Recollections and Impressions, 1822-1890

Ideas were not demonstrated, are not demonstrable. No data of observation can express their universal meaning… What else can we say of ideas than that they are wondrous intimacies of the soul with the Infinite and Eternal, its contacts with universal forces, its prophetic ventures and master steps beyond any past!.. The grand words, "I ought" refuse to be explained by dissolving the notion of right into individual calculation of consequences, or by expounding the sense of duty as the cumulative product of observed relation of succession… How explain as a "greater happiness principle," or an inherited product of observed consequences, that sovereign and eternal law of mind whose imperial edict lifts all calculations and measures into functions of an infinite meaning? And how vain to accredit or ascribe to revelation, institution, or redemption, this necessary allegiance to the law of our being, which is liberty and loyalty in one?

This is absolute enough. It is plain that to this writer the notion of extracting intellect from form is ridiculous.

At the same time the method of evolution is the one adopted by the supreme Mind in its endeavor to awaken in man religious ideas. The exposition of the original faiths – Indian, Chinese, Persian – is a long and eloquent argument for this thesis. All criticism, all thinking, all analysis, all study of history, all investigation of phenomena, point in this direction. This is the rule of creation; this is the solution of the problem of the universe. The successive degrees of this divine ascent, he maintains, are distinctly traceable in the records left for our reading. The threads are fine, of course, but what have we eyes for? It is not necessary that everybody should see them, and the few who can are amply rewarded for the trouble they take in putting their fingers upon the very lines of the heavenly procedure. His peculiar strain of genius admirably qualified him for this delicate task. It was serious, critical, earnest, and aspiring. At one period of his life he was a mystic, wholly absorbed in God, and he always had that tendency towards the more passionate forms of idealism which led him to mystical speculations. The search for God was ever the animating purpose of his endeavor. The law of the blessed life was never absent from his thought. He, all the time, lived by faith, and was naturally disposed to see the gain in all losses. His mind had that penetrating quality which loved to follow hidden trails, and appreciated the subtlest kinds of influence. In a striking passage he speaks of the

great mystery in these influences which thoughtless people little dream of, and which common-sense, so called, cares nothing about. In the wonderful manner in which, through books, the spirits of other men, long since dead, enter into and inspire ours; in the eloquent language of eye and lip which without words, merely by expression, conveys deepest feelings; in the presence in our souls of strange presentiments, intuitions of higher knowledge than science or learning can give, voices which seem the presence of other spirits in ours, which make us feel often that death, so far from removing our dear friends from us, brings them nearer to our souls so that they cannot be lost; – in all these wonderful ways we see dimly the unveiling of holy mysteries which the future is to fully open to us, mysteries which we can even now, in our sublimer and holier secret moments, feel trying to disclose themselves to us.

This was written in a letter to his sister, on the occasion of a visit to the menagerie to see Herr Driesbach, the horse-tamer. A man who could spring into the empyrean from such ground may be trusted to behold Deity where others behold nothing but dirt; and they who submit to his guidance are pretty certain to come out full believers in the spiritual powers.

Johnson absolutely subordinated dogma to practice, holding fast to the idea involved in the declaration that he who doeth the will shall know the doctrine. He began with the ethics of the individual, the family, the social circle, seeing every principle incarnated there. How faithful he was in all domestic relations the world will never know, for there are details that cannot be divulged. But in all public affairs his constancy was perfect. Dr. Furness of Philadelphia used to say that the anti-slavery struggle in this country taught him more about the essential nature of the Gospel than he had learned in any other way. Samuel Johnson had the same conviction. In a private letter written in 1857 he says:

Everything in this crisis of American growth centres in the great conflict about this gigantic sin of slavery. That is the battle-field on which the questions are all to be fought out, of moral and spiritual and intellectual Freedom against the Absolutism of sect and party; of Love against Mammon; of Conscience against the State; of Man against Majorities; of Truth against Policy; of God against the Devil. It is really astonishing how everything that happens with us works directly into this fermenting conflict.

They who remember his addresses during the war will not need any confirmation of this announcement, and they who heard or have read his sermon on the character and services of Charles Sumner will have the fullest assurance of the cordial appreciation with which every phase of the struggle was entered into.

But though so ardent a follower of the doctrine that ideas lead the world, Johnson was not induced to go all lengths with the sentimentalists. While warmly espousing the cause of the workingman his papers on "Labor Reform" show how keenly critical he could be of measures proposed for his benefit. No one will accuse him of indifference to the claims of woman, but he spoke of "Woman's Opportunity" rather than of "Woman's Rights"; is inclined to think that it is not true that she is left out of political life from the present wish to do her injustice; that "on the whole, the feeling, if it were analyzed, would be found to be rather that of defending her right of exemption, relieving her from tasks she does not desire… Among intelligent men at least, actual delay to wipe out the anomaly of the voting rule is not so much owing to a spirit of domination or contempt as is too apt to be assumed, as it is to a respect for what woman has made of the functions she has hitherto filled, and the belief that she holds herself entitled to be left free to work through them alone." He has nothing to say regarding the superiority of woman's nature; ventures no definition of her sphere; is not unconscious of feminine infirmities; doubts the efficacy of the ballot; confesses that the level of womanhood would be, at least temporarily, depressed by the larger area of practical diffusion; is by no means certain that women would necessarily act for their own good, and is deeply persuaded of the inferiority of outward to inward influence. This is the one thing he is sure of; this and the principle that "liberty knows – like faith and charity – neither male nor female." In the war between Russia and Turkey he took the part of Turkey, not only because he respected the rights of individual genius and resented invasion, but for the reason that he distrusted the civilizing tendencies of Russia, and thought the interests of Europe might be trusted to the Ottoman as confidently as to the Russian. In a discourse entitled "A Ministry in Free Religion," delivered on the occasion of his resigning the relation of pastor to the "Free Church at Lynn," June 26, 1870, he said:

The pulpit has no function more essential than an independent criticism of well-meaning people in the light of larger justice and remoter consequences than most popular measures recognize. The truest service is, perhaps, to help correct the blunders and the intolerances of blind good-will and narrow zeal for a good cause; to speak in the interest of an idea where popular or organized impulse threatens to swamp its higher morality in passionate instincts and absolute masterships, to maintain that freedom of private judgment which cannot be outraged, even in the best moral intent, without mischievous reaction on the good cause itself.

In this connection he speaks of temperance, the amelioration of the condition of the "perishing" or "dangerous" classes, the various schemes for benefiting the laboring men, plans for adjusting the relations of labor and capital, arrangements for diffusing the profits of production, – causes which he had at heart, but which should be discussed in view of the principle of individual freedom, which must be upheld at all hazards. He was a close reasoner as well as a warm feeler, and would not allow his sympathies to get the upper hand of his ideas. He hoped for the best; he had faith in the highest; he anticipated the brightest; but he tried to see things as they were. He was a student, not a sentimentalist, and while he was ready to follow the most advanced in the direction of spiritual progress, he was not prepared to take for granted issues that still hung in the balance of debate, or to prejudge questions that had not been answered, and could not be as yet.

Such moderation and patience are not common with reformers, and few are independent enough to confess misgivings which are more familiar to their opponents than to their friends. Candor like this shows a genuine unconsciousness of fear, a sincere love of truth, an earnest postponement of personal tastes, ambitions, and connections to the axioms of universal wisdom and goodness; a loyalty to conviction that is very rare, that never can exist among the indifferent, because they do not care, and which is usually put aside by those who do care as an impediment if not as a snare. In courage of this noble kind, Johnson excelled all men I ever knew, for they who had it, as some did, had not his genius, and were spared the necessity of curbing ardor by so much as their temperament was more passive and their eagerness less importunate. Of course of the lower sort, – the courage to bear pain, loss, the misunderstanding of the vulgar, to face danger, to encounter peril, none who knew him can question his possession. In fact, he did not seem to suffer at all, so jocund was he, so much in the habit of keeping his deprivations from the outside world; even his intimates could but suspect his sorrows of heart.

Samuel Johnson was an extraordinary person to look at. He had large dark eyes; black, straight, long hair; an Oriental complexion, sallow, olive-colored; an impetuous manner; a beaming expression. His voice was rich, deep, musical; his gait eager, rapid, swinging; his style of address glowing; his aspect in public speech that of one inspired. He was fond of natural beauty, of art, literature, music; full of fun, witty, mirthful, social. He was attractive to young people, delightful in conversation, ready to enter into innocent amusements. His eye for scenery was fine and quick, his interest in practical science sincere and hearty, his concern for whatever advanced humanity cordial, and his freshness of spirit increased if anything with years.

XIV.
MY FRIENDS

It is impossible to mention them all, and to single out a few from a multitude must not be done. I should like to commemorate those who came nearest to me by their earnest work and faithful allegiance, but these cannot be spoken of, and I prefer to enumerate some of those with whom I was less intimate.

Alice and Phœbe Cary came to New York in 1852, and were prominent when I was there; their famous Sunday evenings, which were frequented by the brightest minds and were sought by a large class of people, being then well established. These were altogether informal and gave but little satisfaction to the merely fashionable folks who now and then attended them. The sisters were in striking contrast. Phœbe, the younger, was a jocund, hearty, vivacious, witty, merry young woman, short and round; her older sister, Alice, was taller and more slender, with large, dark eyes; she was meditative, thoughtful, pensive, and rather grave in temperament; but the two were most heartily in sympathy in every opinion and in all their literary and social aims. Horace Greeley, one of their earliest and warmest friends, was a frequent visitor at their house. There I met Robert Dale Owen, Oliver Johnson, Dr. E. H. Chapin, Rev. Charles F. Deems, Justin McCarthy and his wife, Mrs. Mary E. Dodge, Madame Le Vert, and several others.

Among my friends was President Barnard, of Columbia College, the only man I ever knew whose long ear-trumpet was never an annoyance; Ogden N. Rood, the Professor of Physics at Columbia, a man of real genius, whose studies in light and color were a great assistance to artists, himself an artist of no mean order and an ardent student of photography; Charles Joy, Professor of Chemistry, a most active-minded man, who received honors at Goettingen and at Paris, and contributed largely to the scientific journals; a man greatly interested in the union of charitable societies in New York; Robert Carter, then a co-worker in the making of Appleton's Cyclopedia; Bayard Taylor, novelist, poet, translator of Goethe, traveller; Richard Grant White, the Shakesperian scholar; Charles L. Brace, the philanthropist; E. L. Youmans a man fairly tingling with ideas, and peculiarly gifted in making popular, as a lecturer, the most abstruse scientific discoveries. The breadth of my range of acquaintances is illustrated by such men as Roswell D. Hitchcock, of Union Seminary, the learned student, the impressive speaker; Isaac T. Hecker, the founder of the Congregation of the Paulists; Dr. Washburn, the model churchman of "Calvary"; Henry M. Field, editor of the Evangelist, a most warm-hearted man, so large in his sympathies that he could say to Robert G. Ingersoll, "I am glad that I know you, even though some of my brethren look upon you as a monster because of your unbelief," and welcomed as an example of "constructive thought," Dr. Charles A. Briggs' Inaugural Address as Professor of Biblical Theology at Union College; John G. Holland (Timothy Titcomb), a copious author. The Tribune company was most distinguished: There was, first of all, the founder, Horace Greeley, a unique personality, simple, unaffected, earnest, an immense believer in American institutions, a stanch friend of the working-man, and a brave lover of impartial justice; Whitelaw Reid, who was, according to George Ripley, the ablest newspaper manager he ever saw; and Mrs. Lucia Calhoun (afterward Mrs. Runkle), one of the most brilliant contributors to the Tribune. Of George Ripley I may speak more at length, as he was my parishioner and close friend. In my biography of him, written for the "American Men of Letters" series, I spoke of him as a "remarkable" man. One of my critics found fault with the appellation, and said it was not justified by anything in the book, as perhaps it was not, though intellectual vigor, range, and taste like his must be called "remarkable"; such industry is "remarkable"; no common man could have instituted "Brook Farm" and administered it for six or seven years; could have maintained its dignity through ridicule, misunderstanding, and fanaticism; could have cleared off its liabilities; could have turned his face away from it on its failure, with such patience, or in his later age, could have alluded to it so sweetly; no ordinary person could have adopted a new and despised career so bravely as he did. No journalist has raised literature to so high a distinction, or derived such large rewards for that mental labor. He deserves to be called "remarkable," who can do all this or but a part of it, and, all the time, preserve the sunny serenity of his disposition. If the biography failed to present these traits it was, indeed, unsuccessful. Yes, Mr. Ripley was an extraordinary man. It is seldom that one carries such qualities to such a degree of perfection, and it may be worth while to look more closely at his character.

George Ripley had a passion for literary excellence. From his boyhood he possessed a singularly bright intelligence, a clear appreciation of the rational aspect of questions. He was not an ardent, passionate, enthusiastic man, of warm convictions, vehement emotions, burning ideas. His feelings, though amiable and correct, were of an intellectual cast. They sprang from a naturally affectionate heart, rather than from a deeply stirred conscience, or an enchanted soul. If he had been less healthy, eupeptic, he would scarcely have been so gay; a vehement reformer he was not; a leader of men he could not be. He had not the stuff in him for either. The element of giving was not strong in him. He was not an originator in the sphere of thought; not a discoverer of theories or facts; not an innovator on established customs. But mentally he was so quick, eager, receptive, that he seemed a pioneer, an enthusiast, a saint; his quickness passing for insight, his eagerness for a passionate love of progress, his receptivity for charitableness. He appeared to be more of an image-breaker than he really was. In fact, the propensity to iconoclasm was not part of his constitution. But his mind was wonderfully alert. He had his antipathies, and they were strong ones, his likes and dislikes, his tastes and distastes, but these were instinctive rather than the expression of rational principle or a deliberate conclusion of his judgment. In one instance that I know of, he threw off a man with whom he had been associated for many years, and in connection with whom he labored daily for a time, a very accomplished and agreeable person to whom he was indebted for some services, because he thought that the individual in question had been unjust to some of his friends; but that this was not entirely a matter of conscience would seem to be indicated by the fact that he sent a message of affection to this man, as he neared the grave. In the main, so far as he was under control, intellectual considerations determined his course. He was prevailingly under the influence of mind; he acted in view, a large view, of all the circumstances; as one who takes in the whole situation, and has himself under command. This is not said in the least tone of disparagement, but entirely in his praise, for the supremacy of reason is more steady, even, reliable than the supremacy of feeling however exalted in its mood. He that is under the control of mind is at all times under control, which cannot be said of one who is borne along by the sway of even devout emotion. I have in memory cases where passion might have betrayed Mr. Ripley into conduct he would have regretted, had it not been for the restraining power of purely rational considerations. His early religious training may have produced some effect on his character, but this is more likely to have operated at first than at the later stages of his career. The love of old hymns, the habit of attending sacred services, the fondness for Watts' poems, a copy of whose holy songs always lay on his table, showed a lingering attachment to this kind of sentiment up to the end of his life; but it existed in an attenuated form, and at no period after his youth exerted much sway over him. His predominating bent was intellectual, and this caused a certain delicacy, fastidiousness, aloofness, which kept him in the atmosphere of love as well as of light.

From his youth this was his leading characteristic. As a boy he was ambitious of making a dictionary, a sign of his carefulness in the use of words, and an omen of the value he was to set on definitions and on exactness in the employment of language. At school he was an excellent scholar, at college he stood second, but was graduated first owing to the "suspension" of a brilliant classmate who might have excelled him but for the mishap of a college "riot" in which he took part. In the languages and in literature he was unusually proficient, while in mathematics, – that most abstract, severe, precise of pursuits, – his success was distinguished. In later-life his devotion to philosophy marked the man of speculative tastes. His early letters to his father, mother, sister, reveal a consciousness of his own peculiarities. Here are extracts:

The course of studies adopted here [Cambridge], in the opinion of competent judges, is singularly calculated to form scholars, and moreover, correct and accurate scholars; to inure the mind to profound thought and habits of investigation and reasoning.

The prospect of devoting my days to the acquisition and communication of knowledge is bright and cheering. This employment I would not exchange for the most elevated situation of wealth or power. One of the happiest steps, I think, that I have ever taken was the commencement of a course of study, and it is my wish and effort that my future progress may give substantial evidence of it.

I know that my peculiar habits of mind, imperfect as they are, strongly impel me to the path of active intellectual effort; and if I am to be at any time of any use to society, or a satisfaction to myself or my friends, it will be in the way of some retired literary situation, where a fondness for study and a knowledge of books will be more requisite than the busy, calculating mind of a man in the business part of the community. I do not mean by this that any profession is desired but the one to which I have been long looking. My wish is only to enter that profession with all the enlargement of mind and extent of information which the best institutions can afford.

These quotations are enough to show what was the prevailing impulse of the man. An intellectual nature like this, calm, studious, accomplished, eager, is subject to few surprises and experiences rarely, if ever, marked by crises, cataclysms, eruptions, in passing from one condition of thought to another at the opposite extreme of the spiritual universe. A process of growth, gradual, easy, motionless, takes the place of commotion and violent uproar such as passionate temperaments are exposed to. In 1821 he writes to his sister from Harvard College: "We are now studying Locke, an author who has done more to form the mind to habits of accurate reasoning and sound thought than almost any other." On the 19th of September, 1836, the first meeting of the Transcendental Club was held at his house in Boston. In 1838 he replied to Andrews Norton's criticism of Mr. Emerson's Address before the Alumni of the Cambridge Divinity School. In 1840 he said to his congregation in Purchase Street:

There is a faculty in all – the most degraded, the most ignorant, the most obscure – to perceive spiritual truth when distinctly presented; and the ultimate appeal on all moral questions is not to a jury of scholars, a conclave of divines, or the prescriptions of a creed, but to the common-sense of the human race.

But this substitution of the intuitive for the sensational philosophy – a change which affected all the processes of his thought and actually caused a revolution in his mind – was made silently, quietly, without agitation, without triumph, in a sober, conservative manner, very different from that of his friend Theodore Parker, who carried the same doctrines a good deal further, and advocated them with more heat like the burly reformer he was.

In religion, Mr. Ripley's position was the same that it was in philosophy. In fact the intellectual side of religion interested him more than the spiritual or experimental side. It was mainly a speculative matter, where it was not speculative it was practical; in each event it concerned the head rather than the heart, as being an opinion rather than a feeling. He was instructed in the school of orthodoxy, and, as a youth, was strict in his allegiance to the old system of belief; but he became a disciple of Dr. Channing, and later a rationalist of the order of Theodore Parker, a friend of Emerson, an adherent of what was newest in theology. Yet, in this extreme departure from the views of his early years, he betrayed no sign of agitation, no trace of internal suffering. He wished to go to Yale instead of Harvard, because "the temptations incident to a college, we have reason to think, are less at Yale than at Cambridge." He preferred Andover to Cambridge, being "convinced that the opportunities for close investigation of the Scriptures are superior to those at Cambridge, and the spirit of the place, much relaxed from its former severe and gloomy bigotry is more favorable to a tone of decided piety." Still, he goes to Cambridge, is "much disappointed in what he had learned of the religious character of the school," and, on more intimate acquaintance is impressed by "the depth and purity of their religious feeling and the holy simplicity of their lives"; "enough to humble and shame those who had been long professors of Christianity, and had pretended to superior sanctity." In 1824 a bold article in the Christian Disciple, a Unitarian journal, the precursor of the Christian Examiner, excited a good deal of comment, not to say apprehension. He writes to his sister about it as follows:

You asked me to say something about the article in the Disciple. For myself, I freely confess that I think it a useful thing and correct. The vigor of my orthodoxy, which is commonly pretty susceptible, was not offended. Now, if you have any objections which you can accurately and definitely state, no doubt there is something in it which had escaped my notice. If your dislike is only a misty, uncertain feeling about something, you know not what, it were well to get fairly rid of it by the best means.

The same year he writes to his mother:

I am no partisan of any sect, but I must rejoice in seeing any progress towards the conviction that Christianity is indeed "glad tidings of great joy," and that in its original purity it was a very different thing from the system that is popularly preached, and which is still received as reasonable and scriptural by men and women, who in other respects are sensible and correct in their judgments. When shall we learn that without the spirit of Christ we are none of us His? I trust I am not becoming a partisan or a bigot. I have suffered enough, and too much, in sustaining those characters, in earlier, more inexperienced, and more ignorant years; but I have no prospects of earthly happiness more inviting than that of preaching the truth, with the humble hope of impressing it on the mind with greater force, purity, and effect than I could do with any other than my present conviction.

In 1840 the ministry was abandoned forever, for more secular pursuits. After 1849 his activities were wholly literary; he had no connection with theology, and none who did not know his past suspected that he had once been a clergyman.

The same cast of thought, not "pale" in his case, suffused his action at Brook Farm and made a Utopia quiet, calm, dignified, pervaded by the radiance of mind, the gentle enthusiasm of the intellect. The heat came in the main from other sources. He was receptive rather than original, inflammable rather than fiery, brilliant rather than warm. The heat was supplied by those near him, by those he trusted, and by those he loved. Not that he was deficient in concern for society; far from it; but his interest was more philosophical than philanthropic. The subject of an association that should combine intellectual and mechanical labor and should diminish the distance between the tiller of the ground and the educator was agitated among the thinkers he was intimate with. Dr. Channing had such a project at heart. Mrs. Ripley burned with humane anticipations. Plans for social regeneration were in the air. It was impossible for one who lived in the midst of ardent spirits, or was sensitive to fine impressions, or was cultivated in an ideal wisdom that was not of this world, to escape the contagion of this kind of optimism; Emerson was saved by his belief in individual growth; Parker by his steady common-sense; others were protected by their conservatism of temperament or of association, by their want of courage, or their want of faith; but men and women of ideal propensities, like Nathaniel Hawthorne, W. H. Channing, J. S. Dwight, joined the community, which promised a new era for Humanity. Mr. Ripley would probably have left the ministry at any rate, for it had become distasteful to him, but it is not likely that he would have undertaken the management of Brook Farm unless he had been assured of its success; for he was a New England youth by birth and by disposition, prudent, careful, thrifty; his very enthusiasm was of the New England type, the product of theological ideas, a creation of the gospels, a desire to introduce the "Kingdom of Heaven," a continuance of the prophetic calling. New England is as noted for its fanaticism as it is for its theology. Its fanaticism is the offspring of its theology, and in proportion as its theology disappears its fanaticism decreases. In Mr. Ripley's case the theology had reached very near to its last attenuation and the fanaticism had tapered off into a gentle enthusiasm. He undertook to establish a kingdom of heaven on earth because he had given up the expectation of a kingdom of heaven in the skies; and he undertook to establish a kingdom of heaven on earth by rational, economic means, not by religious interventions. He was subject to that peculiar kind of excitement that comes to a few people in connection with the keen exercise of their intellectual powers, when they have laid hold of what seems to them a principle – an excitement that is easily mistaken for moral earnestness even by one who is under its influence, which, indeed, lies so close to moral earnestness as to feel quickly the effect of moral earnestness in others, notwithstanding the checks applied by practical wisdom. Mr. Ripley had struck on a theory of society, which at that time was passing from the phase of feeling into the phase of philosophy. The theory was in the air; the most susceptible spirits were full of it; all noble impulses were in its favor, it belonged to the order of thought he had attained; it was native to the aspirations that inflamed the men and women with whom he was most intimate; their feelings awoke his intellect, and he was carried away by a stream whereof he appeared to himself to be a tributary and whereof he appeared to others as the main current, on account of his impetuosity, and the vigor with which he proceeded to put the idea into practice. In his own mind he was realizing the dream of the New Testament, but, in fact, he was testing a principle of which the New Testament was quite unconscious, the modern principle of the equal destinies of all men. He had abandoned the New Testament ground of allegiance to Jehovah, and had adopted the human ground of fidelity to social law. He was still under the spell of religious emotions, but they had become merged in the abstractions of rationalism and merely lent an added glow to his ideas, so that he could readily imagine that he was actuated by spiritual convictions when, in fact, he was doing duty as a disciple of socialist philosophers. His own interest in Brook Farm was in the main speculative, though through his personal sympathies he was moved toward an enterprise that had moral ends in view.