 Friends," describes this first dinner given by the 
 publisher to his contributors. Dr. Hale says that 
 this was " the first of a series which the Saturday 
 Club of Boston has held from that day to this day," 
 
THE SATURDAY CLUB 243 
 
 but in this statement he is mistaken. Mr. Phillips 
 wrote to a relative in these words : "I must tell you 
 about a little dinner party I gave about two weeks 
 ago. It would be proper, perhaps, to state that the 
 origin of it was a desire to confer with my literary 
 friends on a somewhat extensive literary project, 
 the particulars of which I shall reserve till you come. 
 But to the party. My invitations included only 
 R. W. Emerson, H. W, Longfellow, J. R. Lowell, Mr. 
 Motley (the ' Dutch Republic ' man), O. W. Holmes, 
 Mr. Cabot, and Mr. Underwood, our literary man. 
 Imagine your uncle at the head of such a table, with 
 such guests. The above-named were the only ones 
 invited, and they were all present. We sat down 
 at 3 p.m., and rose at 8. The time occupied was 
 longer by about four hours and thirty minutes than 
 I am in the habit of consuming in that kind of 
 occupation, but it was the richest time intellectu- 
 ally by all odds that I have ever had. Leaving my- 
 self and * literary man ' out of the group, I think 
 you will agree with me that it would be difficult to 
 duplicate that number of such conceded scholarship 
 in the whole country besides. Mr. Emerson took 
 the first post of honor at my right, and Mr. Long- 
 fellow the second at my left. The exact arrange- 
 ment of the table was as follows : — 
 
 
 Mr. Underwood. 
 
 
 Cabot. 
 
 
 Lowell. 
 
 Motley. 
 
 
 Holmes. 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 Phillips. 
 
 Emerson, 
 
244 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 " They seemed so well pleased that they adjourned, 
 and invited me to meet them again to-morrow, when 
 I shall again meet the same persons, with one other 
 (Whipple, the essayist) added to that brilliant con- 
 stellation of Philosophical, Poetical, and Historical 
 talent. Each one is known alike on both sides of 
 the Atlantic, and is read beyond the limits of the 
 English language. Though all this is known to 
 you, you will pardon me for intruding it upon you. 
 But still I have the vanity to believe that you will 
 think them the most natural thoughts in the world 
 to me. Though I say it that should not, it was the 
 proudest day of my life." 
 
 In i860 James T. Fields, of Ticknor & Fields, 
 then the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly, break- 
 fasted Longfellow, Bryant, Holmes, and others. 
 Such gatherings as these, called together by the 
 publishers of the magazine to bring about acquaint- 
 ance and good fellowship amongst its leading con- 
 tributors, and that suggestions might be secured as 
 to its management, formed what has properly been 
 called the Atlantic Club. It included many of the 
 members of the Saturday Club ; but they were not 
 only not the same, but they had no connection with 
 each other except as the same persons belonged to 
 both. In his biography of Emerson, Dr. Holmes 
 says that the Atlantic Club never had an existence, 
 and that there had erroneously been supposed to be 
 some connection between the Saturday Club and 
 the Atlantic Monthly. On the other hand, Francis 
 H. Underwood, who took an active part in bring- 
 
THE SATURDAY CLUB 245 
 
 ing the magazine into existence, and who was the 
 assistant or office editor for some years from its 
 very beginning, said in a letter to Dr. Holmes : 
 ' : You remember that the contributors met for din- 
 ner regularly. It was a voluntary, informal associa- 
 tion. The invitations and reminders were from my 
 hand, as I conducted the correspondence of the 
 magazine. I have hundreds of letters in reply, and 
 it is my belief that the association was always 
 spoken of either as the Atlantic Club or the At- 
 lantic dinner. Your very decided statement seems 
 to me (in the ordinary use of phrases) erroneous/' 
 In his biography of Dr. Holmes, Mr. John T. 
 Morse confounds the Atlantic dinners and break- 
 fasts with the meetings of the Saturday Club, 
 though Dr. Holmes himself did not fall into such 
 an error. He did somewhere speak of the Atlantic 
 Club as "supposititious," and it is this statement 
 against which Mr. Underwood protested. The fact 
 seems to be that the Atlantic Club consisted only 
 of the gatherings of the contributors to the Atlantic 
 Monthly, on invitation of the publishers, who on 
 such occasions gave them a breakfast or a dinner. 
 
 It was natural that the Saturday Club should 
 have been given the name of the Atlantic on the 
 part of outsiders, who recognized the fact that many 
 of the members contributed to the magazine. The 
 Saturday Club was also sometimes spoken of as the 
 Literary Club, and it was popularly designated as 
 Emerson's or Agassiz's club. It was also now and 
 again laughed at as "The Mutual Admiration So- 
 
246 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 ciety," probably by those who would have been 
 rejoiced to have secured entrance to it. Of this 
 designation of the club Dr. Holmes wisely said, 
 41 If there was not a certain amount of mutual 
 admiration among some of those I have mentioned 
 [as members], it was a great pity, and implied a 
 defect in the nature of men who were otherwise 
 largely endowed." In 1859 Richard Henry Dana 
 dedicated his " To Cuba and Back " to " the gentle- 
 men of the Saturday Club," and this fact suffi- 
 ciently fixes the name made use of by the members 
 from the beginning. 
 
 In his account of the club, Dana says that it was 
 thought best not to have more than fourteen mem- 
 bers. His biographer tells us that this limit was 
 imposed by Dana himself, and in a somewhat arbi- 
 trary manner. " In other words, Dana, in this as 
 in other cases, held himself high, and believed in 
 exclusiveness. Accordingly, though never allowing 
 his position to be misunderstood, he had been 
 liberal with his blackballs. The result was that, in 
 order to elect any one, it became necessary for the 
 other members to watch for some occasion when 
 Dana was away, and then rush in their candidate 
 before he got back." 
 
 The original fourteen members of the club appear 
 on its printed lists in this order : Emerson, Whipple, 
 Woodman, Dwight, Ward, R. H. Dana, Jr., Agassiz, 
 Peirce, Lowell, Longfellow, Motley, Felton, Holmes, 
 Hoar. In 1857 the club seems to have been some- 
 what more fully organized, and members were ad- 
 
THE SATURDAY CLUB 247 
 
 mitted by a formal vote. Prescott and Whittier 
 were admitted in 1858; Hawthorne, Thomas G. 
 Appleton, and John M. Forbes, in 1859 ; Charles E. 
 Norton, in i860; James Elliot Cabot, Samuel G. 
 Howe, Frederic Hedge, and Estes Howe, in 1861 ; 
 Charles Sumner, in 1862; Henry James, in 1863; 
 Martin Brimmer, James T. Fields, S. W. Rowse, 
 and John A. Andrew, in 1864; Jeffries Wyman, in 
 1866; Edmund W. Gurney, in 1867; William M. 
 Hunt, in 1869 ; Charles Francis Adams and Charles 
 W. Eliot, in 1870; Charles C. Perkins, in 187 1; 
 Francis Parkman, Alexander Agassiz, Richard 
 Henry Dana, Sr., Wolcott Gibbs, Horace Gray, 
 and Edward N. Perkins, in 1873; Asa Gray and 
 William Dean Howells, in 1874; Edmund Quincy 
 and Edward L. Godkin, in 1875; William B. 
 Rogers, William Amory, James Freeman Clarke, 
 Phillips Brooks, William W. Story, and George F. 
 Hoar, in 1877; John Lowell and Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes, Jr., in 1880; Theodore Lyman and Will- 
 iam James, in 1881 ; Francis A. Walker and Charles 
 F. Adams, Jr., in 1882; Frederick Law Olmsted, 
 Raphael Pumpelly, H. H. Richardson, and William 
 Endicott, Jr., in 1883; William C. Endicott and 
 William W. Goodwin, in 1885. 
 
 Before this last date the club had adopted an in- 
 formal organization ; and Dr. Holmes was the presi- 
 dent, with his son as secretary and treasurer. In 
 1886 William Amory made a gift of five hundred 
 dollars to the club ; and, in order to hold this sum 
 of money, it was incorporated. The act of incorpo- 
 
248 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 ration was dated Feb. i, 1886, and says that "Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes, J. R. Lowell, John S. Dwight, 
 Ebenezer R. Hoar, Charles W. Eliot, E. P. Whipple, 
 and J. M. Forbes have associated themselves with 
 the intention of forming a corporation under the 
 name of The Saturday Club, for the purpose of the 
 establishment and maintenance of a place for social 
 meetings, and for having conversation and discus- 
 sion upon historical, literary, scientific, and artistic 
 subjects, and to hold and expend any funds given or 
 bequeathed for its support." 
 
 Two days previous to the date of incorporation 
 the club adopted a simple form of organization, 
 which provided for a president, three directors, a 
 clerk and treasurer, to be elected at the annual 
 meeting in January in each year. New members 
 are to be elected by ballot ; the regular meetings are 
 to be held on the last Saturday of each calendar 
 month, except July, August, and September, at the 
 Parker House in Boston ; and the corporation is 
 not to make any assessment upon the members nor 
 incur any debt. Following the incorporation of the 
 club, John C. Gray and Edward C. Pickering were 
 admitted in 1887; Thomas B. Aldrich, in 1888; 
 Edward Waldo Emerson, in 1889; Walbridge A. 
 Field, in 1891 ; Henry L. Higginson, Edward W. 
 Hooper, and Henry P. Walcott, in 1893. During 
 the three years following, William Sturgis Bigelow, 
 Samuel Hoar, Charles S. Sargent, and Moorfield 
 Storey were admitted. More recent additions have 
 been Charles Francis Adams, 2d, Charles R. Cod- 
 
THE SATURDAY CLUB 249 
 
 man, James M. Crafts, William G. Farlow, John 
 Fiske, Richard Olney, and Roger Wolcott. 
 
 When the club was incorporated, Dr. Holmes was 
 elected president, which position he held until his 
 death. He was succeeded by Walbridge A. Field, 
 chief justice of the Supreme Court of Massachu- 
 setts. Among those who have served as directors 
 have been Ebenezer R. Hoar and Charles W. Eliot. 
 Professor William W. Goodwin, of Harvard Uni- 
 versity, has been the clerk and treasurer for a con- 
 siderable number of years. 
 
 An interesting incident in the early history of the 
 club was that Emerson, Hawthorne, and E. Rock- 
 wood Hoar, living at Concord, to which the Fitch- 
 burg Road then had no train running after the club 
 broke up, were obliged to leave in the midst of the 
 session or remain in town over the night and Sun- 
 day. Under these conditions, Judge Hoar provided 
 a remedy by having his carryall meet them at Wal- 
 tham, and convey them to their homes. It may be 
 supposed that this last part of the journey may have 
 had in store the best wine of the feast ; for Lowell 
 describes Agassiz at the club meetings as listening 
 intently to Hoar, 
 
 Pricked with the cider of the Judge's wit 
 (Ripe-hearted homebrew, fresh and fresh again). 
 
 The reason for this night ride will be seen from a 
 note made by Emerson in his journal in 1862: 
 " Cramped for time at the club, by late dinner and 
 early hour of the return train, — a cramp which 
 
250 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 spoils a club. For you shall not, if you wish good 
 fortune, even take the pains to secure your right- 
 and-left-hand men. The least design instantly 
 makes an obligation to make their time agreeable, 
 — which I can never assume." 
 
 Another incident was the formation of the Adi- 
 rondack Club, which in August, 1858, made an ex- 
 cursion into the wilderness of the Adirondack 
 Mountains. The party consisted of Emerson, 
 Lowell, Agassiz, Hoar, John Holmes, Wyman, 
 W. J. Stillman, Estes Howe, and Woodman. Lowell 
 was the leader and planned the excursion, though 
 Woodman seems to have been the practical guide 
 and factotum. A rough hut was built on the shore 
 of Follansbee Pond, flannel shirts were worn, fir 
 boughs and blankets furnished the beds, and the 
 fare was the fish and game of the wilderness. 
 After breakfast each morning a mark was shot at, 
 which Agassiz once hit, having never before fired 
 a gun, and steadily refusing to do so again. 
 Emerson bought a rifle which he seems not to have 
 used. A guide one night paddled him into the 
 lake, and a deer was pointed out to him ; but he did 
 not shoot. This trip was described by Emerson in 
 his poem called " The Adirondacks," published in 
 his " May-day, and Other Pieces," 1867. He fitly 
 described the wild life of the woods, saying that 
 
 No placard on these rocks warned to the polls, 
 
 No door-bell heralded a visitor, 
 
 No courier waits, no letter came or went, 
 
 Nothing was ploughed or reaped or bought or sold. 
 
THE SATURDAY CLUB 251 
 
 He describes how Agassiz and Wyman dissected 
 the deer, trout, and other creatures slain in wood 
 and water; and he thus speaks of the manner in 
 which the other members of the party spent their 
 time : — 
 
 All day we swept the lake, searched every cove, 
 Watching when the loud dogs should drive in deer, 
 Or whipping its rough surface for a trout ; 
 Or bathers, diving from the rock at noon ; 
 Challenging Echo by our guns and cries ; 
 Or listening to the laughter of the loon ; 
 Or, in the evening twilight's latest red, 
 Beholding the procession of the pines ; 
 Or, later yet, beneath a lighted jack, 
 In the boat's bows, a silent night-hunter 
 Stealing with paddle to the feeding-grounds 
 Of the red deer, to aim at a square mist. 
 
 Longfellow refused pointedly to go on this ex- 
 cursion, because he had heard that Emerson had 
 bought a gun, and he keenly felt the danger which 
 might arise from such an instrument in the hands 
 of a philosopher, — one more familiar with the infi- 
 nite than with powder and game. When asked 
 why he would not join the party, he said, " Some- 
 body will be shot." 
 
 During the earlier years of the Saturday Club, 
 Horatio Woodman was its purveyor, giving vol- 
 untary attention to the menu and the other necessi- 
 ties of its existence. He was a clever and a witty 
 man, and by his genial comradeship won the friend- 
 ship of men who were drawn to him because of his 
 kindly qualities. Dr. Holmes says that the club 
 
252 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 had no Boswell, and its golden hours passed unre- 
 corded. Mr. Adams expresses the regret that Wood- 
 man did not serve it in this capacity, for he had all 
 the qualities that would have made him successful 
 in such a role, adding that " he had a craving for 
 the acquaintance and society of men of reputation, 
 and indeed lacked only the industry to have been 
 a sort of Boswell. In connection with the Saturday 
 Club, also, an abundant field of interesting gossip 
 and reminiscence opened before him, had he known 
 enough to labor in it. An amusing story-teller, 
 with a natural eye for character and a well-developed 
 sense of humor, Woodman had at his command an 
 almost inexhaustible fund of anecdotes relating to 
 the men who in those days made the Parker House 
 and its somewhat famous restaurant a sort of head- 
 quarters. Though during the Rebellion he was suf- 
 ficiently active and prominent to have been offered 
 the position of Assistant Secretary of War, yet, in 
 his own mind, the great achievement of his life 
 was the founding of the Saturday Club, and his 
 connection with that club, which could only have 
 come about through his being its founder, was the 
 thing of which he most prided himself." 
 
 Horatio Woodman was born in Buxton, Me., 
 March 18, 1821. He studied law in Boston, and 
 after his admission to the bar devoted himself to 
 land-warrant business, and became a large owner of 
 Western lands. After the Civil War, through the 
 influence of Governor John A. Andrew, who was 
 his warmest friend, he carried on an extensive busi- 
 
THE SATURDAY CLUB 253 
 
 ness before the claims and pension departments at 
 Washington. He was lost from the Sound steamer 
 on his way from New York to Boston, January 2, 
 1879. 
 
 After the marriage of Woodman, in 1877, it 
 seems to have in part fallen upon Dwight to man- 
 age the affairs of the club. Writing to a friend in 
 October, 1877, ne said: "We had a delightful club 
 dinner yesterday. William Story sat at my side. 
 J. F. Clarke, too, was there as a new member, and 
 seemed radiantly happy ; also Bayard Taylor, who 
 is giving a course of Lowell lectures on German 
 literature, — how that would have interested you ! 
 I had a long talk with him and Dr. Hedge on the 
 Nibelungen Lied ; and in the evening I heard him 
 lecture on that subject, which was very interesting. 
 His lectures are crowded." Some of Dwight's plans 
 for seating the members and guests, preserved by 
 him, indicate who were present or expected on cer- 
 tain dates. Thus, in April, 1873, his sketch pro- 
 vides for Holmes, Dana, Adams, Howe, Dwight, 
 Eliot, Hoar, and Estes Howe. In May of the 
 same year twenty-one members were present and 
 eight guests. On this occasion Longfellow sat at 
 the head of the table and Agassiz at the foot. On 
 the right of the chairman were Robert Dale Owen, 
 Parkman, Perkins, Dana, Appleton, Dwight, Judge 
 Kent, Holmes, Adams, Senator Boutwell, Forbes, 
 Wyman, and Professor Gurney. On his left were 
 Emerson, H. W. Bellows, Hedge, Henry James, 
 Fields, Eliot, Hoar, Count Corti, C. C. Perkins, 
 
254 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 Cabot, Rev. Charles H. Brigham, H. G. Denny, 
 Whipple, and Dr. E. H. Clark. The journal of 
 Richard Henry Dana gives the reason for so large 
 an attendance. " Our club dined to-day," he wrote, 
 — " the largest number we ever sat down, partly as 
 the last of the season, to which many come, but 
 chiefly to welcome Emerson on his return from 
 Europe and Egypt. It was really rather a brilliant 
 gathering. Yet, as we sit at a long table, and the 
 room is on the street and, being warm, the windows 
 open, we have no general conversation. All the 
 talking is in sets of two to four each. Towards the 
 end of the dinner we change places a little. Emer- 
 son looks years younger for his European tour, and 
 is in good spirits." 
 
 Dana was wrong in saying that this was the last 
 meeting of the season, for at the June dinner Emer- 
 son sat at the head of the table and Agassiz at the 
 foot. There were present Holmes, Brimmer, Peirce, 
 Forbes, Cabot, Dwight, Howe, and Hoar, with 
 Weiss and Barnard as guests. At the January 
 meeting of 1877, Judge Hoar was at the head of the 
 table, and opposite him was Edmund Quincy. On 
 the right of the chairman were Holmes, Harding, 
 C. C. Perkins, Brimmer, Estes Howe, and Dwight; 
 and on his left were Emerson, Parkman, Gibbs, 
 Gray, Godkin, Norton, and Edward N. Perkins. 
 
 A pleasant episode in the history of the club was 
 the admittance of Richard Henry Dana, Sr., the 
 author of " The Buccaneer," " The Idle Man," and 
 other works in prose and poetry, as an honorary 
 
THE SATURDAY CLUB 255 
 
 member of the club, the only person accorded such 
 distinction. Under the date of Oct. 28, 1873, the 
 younger Dana wrote in his journal : "Yesterday my 
 father had a great success and pleasure. I took 
 him to the club to dine. We had Emerson, Long- 
 fellow, Agassiz, Charles Francis Adams, Sumner, 
 Holmes, Judge Hoar, President Eliot, and others, 
 our usual set; and, after a while, Emerson rose 
 and asked a moment's attention, and said : ' We are 
 gratified to-day by the presence of Mr. Dana. He 
 has a higher as well as an older claim on the re- 
 spect and honor of men of letters and lovers of litera- 
 ture than any of us here, and we must not let the 
 occasion go by without an expression of our feeling 
 towards him. I propose that, instead of nominat- 
 ing him for election as a regular member of the 
 club, which we would gladly have done years ago, 
 we unanimously declare him an honorary member 
 and permanent guest of the club,' etc. Agassiz put 
 the question, and they all rose to their feet in re- 
 sponse, and gave him a hearty cheer. It was very 
 gratifying, touching, and in the best possible taste." 
 During the first decade of its existence, at least, 
 before other clubs in great numbers had been or- 
 ganized, the Saturday Club was of real service to 
 its members. It gave them social recreation, and 
 it brought them mental stimulus. It brought to- 
 gether many distinguished people, as Dr. Holmes 
 mentions ; and it was a place where the intellectual 
 leaders of the city could meet men from other cities 
 and other countries in a friendly and happy way. 
 
256 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 " At one end of the table," says Dr. Holmes, " sat 
 Longfellow, florid, quiet, benignant, soft-voiced, a 
 most agreeable rather than a brilliant talker, but a 
 man upon whom it was always pleasant to look, 
 — whose silence was better than any other man's 
 conversation. At the other end of the table sat 
 Agassiz, robust, sanguine, animated, full of talk, boy- 
 like in his laughter." Mrs. Agassiz says that her 
 husband was especially attached to the club ; and 
 Dr. Holmes remarks that "the most jovial man at 
 table was Agassiz, his laugh was that of a big giant." 
 Around him were usually grouped the men of wit, 
 and those who most enjoyed laughter and fun. In 
 this connection Jules Marcou, the biographer of 
 Agassiz, has said that the members " lingered long 
 round the table, while hour after hour passed in 
 animated conversation, in which bon mots and rep- 
 artees were exchanged as rapidly as a discharge of 
 fireworks, — an encounter of anecdote, wit, and eru- 
 dition. At such times Agassiz was at his best, with 
 his inexhaustible bonhomie. With a lighted cigar 
 in each hand, he would force the attention of every 
 one around him. Excited by the pyrotechnic wit 
 of James Russell Lowell, Judge Rockwell Hoar, and 
 Dr. Holmes, Agassiz, whose vivid imagination was 
 always on the qui vive, was not a man to let others 
 eclipse him. Then would come one of his made- 
 up stories, — a mixture of dream and science. If he 
 thought any one in the company was doubting its 
 truth, he would look at him with a dumb request 
 not to betray him. On the next occasion he would 
 
THE SATURDAY CLUB 257 
 
 repeat the same story without any hesitation ; and 
 the third time he told it he was sure that it really 
 happened, and was true." 
 
 Lowell said nothing about the club in his letters, 
 so far as they have been published ; but he wrote 
 to Motley, when ambassador of the United States 
 to Great Britain, " I have never seen society, on the 
 whole, so good as I used to meet at our Saturday 
 Club." In his memorial poem to Agassiz, however, 
 he described the club with a poet's appreciation and 
 sympathy. Of Agassiz and his place at the table 
 these are his words : — 
 
 Once more I see him at the table's head 
 When Saturday her monthly banquet spread 
 
 To scholars, poets, wits, 
 All choice, some famous, loving things, not names, 
 And so without a twinge at others' fames ; 
 
 Such company as wisest moods befits, 
 Yet with no pedant blindness to the worth 
 Of undeliberate mirth, 
 Natures benignly mixed of air and earth, 
 Now with the stars and now with equal zest 
 Tracing the eccentric orbit of a jest. 
 
 Again he says of Agassiz : — 
 
 Ample and ruddy, the board's end he fills 
 As he our fireside were, our light and heat, 
 
 Centre where minds diverse and various skills 
 
 Find their warm nook and stretch unhampered feet. 
 
 I see the firm benignity of face, 
 
 Wide-smiling champaign, without tameness sweet, 
 
 The mass Teutonic toned to Gallic grace, 
 
258 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 The eyes whose sunshine runs before the lips 
 While Holmes's rockets curve their long ellipse, 
 And burst in seeds the fire that burst again 
 To drop in scintillating rain. 
 
 Later on in the poem he describes the breaking 
 up of the club meeting, and says : — 
 
 Now forth into the darkness all are gone, 
 But memory, still unsated, follows on, 
 Retracing step by step our homeward walk, 
 With many a laugh among our serious talk. 
 
 Then follows an account of his conversations 
 with Agassiz as they find their way homeward, and 
 of the reluctant " Good-night " with which they 
 parted from each other when the end of their walk 
 had been reached. 
 
 Dr. Holmes said that he was not able to forget 
 the very modest, delicate, musical way in which 
 Longfellow read his charming verse addressed to 
 Agassiz on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday; 
 and Mrs. Agassiz says the poet had an exquisite 
 touch for occasions of this kind, whether serious or 
 mirthful. If the wit and laughter of the club 
 flowed around Agassiz, the quieter conversation 
 secured its opportunity near Longfellow, on whose 
 left Emerson most often found his place. Long- 
 fellow often spoke of the club in his diary, and with 
 evident enjoyment and appreciation of its meetings. 
 He seldom does more than mention his attendance, 
 with perhaps some brief word as to who was pres- 
 ent and what was done of special importance ; but 
 
THE SATURDAY CLUB 259 
 
 his frequent reference to it indicates how much it 
 was in his life for some years. 
 
 Emerson was described by Dr. Holmes as usually 
 sitting near the Longfellow end of the table, " talk- 
 ing in low tones and carefully measured utterances 
 to his neighbor, or listening and recording any stray 
 word worth remembering on his mental photo- 
 graph." " I went to the club last Saturday," wrote 
 Holmes to Motley in April, 1870, "and met some 
 of the friends you always like to hear of. I sat by 
 the side of Emerson, who always charms me with 
 his delicious voice, his fine sense and wit, and the 
 delicate way he steps about among the words of his 
 vocabulary, and at last seizing his noun or ad- 
 jective, — the best, the only one which would serve 
 the need of his thought." " I well remember 
 amongst other things," says Dr. Holmes again, 
 " how the club would settle itself to listen when 
 Dana had a story to tell. Not a word was missed, 
 and those who were absent were told at the next 
 club what they had lost. Emerson smoked his 
 cigar and was supremely happy, and laughed under 
 protest when the point of the story was reached." 
 Probably no one attended the club more regularly 
 than Emerson, for he greatly enjoyed the meetings ; 
 and he was wont to praise the brilliant conversation 
 he heard there. His own attitude was that of an 
 eager listener, and he took less satisfaction in speak- 
 ing himself than in hearing the clever men about 
 him. In 1864, when the club held a Shaksperean 
 anniversary meeting, he rose to speak, stood for a 
 
260 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 minute or two, and then quietly sat down. Speech 
 did not come, and he serenely permitted silence to 
 speak for him. Emerson continued his connection 
 with the club until about 1875, always taking a 
 warm interest in the meetings until his failing 
 speech and memory made them no longer attrac- 
 tive to him. 
 
 No one can doubt that Dr. Holmes furnished his 
 full share of the wit and wisdom of the club. He 
 has written of it in his biographies of Motley and 
 Emerson, as well as on other occasions. In his 
 letters it was a frequent subject of mention, espe- 
 cially to those correspondents, like Motley and 
 Lowell, who were themselves members of the club. 
 He first mentioned it in his biography of Motley, 
 and then said that " it offered a wide gamut of in- 
 telligences, and the meetings were noteworthy oc- 
 casions. The vitality of this club has depended in 
 a great measure on its utter poverty in statutes and 
 by-laws, its entire absence of formalism, and its 
 blessed freedom from speech-making." His biog- 
 rapher says that outside of his own front door there 
 was nothing that gave him so much pleasure as did 
 the Saturday Club. " He loved it. He hugged the 
 thought of it." He could not keep its affairs out 
 of his letters, and he gossiped about its doings with 
 a flowing pen. Evidently, it had a large place in his 
 heart, because of the fellowship it gave him, and 
 because of the noble men with whom it brought 
 him into frequent contact. 
 
 In writing to Motley in February, 1861, Holmes 
 
THE SATURDAY CLUB 261 
 
 shows how important the club had already become 
 in his life; for he says: "The club has flourished 
 greatly, and proved to all of us a source of the 
 greatest delight. I do not believe there ever were 
 such agreeable periodical meetings in Boston as 
 these we have had at Parker's." Writing to the 
 same friend in 1865, he again expresses his interest 
 in the club meetings. " What a fine thing it would 
 be," he says, " to see you back at the Saturday Club 
 again ! Longfellow has begun to come again. He 
 was at his old place — the end of the table — at our 
 last meeting. We have had a good many of the 
 notabilities here within the last three or four 
 months, and I have been fortunate enough to have 
 some pleasant talks with most of them." " We 
 come together on Saturdays and have good talks, 
 and pleasant," he says in 187 1, "rather than jolly 
 times. Many of your old friends are commonly 
 there, — among the rest, Sumner, not rarely. There 
 is a great deal of good feeling, I think, in our little 
 circle of literary and scientific people. I find Long- 
 fellow peculiarly sweet in disposition, gentle, sooth- 
 ing to be with, not commonly brilliant in conversa- 
 tion, but at times very agreeable, and saying excel- 
 lent things with a singular modesty." Ten years 
 later many changes had taken place in the club. 
 Some of the members had died, and others had 
 gone away to Europe or were too far away from 
 Boston to attend the meetings. " I go to the Satur- 
 day Club quite regularly," wrote Dr. Holmes to 
 Lowell in 1883; "but the company is more of 
 
262 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 ghosts than of flesh and blood for me." He la- 
 mented the fact that Longfellow, Agassiz, Emerson, 
 Lowell, Hawthorne, Motley, and Sumner no longer 
 attended, and added, " I feel as if I belonged to the 
 past." He proposed, however, with the aid of the 
 younger members, to keep the club alive until 
 Lowell could return to give some fresh life to it. 
 He had already lamented that the club was not 
 what it was when Lowell had attended its meetings. 
 Finally, in 1890, he complained that he hardly saw 
 a face of the old times except those of Dwight and 
 Hoar, " where we used to have those brilliant gather- 
 ings." His biographer says that probably no other 
 member of the club felt about it as Dr. Homes did, 
 and adds that, of all who sat at its table, he was by 
 far the most brilliant talker. We may accept this 
 opinion without admitting the truthfulness of Mr. 
 Morse's statement that, if Holmes had travelled 
 largely, he would have held the club in less esteem. 
 Such a statement falsely assumes that more of cos- 
 mopolitanism would have made Dr. Holmes another 
 man, and would have saved him from enjoying the 
 men he met at the Saturday Club. 
 
 Mr. Samuel G. Ward, a resident of Washing- 
 ton, is the only original member of the club now 
 living. The other oldest members are Senator 
 Hoar, Professor Norton, President C. W. Eliot, 
 Judge Gray, E. L, Godkin, and Wolcott Gibbs. 
 There is not in the club at present so large a num- 
 ber of literary men as formerly. A member said 
 of the club, in 1884, that Dr. Holmes was then 
 
THE SATURDAY CLUB 263 
 
 president ; and he was always present at the din- 
 ners, and so were Judge Hoar and Mr. J. M. Forbes. 
 These three, with a few intimate friends, like Lowell 
 and James Freeman Clarke, who came less fre- 
 quently, kept up a steady fire of bright sayings and 
 jokes, to which the younger generation were often 
 glad to listen in silence. Since the death of Dr. 
 Holmes and Judge Hoar everything is changed in 
 this respect; but the dinners of the club still re- 
 main as social and perfectly informal as ever, though 
 the old leaders are gone. 
 
 For twenty years, beginning about 1856, the 
 Saturday was the leading club of Boston; and it 
 contained most of the men of wit, brilliant parts, 
 and literary reputation, who lived in or near the 
 city. It was a gathering of genial friends, who 
 sought good-fellowship and intellectual relaxation. 
 The meetings were social, and not literary. No 
 essays were read, and no lectures were given. 
 At one meeting of the club, when a reporter forced 
 his way into the room before dinner, and asked 
 Dr. Holmes what subjects were to be discussed, he 
 received the reply : " We do nothing but tell our 
 old stories. We never discuss anything." 
 
 Except on rare occasions the literary part of the 
 meeting consisted of conversation only. The dinner 
 was the central object, and that was expected to 
 bring out quite enough of social chat and conversa- 
 tional stir of thought to give the meetings a real 
 interest. There being no rules to observe and no 
 red tape to follow, the meetings were purely infor- 
 
264 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 mal, and therefore cheerful and cordial. All the 
 members knew each other intimately, and conse- 
 quently felt quite at home with each other, and 
 ready for the free expression of thought and senti- 
 ment. Already the club has assumed a consider- 
 able importance in the literary history of Boston, 
 and that importance is likely to increase as the 
 history of the club is more fully known, and as its 
 members are looked at from a time more remote. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 PERSONAL TRAITS. 
 
 Dwight was a small man, short, slender, with a 
 most genial face, kindly and benevolent. He had 
 great sweetness of nature, was most companionable 
 and sympathetic; but he was sometimes irritable, 
 and one of his friends said that he was on occasion 
 "pretty peppery." He was self-conscious, bashful, 
 sensitive, and extremely diffident. It was not un- 
 usual for him, especially as a young man, to blush 
 painfully ; and this trait he never wholly overcame. 
 In general society he was shy and retreating, and 
 he never outgrew this extreme sensitiveness. On 
 the occasion of his first performing the marriage 
 service he was so much impressed that he broke 
 into tears, and had to pause to recover himself. 
 Undoubtedly, this extreme bashfulness, want of self- 
 confidence and self-assertion, had much to do with 
 his retirement from the pulpit. One of his intimate 
 friends in the same profession says he had faith 
 enough, and his beliefs were positive enough, but 
 he was too diffident. 
 
 One who knew Dwight for many years, and came 
 into close business relations with him, says that he 
 was very quiet and mild-mannered, had no bitter- 
 ness in his nature, but that he was very positive in 
 his opinions. He wasted no time on trivial matters, 
 told no stories, but was very enthusiastic about 
 everything which interested him. This reserve or 
 exclusiveness was not in any degree the result of 
 
266 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 hauteur or contempt for others. At heart he was 
 one of the most thoroughly democratic of men. 
 
 Like all men of vivid aesthetic appreciations, he 
 was essentially an aristocrat in his intellectual pref- 
 erences and in the exquisite love of beauty which 
 guided his tastes. He had the artistic tempera- 
 ment, and he had that keen sensitiveness to what is 
 happy and beautiful which that temperament usually 
 gives to those who possess it. 
 
 Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, who knew Dwight at the 
 period of his married life, says that he went into 
 society much, and that he greatly enjoyed it. He 
 was a favorite in the cultured society of the Boston 
 of that time, because of his easy way of accepting 
 things, and because of his literary and musical gifts. 
 He was a quiet, sunny, beaming person. If she 
 met him in the street, he always stopped to talk in 
 a cheery way, but always about subjects of intel- 
 lectual interest, not about the gossip of the day. 
 His usual topic was books or music. 
 
 Dwight had very little practical talent, was al- 
 most helpless about the simple details of daily liv- 
 ing. During the time of his married life his wife 
 watched over him almost as a mother would over 
 her wayward boy, for she had the practical gifts in 
 which he was so deficient. He had no faculty for 
 making money, had little appreciation of its value, 
 was all his life poor, and was not capable of getting 
 on in a thrifty and saving way of life. 
 
 The genial and sympathetic nature of our sub- 
 ject has been well described in a contribution for 
 
PERSONAL TRAITS 267 
 
 these pages from the pen of the venerable and in- 
 cisive preacher, Cyrus A. Bartol, who knew Dwight 
 through many years of intimate association. " John 
 S. Dwight was as gentle as the apostle whose name 
 he bore," says Dr. Bartol. " Sixty years ago he 
 startled the audience he addressed by declaring 
 that God is not to be feared, as the Bible exhorts, 
 but only loved. When blamed for his opinions, he 
 could not make a harsh, but only a smiling reply. 
 He was musical in his writing and in every mood 
 of his mind, which was copied in all the strokes of 
 his pen. A more harmonious feeling than he ex- 
 pressed could not exist. If he had any fault, it was 
 that he did not resent blame, and was thus not 
 quite fit for this warring world. As he sat and 
 listened, he seemed part of the symphony or song. 
 Such a nature seems to come and go as unnoted 
 as sunshine or the summer's breath. But, like the 
 genial elements, it moulds and softens the universal 
 frame, outlasting every storm. Without a word 
 comes nature's bloom or fruit. Our subject had as 
 little sound or show." 
 
 The sunny and hopeful nature of Dwight's char- 
 acter has been spoken of, and that cheerfulness ap- 
 peared in every phase of his life. He could not be 
 conquered by disappointments or failures, but per- 
 sistently looked on the bright side of life, and con- 
 tinued to believe steadfastly in its underlying good. 
 He was one of the most hopeful of optimists who 
 ever lived, and persistently refused to surrender to 
 the evil and the gloom of life. 
 
268 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 Dwight's keen enjoyment of everything healthy, 
 beautiful, and loving, was a noticeable feature in 
 his character. Mrs. John A. Andrew, who knew 
 him intimately for many years, has said that he had 
 a great capacity for enjoyment, finding pleasure in 
 the little things about him, being keenly alive to 
 their beauty or fitness or the mere charm of their 
 existence. He found pleasure in watching the fire- 
 flies, when on a visit to the country in summer, or 
 the apples on the trees. His little country walks 
 would give him exquisite enjoyment, as he gazed 
 at the water, watched a beautiful sunset, or took an 
 interest in the katydids. Another woman saw the 
 same thing in him, and has thus borne testimony 
 to it : "I think one of Mr. Dwight's finest traits 
 was his keen instinct for and appreciation of the 
 highest and noblest things in life, whether in art, 
 literature, or the character of men and women 
 whom he knew and met. He seemed to gravitate 
 naturally towards the beautiful, and to have a re- 
 sponsiveness towards all the most ideal and finest 
 sides of life." 
 
 One of Dwight's lifelong friends has said that 
 his " love of flowers was a passion. He made us 
 first acquainted with the Northampton flowers," 
 she writes, " which were of any rarity. None of us 
 young people had ever seen an Arethusa until he 
 brought us handfuls of them ; and I might say the 
 same of countless flowers of literature." Although 
 city born and bred, and a man of the city nearly all 
 his life, yet he was a genuine lover of nature, His 
 
PERSONAL TRAITS 269 
 
 delight in the simpler forms of the outward world 
 was of an almost exuberant character. Certainly, it 
 was intense and never-failing. His fondness for 
 flowers was that of a poet, and he could never 
 enjoy them too often or too keenly. All living, 
 growing, happy things appealed to him ; and he 
 seemed to appreciate them as if they were persons 
 who could respond with love for love. 
 
 What one has called " that benign, intellectual, 
 sunlit face of his " attracted many persons. John 
 Holmes, the most intimate of his friends from the 
 time of their college days, has said : " Dwight used, 
 at rather long intervals, to visit me in the classic 
 Appian Way ; and the beaming benevolence of his 
 aspect made quite an impression on my household, 
 which still remains." " He was more than a friend 
 to me, and I revered him as I would a father," says 
 the principal of the Perkins Institution for the 
 Blind. Another of his lifelong friends has said of 
 his letters : " They were always interesting, and I 
 was always glad to get them. How could they be 
 otherwise from a writer whose spirit was so pro- 
 foundly impressed with not only the deepest musi- 
 cal harmonies, but those also of the great world it- 
 self in all its relations ? He was very often my 
 guest, and his visits were always most welcome." 
 
 One who was a member of Dwight's family for 
 a time has written of him : " I do not know any 
 one who can do justice to his character. He was 
 unique, as pure and lovely a soul as I ever met in 
 man. He needs many biographers, he was so 
 
270 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 many-sided." One of these many sides of Dwight's 
 nature has been interpreted by another friend, who 
 has written : " I could weave my thoughts of him 
 into a romance. He was surrounded with a glamour 
 from my youthful discipleship, when he was the 
 apostle of music ; and, when I came to know him, 
 I never could feel in his company that Pan was 
 dead. His touch with life — with sunshine, music, 
 poetry, flowers, even food and wine — made me 
 feel inclined to look for the ' furry ears.' I am the 
 victim of imagination, and perhaps John Dwight 
 was something very different from this ; but he had 
 this suggestion, too, I know, — and this was why 
 I loved him." 
 
 Dwight was not a student in the sense of being 
 a persistent questioner of any special form of truth. 
 He was not even a student of music in the tech- 
 nical sense. His habitual life was not that of 
 the intellect, but rather that of imagination and 
 feeling. He lived to enjoy rather than to know. 
 He cared less for truth than for aesthetic fulness 
 of being, to feel and to love what is beautiful. 
 
 Dwight's voice was pleasant and winning. He 
 spoke slowly, with poise and equilibrium. He 
 shrank from speaking in public, except in the circle 
 of his own intimate associates. Yet, when he did 
 speak, it was with apparent readiness, slowly, with 
 evident desire to find the right word, and with care 
 to state his argument with precision. His conver- 
 sation was joyous, almost exuberant with intimate 
 friends, hopeful and cheerful in the highest degree. 
 
PERSONAL TRAITS 271 
 
 He had a charming, playful humor, quick and sym- 
 pathetic enjoyment of all around him, the keenest 
 relish of free social intercourse, and a warm interest 
 in all that was sparkling, bright, and amusing. 
 
 It may be truly said that Dwight had a gift for 
 friendship. The circle of his friends was a wide 
 one, and it included many of the noblest men and 
 women in New England and New York during his 
 time. In early life he sat at the feet of Dr. Chan- 
 ning, and imbibed the spirit of that great preacher. 
 Among his friends, during the period of his life 
 as a minister, were Samuel Osgood, Frederic H. 
 Hedge, Henry W. Bellows, and Charles T. Brooks. 
 He was a great admirer of Hedge, was much in- 
 fluenced by his thought, and continued his regard 
 for him to the end of his life. With Brooks the in- 
 timacy was a very close one, and was never broken. 
 He came close to Parker in his intellectual convic- 
 tions, though so wide apart from him in his sym- 
 pathies. For a few years they saw much of each 
 other, and sought each other's society with warm re- 
 gard. All the men and women who were at Brook 
 Farm came into the circle of Dwight's friends, 
 and the cordial relation between them was con- 
 tinued throughout life. One of the closest of these 
 friendships was that with George W. Curtis. Until 
 Curtis settled in New York, their correspondence 
 was frequent ; and never many months, so long as 
 Curtis lived, passed without an interchange of let- 
 ters. They confided in each other, and poured out 
 the secrets of the heart. From this time, too, 
 
272 - JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 dated most friendly relations with Emerson, Low- 
 ell, Holmes, Fields, Underwood, and how many 
 more! 
 
 From the days of the Associationists and 
 Dwight's connection with the Boston Chronotype 
 dates his friendship with Dr. S. G. and Mrs. Julia 
 Ward Howe. Dr. Howe had a general sympathy 
 with the associationist movement, enough so to at- 
 tach Dwight to him ; and the acquaintance ripened 
 into the warmest friendship. In the Howe family 
 Dwight was almost domesticated, and was trusted 
 and loved. This regard passed into warmest at- 
 tachment and veneration on the part of the chil- 
 dren and grandchildren of the family. Almost as 
 cordial was his relation with the family of Governor 
 John A. Andrew and several other of his more in- 
 timate friends. He won their confidence, he se- 
 cured their love, and they became most warmly 
 attached to him. This was due in no small degree 
 to his own sympathetic and affectionate nature, 
 which drew others to him, because he gave himself 
 to them with such fidelity and appreciation. 
 
 One source of Dwight's attachment to the fami- 
 lies of his friends was his love for children. This 
 love was almost unbounded in its devotion and 
 quickness of sympathy. Children trusted and 
 loved him, clung to him with passionate attach- 
 ment, and confided to him their hopes and griefs. 
 This fondness for him remained when the girls had 
 grown into maidenhood ; and he had always two or 
 three maidens to whom he was devoted, with whom 
 
PERSONAL TRAITS 273 
 
 his friendship was intimate, who trusted him as a 
 comrade, and who had an unbounded admiration 
 for him. It was usual for him to take one or two 
 of these girls with him to concerts. He advised 
 them as to their intellectual pursuits, and he exer- 
 cised an important influence on their lives. It is 
 quite unusual for old persons to have so many 
 warm friends among those of the younger genera- 
 tions as he did. It was a great delight to him to 
 take the children of his friends to concerts, and 
 give them their earliest hearings of the music of 
 the great masters. He was never so happy as 
 when with congenial companions, young or old ; 
 and it is no wonder if at times this pleasure colored 
 a little too highly his enjoyment of events, but it 
 never warped his judgment when in a serious mood. 
 He was greatly dependent on such associations for 
 his relish of life, and friendship was to him an es- 
 sential of his being. He lived in those he loved, 
 and found life momentarily good or bad according 
 to his personal associations. 
 
 It shows one of the nobler sides of human nature 
 when we consider the cordial way in which Dwight 
 was sustained by his friends. Without money him- 
 self and without the gift for making it, his friends 
 stood by him in his enterprises for the promotion of 
 the interests of music, again and again helped him 
 to the financial means to carry on his labors. They 
 rallied around him whenever a pinch came, making 
 sure that his labors should not come to an end, and 
 giving freely to him in such a way as to make the 
 
274 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 interests of culture, and not his own personal needs, 
 the object of their help. Their devotion to him 
 through many years shows his own winning per- 
 sonal qualities in the brightest light, partly because 
 he could win and hold such loyalty, and partly 
 because he could so completely lose sight of him- 
 self in that for which he lived, — the promotion 
 of the highest interests of art. Even the young 
 people who loved him so well felt that it was an 
 honor to help such a man in his devotion to music ; 
 and some of them once held a concert, from the 
 proceeds of which they handed him six hundred 
 dollars. 
 
 It may be said of Dwight that he knew how to 
 give with enthusiasm, as well as how to receive 
 with self-respect. No one could have been more 
 ready to help others than he, or oftener moved to 
 give a helping hand. When the library of one 
 of his friends was offered for sale because ill-health 
 had brought poverty, Dwight set to work and se- 
 cured the aid which made that sacrifice unnecessary. 
 Among the visitors at Brook Farm was Signora 
 Elisa Biscaccianti, a beautiful Italian singer. Mis- 
 fortunes came to her in later years. She wrote to 
 Dwight of her troubles, and he did all which was 
 possible to aid her in her poverty and sorrow. 
 Joseph Trenkle was a young musician in Boston of 
 great promise. Disease came upon him, and he was 
 obliged to seek a milder climate. Dwight organized 
 a concert, sent his friend a generous contribution, 
 which enabled the young man to settle in California 
 
PERSONAL TRAITS 275 
 
 and to do much for music before consumption 
 claimed him. 
 
 From his position as the widely known leader of 
 the musical interests of Boston, Dwight was con- 
 stantly appealed to for advice and help. He was 
 most generous in giving his own time to the friends 
 who thus called upon him, and not less freely to 
 the strangers, who were many. There came re- 
 quests for advice as to teachers, musical instru- 
 ments, and the study of music. Facts historical, 
 biographical, and literary were desired. Aid for 
 this, that, and the other, was requested. Among 
 these requests was one from George Ticknor, ask- 
 ing for a list of two or three hundred of the best 
 books on music, such as ought to be purchased for 
 the Boston Public Library. Another was from 
 Andrew D. White, asking his aid in securing a 
 suitable person to fill the professorship of music in 
 Cornell University. Still another was from Henry 
 Ward Beecher, asking advice as to a musical con- 
 ductor for his church. To all these requests Dwight 
 gave sympathetic reply, and such help as was in 
 his power. They came frequently, because it was 
 known that he was ready to respond, and because 
 he gave as freely as he received. His was not a 
 stinted sympathy, but responsive and intelligent. 
 He was very generous, and very fond of making 
 presents of rare books or of fine editions of Beet- 
 hoven's sonatas. When Mrs. Anagnos died, he 
 presided at a memorial service in a most sympa- 
 thetic and inspiring manner, reading a poem of 
 cordial appreciation of her gifts as a woman. 
 
276 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 This gift for friendship put Dwight into kindly 
 relations with the musicians of Boston, and won for 
 him their most cordial support. They criticised 
 him on occasion, and sometimes sharply ; but they 
 knew his generous nature, and that he desired to 
 help them in every way possible. They trusted 
 him therefore, and gave him their admiration and 
 support. 
 
 At the Symphony concerts it was Dwight's habit 
 to sit in the front seat of the left balcony, very near 
 the stage. At the Handel and Haydn concerts he 
 always had the same seat, about the middle of the 
 floor. He took no notes, was always promptly in 
 his seat, and was very impatient if obliged to wait 
 for those he invited to accompany him. He stud- 
 ied the composition beforehand, trusted to his im- 
 pressions, and wrote fluently of what he had heard 
 and felt. His writing, when at its best, had the 
 appearance of being produced easily and in elo- 
 quent strain, the outgushing of a full mind and 
 deep feeling. In fact, he often wrote slowly, with 
 careful refinement and deliberation, correcting and 
 rewriting with much painstaking. 
 
 When all went as he desired, Dwight was a gen- 
 erous and amiable presiding officer; but, when any- 
 thing he decidedly disapproved came forward, he 
 always managed to prevent its acceptance. This 
 feature of his character is shown clearly in some 
 reminiscences furnished by Mr. William F. Ap- 
 thorp, who says : — 
 
 " The time when I saw most of Dwight was from 
 
PERSONAL TRAITS 277 
 
 twenty to twenty-five years ago, — before I was mar- 
 ried ; and I used to pass a good many evenings in 
 his company, into the small hours, across a table in 
 the Parker House restaurant. But with my mar- 
 riage came a truce to das Wirthshauslaufen ; and, 
 as I got busier and busier, I found less and less 
 opportunity to share in that do Ice far niente which 
 made up a good part of his life. I have no definite 
 recollection of any of our old Parker House chats. 
 They were too long ago, and I really don't think 
 we talked about much of anything in particular. 
 He never talked as he wrote. 
 
 " After his election as president of the Harvard 
 Musical Association, I continued to meet him a 
 good deal on committees, of several of which I 
 was a member in those days. He always presided, 
 and I think I could swear before a jury that in no 
 single instance did any pressure succeed in induc- 
 ing him to put a motion which he did not like. 
 His obstinacy in this matter was so marked that it 
 has crowded all else out of my memory. 
 
 " I do, however, remember one comical incident 
 which well exemplified a certain mental trait of his. 
 We were sitting in committee one afternoon, in the 
 old Harvard Musical rooms in Pemberton Square, 
 and discussing things rather lazily and desultorily, 
 as was our wont. James T. Fields — who was a 
 member of the Association, though not on the com- 
 mittee — happened to drop in, to get a book out of 
 the library. Finding a committee in session, he 
 was about to beat a hasty retreat, when Dwight 
 called out to him : — 
 
278 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 " ' Oh, don't go, Fields, — don't go. You won't 
 trouble us in the least. We will make you member 
 of the committee pro tern. Sit down and tell us 
 something.' 
 
 " Fields accepted the invitation, and, after a little 
 chit-chat, said : — 
 
 " ' By the way, gentlemen, I have just seen some- 
 thing on a publisher's price-list that struck me as 
 something out of the common. It was the title of 
 a song, — " Give my chewing-gum to Gerry." I have 
 been bothering my head ever since to try to imag- 
 ine what on earth the next line can be.' 
 
 "We all laughed; and, just as the conversation 
 was about to turn to other topics, Dwight called 
 out: — 
 
 " ' Fields, that was a strange freak of fancy, — that 
 title you just mentioned. What could have sug- 
 gested such a curious connection of ideas ? Let me 
 see, what was the title ? ' " 
 
 " ' " Give my chewing-gum to Gerty," ' repeated 
 Fields. 
 
 " * Strange, very strange, indeed,' Dwight went on. 
 ' Chewing-gum, — yes, I can understand chewing- 
 gum being made the subject of a popular song now- 
 adays. People make songs on pretty much every- 
 thing. But what bothers me is the other part, — why 
 especially to Goethe ? ' 
 
 " As an instance of Dwight's immovableness, the 
 late Otto Dresel once told me : ' The other day I 
 made up my mind that I would, for once, force 
 Dwight to make the first move, even at the risk 
 
PERSONAL TRAITS 279 
 
 of my life. It was an awful afternoon, with east 
 wind and rain and sleet and everything horrible. 
 I met him on Tremont Street, just opposite the 
 West Street gate. I stopped him in the middle of 
 the street, and began talking with him. There we 
 stood, in the middle of the crossing, in all the wind 
 and cold rain, with the horse-cars running on one 
 side of us, and the carriages rushing on the other. 
 Well, — will you believe it ? — after half an hour by 
 the Park Street clock, I had to give in, or I should 
 be dead now with pneumonia. Dwight would not 
 budge, nor give the faintest sign of intending ever 
 to budge ! I had to make the first move, after all' 
 " Another incident occurs to me, illustrating 
 Dwight's good nature, and his willingness to laugh 
 at a joke against himself. It was at a meeting of 
 the Harvard Musical Association concert com- 
 mittee for the purpose of assigning seats to the 
 subscribers to the symphony concerts. The seats 
 were to be drawn by lot. For once, Dwight made 
 the unusual concession to parliamentary law of 
 moving that S. Lothrop Thorndike should take the 
 chair, as he himself would like to take part in the 
 discussion of certain matters. When Thorndike 
 had been voted into the chair, Dwight made a mo- 
 tion that, as he (Dwight) really managed the con- 
 certs, he might be allowed to select his seats before 
 the drawing by lot, it being important to him to 
 have seats from which he could easily leave the hall 
 at any time during the concert, as he often had to 
 consult with the musicians. Thorndike imme- 
 
280 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 diately said, ' Gentlemen, you have heard the mo- 
 tion, which is to the effect that, in consequence of 
 the necessity Mr. Dwight labors under of having to 
 go out every now and then to see a man,' — A 
 shout of laughter interrupted him, and Dwight was 
 the heartiest laugher there." 
 
 In religion Dwight was a follower of Emerson 
 and Parker, with the one repudiating all formal- 
 ism and creed, and with the other holding to the 
 conviction that Christianity is the absolute religion. 
 He was of the same mind with Emerson in his 
 repudiation of the organized religion about him, 
 not attending church for many years, and holding 
 toward the churches an attitude of dislike of their 
 methods and spirit. He hated all formality in re- 
 ligion ; but his attitude in this respect, as one of 
 his most intimate friends has said, was quite unlike 
 his sweet and generous self. 
 
 If Dwight was mistaken in his religious attitude, 
 it was in believing too much and not in believing 
 too little. He repudiated the historic and conven- 
 tional, but with the conviction that he was thereby 
 holding all the more firmly to what is spiritual and 
 eternal. He agreed with Emerson in holding that 
 the communion of the soul with God is too sacred 
 for public prayer, and he could not believe that 
 spiritual trust gives any sanction to petitions for 
 material blessings. He did not hold with the sci- 
 entist that prayer is of no avail, but that it is the 
 private communion of the soul with God, — too holy 
 for any outward expression, too interior in its spir- 
 itual import for any formal utterance. 
 
PERSONAL TRAITS 281 
 
 Theodore Parker's belief that in its great spir- 
 itual teachings Christianity is the absolute religion 
 was also accepted by Dwight. This opinion he 
 very clearly stated in his essay on Common Sense, 
 where he asks : " What is the religion of common 
 sense ? Is not that — I ask with reverence — the 
 proud distinction of Christianity ? The simplest of 
 all religions, the faith which Jesus of Nazareth 
 lived and taught, finds its response and welcome in 
 the nobler common sense of man. I mean the 
 Christianity of Christ himself, as illustrated in the 
 whole spirit of his own short life on earth, and not 
 that of the churches, creeds, and artificial, subtle 
 schemes of dogma." 
 
 It will be seen that, in these opinions, Dwight 
 put himself into sympathy with the mystics of all 
 ages. He was not a rationalist, for he found the 
 centre of his faith in feeling ; and the emotional 
 life afforded him whatever is best in religion. He 
 overlooked in some measure the great need men 
 have for union with each other in worship, and that 
 such union necessitates what is conventional or 
 what all can agree upon as fit symbol for the in- 
 ward conviction. He was right enough, however, 
 in insisting that the soul is its own witness of God, 
 and that all forms are nothing more than forms, as 
 often hiding as revealing the interior fact. His 
 appeal to feeling was of great interest, because he 
 made music his chosen form for the interpretation 
 of the soul's needs. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 THE CLOSING YEARS. 
 
 It was not left for Dwight to undertake any 
 great task after the closing of the Journal of Music. 
 Yet the dozen years more of his life were busy 
 ones, and quite in harmony with those which had 
 preceded. He wrote several papers on the history 
 of music in Boston, and he produced several essays 
 of much value on topics which had always in- 
 terested him. He continued his work as presi- 
 dent of the Harvard Musical Association, and he 
 gave much attention to the improvement of its 
 library. 
 
 In July, 1880, occurred the death of his lifelong 
 friend, George Ripley, who had perhaps been 
 nearer to him than any other of his many friends. 
 They were of one mind on nearly all questions 
 which interested them both, for many years they 
 had counselled and cheered each other, and they 
 had been closely associated under circumstances 
 which cemented their affection. Dwight was asked 
 by Mrs. Ripley to act as one of the pall-bearers at 
 the funeral, and he sent this letter in reply : — 
 
 " I feel very grateful to you for thinking of me 
 for one of the pall-bearers at the funeral of my ever- 
 dear and honored friend and old-time associate, the 
 cherished noble partner of your life so many years, 
 George Ripley. The name is sacred to me ; and 
 it seemed to me a sacred duty to go at once and 
 join with other old friends in those last, solemn, 
 
THE CLOSING YEARS 283 
 
 tender services about his grave. But a moment's 
 reflection showed me that, in the critical condition 
 of my affairs, — demanding all my time, — and in 
 the far from sound condition of my health, it would 
 be very imprudent, and might at the last moment 
 prove impossible for me to make the journey in the 
 extreme heat to New York. So, rather than an- 
 swer doubtfully, I telegraphed to Mr. Reid as I did. 
 It was done most reluctantly. My heart yearned 
 to be there. It would have been good for my own 
 soul to share in the last words of farewell and of 
 peace to that hard-working, brave, true, noble friend. 
 As it was, I could but be present in the spirit ; and 
 I passed that hour at my piano, playing from 
 Bach's ' Passion Music ' several chorals, and the 
 profoundly sad yet tender, hopeful Schluss-chor, 
 1 Around thy tomb here sit we weeping.' 
 
 " Indeed, my haunting thought through all these 
 days has been of him. He was, on the whole, the 
 best friend I ever had ; and, though I have not 
 seen him for some years, I have never ceased to 
 think of him with love and gratitude for all the 
 encouragement, the quickening influence, the wise 
 counsel, and the happiness which I derived from in- 
 tercourse with him during so many of the best years 
 of my life, before and during the Brook Farm days, 
 with delightful (only too infrequent) meetings since. 
 I now repent me sadly that I never made the effort 
 to get on to New York during the last year or two, 
 and look upon his benignant face and listen to his 
 cheerful voice again. I had hoped even yet, after 
 
284 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 Mr. Allen's rather favorable report of his condition 
 some ten days ago, to see him once more alive. 
 Alas, too late ! 
 
 " It must be very grateful to you, as it is to me, 
 to read on all sides such heartfelt tributes as his 
 rich, beneficent, well-rounded life and labors have 
 called forth. I trust the record will be embodied 
 in a biography complete enough to be his worthy 
 monument. Accept my heartfelt sympathies in your 
 great loss, — for comfort, what could you have 
 greater than the thought of what he was and did ? 
 — and believe me sincerely your friend." 
 
 To the end of his life Dwight continued to make 
 his summer outings in Newport, Gardiner, and else- 
 where. A letter written to one of his sisters in 
 August, 1882, may find a place here: — 
 
 " My week at Newport was very enjoyable ; and 
 I felt very much refreshed by it, in spite of the great 
 heat and drought there also. The Tweedys were 
 as good and kind as ever, and I saw many pleasant 
 people. One day Brooks and the new young 
 pastor of the Channing Church, Mr. Wendte, dined 
 with us ; also Mrs. Howe and Mr. John Field, a most 
 genial, entertaining man, — an intimate friend of 
 the J. R. Lowells, — who has been living nine years 
 abroad, knows everybody, and has much to tell. 
 He gave us one good anecdote of Carlyle, which he 
 had direct from Robert Browning. It seems the 
 queen one day suggested to Dean Stanley that it 
 would be quite nice if he would bring together at 
 the deanery some of the literary celebrities, and ask 
 
THE CLOSING YEARS 285 
 
 her to meet them in a quiet social way. He did so. 
 There were present Tennyson, Carlyle, Browning, 
 and others. In the course of the evening the con- 
 versation turned on poverty, its alarming increase, 
 and the question of the remedy. ' You must ex- 
 cept Scotland,' said Carlyle. ' We have no pov- 
 erty in Scotland.' Said the queen, ' I beg your 
 pardon, but I have frequently had occasion to re- 
 lieve it there myself.' ' Then,' gruffly returned 
 Carlyle, ' if there is any, it must be of your own 
 making.' The queen, on retiring, passed near 
 Browning, and said to him in a low tone, ' What 
 a terrible old man ! ' 
 
 Appropriate to this place is a letter which 
 Dwight received on the occasion of his seventieth 
 birthday : — 
 
 Cambridge, May 12, or make it the i$t/i, 1883. 
 
 My dear John, — I greet you on your arrival with 
 me at the Scriptural age of threescore and ten, — 
 you my junior by two months. Can you believe it? 
 We have known each other fifty years! The 
 whirligig of time, with its ceaseless revolutions, 
 changes, absences from each other, and so on, has 
 not, I think, worn away in the least our old friend- 
 ship. We were drawn together from the first by 
 intellectual sympathies, by our studies in the Divin- 
 ity School, by our tendencies towards freer, fresher, 
 more ideal views of literature and life, in our aspira- 
 tions after the true, the good, the beautiful, and, 
 not least, by our common love of music. We were 
 youths then. Are we much older now? Wiser, 
 
286 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 let us hope, but both young at the core of our 
 hearts. 
 
 Let us bless the good Powers that have pre- 
 served us for this meeting to celebrate your birth- 
 day. I shall be delighted to come, and am ever, 
 with remembrance of the old days and the new, 
 yours faithfully, Christopher P. Cranch. 
 
 In 1884 D wight's portrait was painted by Miss 
 Caroline Cranch, and she found him a quiet and 
 helpful sitter. It was secured by his friends, and 
 hung in one of the rooms of the Harvard Musical 
 Association. In a letter to her, on this occasion, 
 he said : " I am greatly pleased on your account, 
 as well as my own, that the picture was so appre- 
 ciated by the Association of which I am presi- 
 dent ; for I could not be reconciled to the idea of 
 having all your skill and labor bestowed upon my 
 unworthy self with no remuneration. I know not 
 what you have received, but I fear not half as much 
 as you had a fair right to demand. When I am 
 hung up on the wall (with the other old masters, 
 Handel, Gluck, etc.), I trust you will come up and 
 see us. In writing a day or two since to G. W. C, 
 I told him about the portrait and the presentation." 
 
 In his reply, Curtis said : " It was very good to 
 see your familiar hand again, and unchanged, and, 
 best of all, to read your strong, clear, masterly, and 
 delightful plea for the true saving grace of human- 
 ity, common sense. It is a most admirable piece of 
 
THE CLOSING YEARS 287 
 
 work, and a host of readers will wonder that they 
 never thought it before. That is the effect of all 
 wise writing, I suppose, which, like yours, lays us 
 all under obligation. Why don't you oftener bring 
 us reports of your interviews with Egerie ? Cranch 
 had already told us of the paper with great praise 
 in a letter which told me also of your birthnight 
 orgie with Boott and John Holmes. I have the 
 photograph of Carrie Cranch's remarkable portrait 
 of you, which is a precious possession ; and, when 
 I see Cranch, I hear of you, and, when I don't see 
 him, I think of you, and always with the old affec- 
 tion." 
 
 In another letter we get a glimpse of one of 
 Dwight's most intimate and lifelong friends, a 
 younger brother of Dr. O. W. Holmes: "The even- 
 ing before your letter came I spent in Cambridge 
 with my dear friend John Holmes, who has been 
 laid up lame, but is getting better. I must tell you 
 of a little thing he related to me, as showing the 
 delicacy of his character. I chanced to say that, 
 driven to the last extremity, unable to write or read 
 or think, I had taken up ' Pickwick Papers ' again. 
 Said he : ' I never met Dickens but once : that was 
 at James Lowell's. Mention was made of some 
 little known book of Walter Scott, and Dickens 
 said to me : " You ought to have that. When I 
 get home, I will send it to you." ' John said, ' I 
 replied : " Oh, no, my dear sir. I cannot allow 
 that. If you make such a promise, it will bother 
 you more than it is worth,"' — or something like 
 that." 
 
288 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 In 1883 occurred the death of Charles T. Brooks, 
 
 preacher and poet, who was one of D wight's most 
 
 intimate friends, and who had been associated with 
 
 him in at least one or two literary ventures. To the 
 
 Boston Transcript he sent a poem expressive of 
 
 what his friend had been to him, which elicited the 
 
 following letter : — 
 
 Boston, Oct. 30, 1883. 
 
 My dear Dwight, — I can hardly express to you 
 how much I was delighted by your poem on 
 Brooks, published in the Transcript. Every trait 
 of his charming mind, every feature of his gentle 
 and beneficent face, rise before me as I read your 
 tribute to his moral and intellectual worth. What 
 good that man has done, considered simply as a 
 translator of Goethe and Richter! Yet his patriot- 
 ism, in making us familiar with great works of the 
 German mind, is hardly yet appreciated — except 
 by men like you. How good the man was ! No- 
 body could believe in original sin in his presence. 
 He radiated his own stainless heart and soul and 
 character through every company where he ap- 
 peared. But, my dear Dwight, why don't you 
 write more poems ? It seems to me that any 
 journal in the country would gladly accept such 
 a poem as this of yours. 
 
 Ever sincerely yours, 
 
 E. P. Whipple. 
 
 For " The Memorial History of Boston," the 
 fourth volume of which was published in 1881, 
 
THE CLOSING YEARS 289 
 
 Dwight wrote a history of music in that city. In 
 the introduction to it he gave a rapid sketch of the 
 musical growth of the city during the seventeenth 
 and eighteenth centuries, but this was not used 
 because the article was of too great length. This 
 excised part appeared in the Atlantic Monthly 
 in December, 1882, under the title of "Our Dark 
 Age in Music." The conclusion of the article, 
 which was devoted to the teaching of music in the 
 public schools, was also omitted. 
 
 In 1885 Dwight was asked by the publishers of 
 Webster's Dictionary to act as one of the editors 
 of that work, in the preparation of a new and en- 
 larged edition. He was to revise the musical defi- 
 nitions, and to add such as the advance in music had 
 made desirable. This edition appeared in 1890, as 
 the "International." In 1885 came the two hun- 
 dredth anniversary of the births of Handel and Bach, 
 and for the Atlantic Monthly Dwight wrote an arti- 
 cle on each of these great composers. That on 
 Handel appeared in April, and that on Bach in 
 May. 
 
 Although Dwight found in the Harvard Musical 
 Association the chief interest of his life, in the way 
 of an organized effort to advance the cause of 
 music in Boston, yet he did not confine his affec- 
 tion or his labors to that institution. He was also 
 warmly interested in the Handel and Haydn So- 
 ciety, and welcomed all its efforts to advance the 
 cause of music. When the history of that society 
 by Charles C. Perkins, one of Dwight's devoted 
 
290 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 friends, came to an end because of his death, 
 Dwight was asked by the society to take up the 
 work and continue it. He accordingly prepared 
 two parts, of about one hundred pages each, which 
 were published in 1887. For the New England 
 Magazine he prepared a sketch of the work of the 
 Handel and Haydn Society, which appeared in 
 December, 1889. This was the last of his several 
 articles on the history of music in Boston, which, 
 taken together, make a continuous and admirable 
 historical survey of the musical development of 
 that city. 
 
 In the summer of 1890 Dwight was asked to 
 take charge of the musical department of the Bos- 
 ton Transcript during the absence of the editor, 
 Mr. William F. Apthorp, in Europe. He was to 
 write of certain concerts, and his duties were to 
 continue for only six months. After much hesita- 
 tion he undertook the task, which he carried 
 through with entire success. To a work edited by 
 Professor John K. Paine, Theodore Thomas, and 
 Karl Klauser, and called " Famous Composers and 
 their Works," which was published in 1891, 
 Dwight contributed a paper on Felix Mendelssohn- 
 Bartholdy. This was the last of his contributions 
 to the criticism of that art he had loved all his 
 life, and to which his life had been so faithfully 
 devoted. 
 
 In 1884 Dwight made an effort to publish his 
 translations of the poems of Goethe. He consulted 
 Francis H. Underwood as to the best way of bring- 
 
THE CLOSING YEARS 291 
 
 ing this about, who advised him to apply to a 
 London publisher; but nothing came of this proj- 
 ect. In 1885 he wrote an essay on "Common 
 Sense," in which he discussed philosophy, religion, 
 and politics. He read it several times at the houses 
 of his friends and to club gatherings. It was much 
 admired by those who heard it, and it was received 
 with enthusiasm by many. In some degree it was 
 his parting word to his friends on some of the 
 themes he had been pondering all his life. It was 
 a defence of the idealistic philosophy of his youth, 
 and an application of its great principles to the 
 chief activities of humanity. This essay was given 
 to the public in the Unitarian Review for May, 
 1890. 
 
 In 1886 the Harvard Musical Association moved 
 to 1 1 Park Square, and here Dwight found a new 
 home. The janitor and his family lived in the 
 house, and with them he was able to take his meals, 
 if he did not wish to go out ; and more of the com- 
 forts of a home came to him in this place than he 
 had enjoyed for many years. The removal was 
 made necessary by the building of the new Court 
 House, but it was advantageous in many ways. 
 
 In November, 1892, the Association bought the 
 house No. 1 West Cedar Street, and moved into 
 it. To Dwight the removal looked like a terrible 
 task, especially as the janitor and his family, to 
 whom he was warmly attached, could not go with 
 him. The move was made very easy to him, how- 
 ever ; and he found himself better situated than ever 
 
292 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 before. Nov. 21, 1892, he wrote to a young friend: 
 " For several weeks I could only say, I eat and 
 breathe dust, I think dust, I feel dust, I am dust! 
 That means I have been getting ready to move; 
 and, finally, I have moved. I write you from our 
 new house, which is ours (the Harvard Musical As- 
 sociation's). I moved last Friday. Thanks to the 
 zealous and efficient help of my friends, the Ham- 
 iltons, who took such excellent and tender care 
 of me in Park Square, I had everything — books, 
 clothes, pictures, furniture, and rubbish — brought 
 over here in one day. Hamilton put up all my 
 books and hung all my pictures, and Mrs. H. made 
 my bed; and the dear little Arthur helped with 
 more zeal than achievement, but with a vast deal 
 of sympathy. The day was very warm and sunny, 
 but after I got here came on a rain and fierce wind. 
 Yet I slept sweetly in the quiet, clean neighbor- 
 hood ; and I woke the next morning refreshed, in 
 the sunshiniest room I was ever in. And so it has 
 been for three nights and days. The house is full 
 of carpenters, painters, electric-light men, who are 
 straining every nerve to get all ready for a grand 
 opening social musicale, with many guests, next Fri- 
 day evening. Our committee have worked like 
 dragons, getting the library over and setting it up, 
 not just in my old order; for they sacrifice much to 
 their acoustic hobby. But we shall have a beau- 
 tiful long room, three parlors end to end, with solid 
 pine floor, uncarpeted ; and I think that eye and ear 
 will find it very agreeable. We shall have a very 
 
THE CLOSING YEARS 293 
 
 choice selection of music : Beethoven's great B-flat 
 Trio (Lang, Kneisel and Schroder of the Sym- 
 phony Orchestra) ; ' Adelaide,' sung by W. J. 
 Winch ; and a Bach bass aria, sung by Lamson. I 
 could not have chosen better myself. 
 
 " The saddest thing about moving was leaving 
 our good Hamiltons behind ; but I find a good 
 Scotch couple in charge of the house, and she fur- 
 nishes me breakfast, and makes (what is a great 
 matter with me) excellent coffee, and also toasts 
 muffins well. Chater's headquarters for muffins is 
 right round the corner. The Symphony concerts 
 are getting on apace. Orchestra admirable, pro- 
 grammes might be better. But we had a good one, 
 with Beethoven's Second Symphony (the slow move- 
 ment was played at my wedding, in 1851, on the 
 piano by a friend)." 
 
 " Your beautiful note, with its most cheering 
 contents, came at the right time, when I was sick 
 and much depressed by loss of working days," he 
 wrote Jan. 18, 1892, to Mrs. Otto Dresel. " I have 
 been for a week, and I am still, confined to the 
 house by a cough, with all manner of painful ac- 
 companiments, — even the old enemy, gout, has 
 seized the opportunity to come back on me when I 
 am helpless! — else I should have made grateful 
 acknowledgment before now of the most friendly 
 favor. All day yesterday I had proof to correct, — a 
 long article on Mendelssohn, which, I natter myself, 
 dear Otto would have approved. How thoughtful 
 and how kind you are ! And how such sweet sur- 
 
294 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 prises quicken one's feeling that an unfailing friend- 
 ship is very nearly the best thing in life ! " 
 
 On the occasion of Dwight's eightieth birthday, 
 May 13, 1893, the Harvard Musical Association 
 gave him a birthday party, and his friends gathered 
 in large numbers. This was a red-letter day in 
 Dwight's life, and he enjoyed the occasion greatly. 
 All through the morning came to him congratula- 
 tory letters and telegrams from friends who could 
 not be present, and many gifts. He took the 
 deepest pleasure in the flowers that showered in 
 upon him throughout the day, and often afterward 
 he referred to them as the most beautiful he ever 
 saw. Though the afternoon was very rainy, a host 
 of friends gathered to do him honor, among others 
 five who were over eighty years of age ; and Dwight 
 was fond of alluding to the six old gentlemen, 
 whose ages rose in uninterrupted succession from 
 eighty to eighty-five. These were John S. Dwight, 
 80; John Holmes, 81; Henry W. Pickering, 82; 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes, 83; Robert C. Winthrop, 
 84; Epes Dixwell, 85. The party was entirely 
 social, with just enough music, chiefly furnished by 
 Mr. Arthur W. Foote and Mr. Wulf Fries, to make 
 it a most fitting occasion. Four of Dwight's favor- 
 ite young lady friends poured the tea. The whole 
 afforded a happy expression of the esteem in which 
 Dwight was held by his many friends and admirers. 
 Among the messages of friendship and congratula- 
 tion was this from Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, who 
 thus recalled the many years of her acquaintance 
 with Dwight : — 
 
THE CLOSING YEARS 295 
 
 1853. 
 Forty years since : the way has been long, but not dreary : 
 The limbs may grow feeble and faint, but the heart is not 
 
 weary ; 
 And the music has now the self-same melodious ringing, 
 And high thoughts as then on their own lofty pinions are wing- 
 ing, 
 As when we were young, and I listened, and found with de- 
 light 
 That music itself sounded fuller and clearer through Dwight. 
 
 1893. 
 
 Early in August a very sudden, acute illness 
 prostrated him, from which he only partially rallied. 
 Although suffering much, he always wore a peace- 
 ful face, and was made very happy and grateful by 
 the tireless devotion of his friends, who kept him 
 well supplied with flowers, fruit, etc. They called 
 upon him frequently, and his days of suffering were 
 brightened so much by their presence that it was 
 almost impossible to realize that he was dan- 
 gerously ill. He had the constant and tender care 
 of relatives, and his brother Frank was with him in 
 the last hours. During the last days, friendly mes- 
 sages came to him from all directions. He died on 
 Sept. 5, 1893. 
 
 The library of the Harvard Musical Association 
 on September 8 was for a second time a gathering 
 place of his friends, — this time for the service 
 which, some one beautifully said, was less " like a 
 funeral than a meeting of friends to bid him God- 
 speed." Dr. O. W. Holmes said to Mrs. Julia Ward 
 
296 JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT 
 
 Howe, as they sat by each other on this occasion, 
 " Mrs. Howe, if we could see everything that is, 
 don't you think we would see about that casket a 
 group of angels very much like those who sang a 
 certain morning in Judea? " " Doctor, why do you 
 not put that into a poem ? " was the reply. The 
 usual religious service was held ; and the music, 
 under the direction of Mr. B. J. Lang, was touching 
 and beautiful. The King's Chapel Quartet sang 
 Bach's chorale, " Ein' feste Burg " ; and the con- 
 tralto song, " Oh rest in the Lord," was most feel- 
 ingly sung by Miss Lena Little. Mrs. Howe read 
 the following poem as a tribute to her friend of 
 many years : — 
 
 TO JOHN S. DWIGHT. 
 
 O Presence reverend and rare, 
 Art thou from earth withdrawn ? 
 
 Thou passest as the sunshine flits 
 To light another dawn. 
 
 Surely, among the symphonies 
 
 That praise the ever-blest, 
 Some strophe of surpassing peace 
 
 Inviteth thee to rest. 
 
 Thine was the treasure of a life 
 
 Heart-ripened from within, 
 Whose many lustres perfected 
 
 What youth did well begin. 
 
 The noble champions of thy day 
 
 Were thy companions meet, 
 In the great harvest of our race, 
 
 Bound with its priceless wheat. 
 
THE CLOSING YEARS 297 
 
 Thy voice its silver cadence leaves 
 
 In Truth's resistless court, 
 Where of thy faithful services 
 
 Her heralds make report. 
 
 Here thou, a watchful sentinel, 
 
 Didst guard the gates of Song, 
 That no unworthy note should pass 
 
 To do her temple wrong. 
 
 Dear are the traces of thy days 
 
 Mixed in these walks of ours : 
 Thy footsteps in our household ways 
 
 Are garlanded with flowers. 
 
 If we surrender earth to earth, 
 
 The frame that's born to die, 
 Spirit with spirit doth ascend 
 
 To live immortally.