Text: John Grier Varner, “Chapter 06,” Sarah Helen Whitman, Seeress of Providence, dissertation, 1940, pp. 182-150 (This material is protected by copyright)

Chapter VI

The Transcendentalist   1840-1848

In the eventful days when the young advocates and apostles of the anti-slavery cause used often to gather together for social converse and co-operation, in the hospitable old house at Pleasant Valley, I reenter how Mr. Alcott who was ever a welcome guest there, sometimes stirred and startled them by the innocent audacity of some of his theories, and by the Platonic latitude of his speculations. He seems to have in him, like William Blake, the inspired English artist, that finer sense which receives impressions of truth and beauty as simply and sweetly as we smell the fragrance of the briar rose and the woodbine; like Blake too, he combines the innocence of the child with the mystic vision of the prophet and the seer, and casts around him a kindling influence — an atmosphere of life, full of the ideal. Those who are familiar with Gilchrist's fascinating life of Blake, and those who have read Algernon Swinburne's recondite and erratic eulogium on his genius, will recognize in Mr. Alcott many kindred traits and fantasies.

The Concord school of writers doubtless owed much of its characteristic freshness and sincerity to him, and derived much of its inspiration, courage and reality from his spiritual contact. We have heard Mr. Emerson avow that the most suggestive and vital words he ever listened to were from the lips of Alcott. But whatever may be the relative value of his thought, he unquestionably belongs in a marked and memorable manner to the intellectual history of the [page 184:] time, and must remain, alike in mental quality and personal appearance, a conspicuous figure of delicate and memorable beauty among the group of poets and writers who have lent to our literature some of its noblest characteristics: Emerson with his rare combination of secular sense and spiritual loftiness; Channing, with his Catholic spirit and sweet, benignant faith, gleaming, white and luminous as a star against a sublime and sombre background of Puritan theologies; Margaret Fuller, the Britomartis of our letters; Thoreau, an Indian Dryad turned bookman, solitary, sweet, severe, smelling through and through of the fir tree and the pine. Ellery Channing, with his muse of vagrant grace, whose liberties are laws; Longfellow, with his richly illuminated manuscripts and golden legends; Hawthorne, aureoled with dreams of mystic sweetness and terror; Wendell Phillips, “from brow to foot all noble”; Parker, stalwart, intrepid, invincible.

“The old Charter Oak, and the landholder's constitution are dismantled ship's hulks — abandoned derelicts — and will soon be in the deep bosom of the ocean buried — alas how are the mighty fallen — but a new era is at hand — the day-star of freedom has shot up from the horizon — more beautiful than Venus — when she precedes the sun —.heralding his returning light — Rhode Island men are disenthralled — the shackles that held then in servile bondage have been broken — the oppressors hear the land acclaim — we are free.”(1)

My name is Nicholas Power, I reside in Providence, am 72 years old, shall be 73 the fifteenth of next September. I don’t know what occupation I am in. I have taken no part in Mr. Dorr's forcible arms, have never borne arms. I have never carried messages to and from Mr. Dorr's camp. I carried Lyman Cooley to Chepatchet, not knowing what he went there for. I carried Mr. Cooley to Providence, didn’t know he had dispatches. I have been and am intimate with Burrington Anthony. I have assisted Marshall Anthony as clerk when he was marshall — I never assisted him in any forcible measures. I understood Mr. Dorr to be the Governor of Rhode Island. Am not intimate with him. I should be proud of it. I went to Anthony's house when the bells were rung, and went to the arsenal and saw the nonsense there, knew nothing beforehand of the intended attack, sat up to go there because I could not sleep, I went to Webster's stable, and then to Anthony's house, I continued on the hill but a short time, I was on the hill when the troops came to take Dorr, — I did not see or hear Gov. King — I was at Anthony's house when Mr. Dorr went off. I did not see him go, but heard Mr. Anthony say he had gone. I tried to prevent hearing any secret, lest it should be betrayed, and I should be charged with doing it, about Wednesday previous to Mr. Dorr's arrival at Chepatchet, I went to Chepatchet, I found Lyman Cooley in the street opposite to James Thurber's shop. I was in the habit of refreshing myself at that shop, I was there and a lad said a man wanted to go to Chepatchet [page 188:] and would pay, I didn’t want to go and tried to find someone to carry him. We went together, I didn’t go to the encampment that day, I went afterwards there, but had no arms, and acted as a civilian who went to see what was going on. — I remained from tea-time ‘till the next afternoon, when it rained, Mr. Cooley and I returned together, he didn’t tell me his business at any time. — I was told he was hunted like a wild beast and would be shot, and took him out of the city. He told me boastingly he brought letters, he told me he had a letter for Mr. Holmes, and that he had delivered it to him, I believe he never delivered it to the right Mr. Holmes, the reason is that I necessarily passed the Brewery, stopped at the grocery-shop and inquired for Mr. Holmes, and from his silent response I supposed him to be Mr. Holmes. I asked him if he received a letter and he said he had not, Mr. Holmes the prisoner was then asked by me if he had received a letter brought by me from Chepatchet, he said he had not, I returned to Chepatchet. Have never acted as secretary at the Camp, never attended any meeting at the Brewery, think Cooley crazy, from his assumed confidence, his conversation and peculiar appearance. I consider it also because I heard the Commissioners thought so — I have acted no part other than I have told. I was arrested while I was cutting dirt, making tracks Sunday morning about 3 o’clock when I surrendered myself. My horse only kicks ugly looking folks. I refer to a short thick set man, who is in everybody's mess. I shall not answer whether I have had any communication with Aaron White. I had no positive knowledge what were Dorris objects at Chepatchet. I inferred that they went there to muster such forces as should satisfy the people of Rhode Island were in favor of the suffrage movements. I heard nothing except from Mr. Atwell about the troops going to Providence. I said to Mr, Atwell I have no idea that the landholder's forces would come from Providence. I Inferred Mr. Atwell was as near neutral as could be, if I had been a conjurer I could not tell which side of the fence I was. Saturday I came to Providence alone, was arrested, I should think seven miles from Providence Sunday morning going to Chepatchet, — I had no introduction to any of the officers, knew Isaac Allen before, — I saw no one from New York except Cooley. I have never seen Dissac that I know of.(1)

I was taken in the act of endeavoring to escape from the tyranny of a law which superseded the civil law — a law heretofore only resorted to under the exigency of invasion by a foreign enemy — the name of Government implies the power per se to maintain the law and defend itself — the name of Government ought to be a Tower of Strength — in the state of Rhode Island it is but a name and why is it so? because it is a minority government, an assumption of the few to govern the many.(1)

“Your friend has had some experience of the hospitality of the Algerine government — he has had a free ticket to examine the interior of the Tower and all the lions and other wild hearts therein contained, and has also been introduced to the magnates of our city, and all this ‘free gratis for nothing’. ... . I don’t mean to say your ambassador did absolutely shed a tear, bit doubting as he might well whether he should ever again be permitted to view his own native land and the granite rocks that have given the state a hard name — well might be have shed a tear or two without impeaching his manhood. He will give you the facts and should you ever write the history of the Algerine war you can introduce trials, sufferings and hair-breadth escapes through the pages of the Algerine state of R. I.”(2)

“I have a joyful hope that I shall outlive the charter government, and that I shall not live long under any government that the Algerines can manufacture out of the shreds and fragments of that defunct instrument.”(2)

My dear Eleanor

I cannot resist the pleasure of telling you that I have seen Mr. Dorr — that the hand which pens this letter has rested in the right hand of the hero and had its gentle pressure returned by ne which still pulsates among my fingers — I staid (sic) with him a long time whenever I rose to go he still urged me to stay and drawing a chair close to his side — so close that Mr. Updike himself [page 192:] could not have improved upon the arrangement — he induced me to forget my tea — which was waiting — and even my strawberries and cream in the pleasures of such a propinquity — We talked of you and your interest in the cause and he desired me to present you his kind remembrances — He was at Mr. WiIlard's on the Pawtuxet road — You may have seen the house — it stands very high with an observatory in the top — nearly opposite the Gothic cottage — He was in an upper parlour overlooking the bay and the town and long before we reached the house I could see the back of his arm chair which stood near the window — there were many carriages at the door and we waited without until two or three had driven off — but finding they came faster than they went we resolved to take our chance with the rest — There were persons from Vermont and New Hampshire — New Bedford and New Holland for ought I know for I thought all climes had their representatives there. — He looked very interesting and way happy and received everybody with a kind politeness — while they looked upon him as if he belonged to a superior order of beings — There were some very pretty looking women with their children of all ages — He showed me some of the fans he had painted — The warden whom I met at the gate had just brought them with the four dollars which are graciously allowed to every Convict on his discharge — He told me that while in prison it occurred to him that if he should ever leave it he should like to have some memento of his solitary hours and therefore requested the warden to let him paint for himself one copy of each of the different patterns on which he had been employed, but they were unwilling to lose so much of his labour or to waste so much of the prison property and therefore only two were allowed him — he looks very much bent and enfeebled person but his countenance is cheerful and nobly expressive — I think some of his enemies must quail before that calm clear eye — He talked a great deal and spoke of the determination to bend his spirit by an unmitigated severity of discipline which mis rendered more oppressive and humiliating expressly for this object — stet he betrayed no bitterness of feeling toward his enemies — not so much as I was wicked enough to wish him to feel — I wish you could have been here on the day he was liberated. I went out with Rebecca and Ruth Staples after tea in hopes of obtaining a glimpse of the focal Star of the circling throng — when opposite the Mansion House I happened to see Mr. Burgess sitting in a carriage conversing with some gentleman on the side walk. After waiting some time I caught his eye and asked hin when Mr. Dorr would appear — he informed me that he was to be [page 193:] on the bridge at seven — At the Athenaeum we were fortunate enough to meet with Mr. Hartshorn who procured admission for us to the City Council room which is the north west room in the Market house Chambers — From the windows of this room I looked down upon the longest and most eager crowd of persons that I have ever yet seen collected in a similar space — The welcome which they gave to Mr. Dorr made my heart leap for joy — but I wanted someone near me who could share my joy. Mr. Hartshorn was satisfied with the decision of the law-givers — but Albert Greene looked as if he was threatened with an attack of the sick headache — The cannon which announced his freedom were quite new and I thought I had never heard any speak so emphatically — such joyful and reverberating peals I had not heard till then — every one remarked their torn and distinct utterance — and with every peal I seemed to draw my breath more freely — Dr. Oakie says they have made a sad mistake in withholding his rights since on this question a party will be formed which will carry everything before it — I hope so — Miss Newcomb heard Davis ask me to go over to see Mr. Dorr and she immediately began to declare her joy at his liberation, and I thought seemed more than half-inclined to ask for an invitation for herself — she said she should go instantly to offer her congratulations to his mother. But Davis did not take the hint.

I had a beautiful letter from George this morning. Like all his letters it was full of fragrancy and melody. It was fresh and sweet as the mountain winds — “Tasting of Flora and the country green” — While I lie on my sofa through the live-long summer day — a few living words is this will place me at once in the very heart of mountain solitudes or bear me to “arched —— groves and the brown shades that Sylvan loves” — From having exercised my sense of sight on the same familiar objects since childhood I am somewhat in the condition of the blind man or of Caspar Hauser — My immediate kindly supplies the loss of real objects.

Thus the last word which you said to me about a milliner's cap the last time I saw you has enabled me to clothe you for the summer in a costume very pleasing to my fancy — Instead of seeing you as you last appeared to the bodily eye in an unsightly robe of striped silk:

I see you always moving majestically over the Berkshire hills, crowned with a wreath of oak-leaves and acorns beneath which long floating lapels fall back from your swan-like neck. And for a Hamadryad in mid-summer is not this a cheap and beautiful and appropriate costume — I write as you see in Gilpin haste.

We miss you terribly — your mother especially — do write — truly a friend

S. H. Whitman(1)

“What strollers in the moonlight, these, what singers at Belinda's piano!” writes Van Wyck Brooks. “Graceful as two Young Greeks, they had fallen in love with the Over-Soul and made up their minds to practice Self-Reliance — not an easy task as Nathan Barrett's farm-hands, for Nathan was resolved to “test their metal”. They slept in one room and worked in the fields in the mornings spreading manure, and they read and wrote and botanized. They even hired a patch of their own, raised vegetables and sold them in the village; and when they came home from their walks at sunset their arms were laden with flowers.”(1)

“I hope your long silence portends no illness at which you hinted in your last letter to me, which I received just as I was on the wing for the white hills, and answered only by a few songs,” he wrote in 1845, “or has the autumn which flies round the horizon like a beautifully hued serpent crushing the flower of Summer, fascinated you to silence with its soft calm eyes? This seems the prime of the season full of leaves and thickness, and the mass of various color is solid, — before this month is over the woods will grow sere and wan, and so the splendid result of the year becomes its mausoleum.”(1)

“But how will this all seem to her who sails over darkened waters? While experience lays constantly a heavy hand upon you, does it press out the sweetness and vigor from life? Is life really less full of possibility to you now, than when you could speak and feel as warmly as I do, and does a tinge of sadness touch everything you see and feel? I am not so young as not to have known what it is — this shadowy presence which stands behind. But I want to know if it is perpetual in any life. There is no decline of beauty in the day — if the morning is fresh and sparkling, the evening is tender and the night magnificent. Every hour yields a full and perfect harvest. Can it not be so with life? May not one in the silver old age be as deeply content and hopeful as in youth? Yet I do not remember one old man whose life is steeped in twilight tranquility. There was something yearning for the past. They bent forward over old graves, not backward before the rising day. And I have found so often beneath the lives which seemed so serene a deep consuming sadness, like the fire which burns forever in the center of the flowery earth. No deep thinker, no clear seer seems to be more than cheerful. ‘We make the best of it — it is a puzzle’ — they all seem to say.”(1)

“For certainly this is sad,” he continued. “In the vigor of youth and health, I may ask you with a better feel than curiosity — whether life has [page 199:] disappointed you — whether at any time — from satiety — from exhaustion — or despair you would be willing to lay it away. To me whose sorrows may not be mentioned with those who suffer in every way — yet which are as real as any — one day sometimes repays the whole of past grief, and makes life seem rich and worthy all efforts to sustains is this summer beauty sad to you as well as sweet? Or are you only sitting sometimes in the shadow of moods, and not in the general at of life. I have often a feeling that there is a coarseness in this sphere. I smell flowers whose odor is almost inappreciable and see others of the rarest delicacy and hue, which have no fragrance, and then it seems that my organization is not fine enough — that there is perceptible, emanating incense which some angel or fairy enjoys.”(1)

“But I always think,” he continued, “that when the spring comes, and those whom the winter has imprisoned can once more walk in the green fields, and smell the fresh flowers, fresh and wonderful always although every year brings the same, they will then regain the lost treasure in the fragrance all around them.”(2)

“I read with great delight your article,” he said. “It is the best I have seen upon Mr. E. I might say that it finds more of a system of philosophy than I think he is conscious of, although, after all, you only indicate the central thought which animates his writings and say such good things of philosophy that it loses that very rigid outline which marks it in the schools. I. am glad that you treat him as a prophet rather than poet. My feeling about the latter is very strong, and yet few contemporaries write verses which I love so much. I wish yon might have seen Mr. E. and Mr. Hawthorne for the last year casually and at all times as I have done, that I might know if you would not at last say, the wise Emerson, the poetic Hawthorne. I am going to show some of my verses to the latter — I do not care to do so to the former, and I do it with some trembling as I did to you, for I feel that he knows what is poetry, and that is poetical — what is the power of the poet, and what the force of talented imitation.”(2)

“Goodbye, for that is all that I have to say,” he concluded, “I owe you more than I can say . ... I shall write you from Italy, which sounds like a promise to address you from Paradise and the other world.”(1)

I have delayed to the you for the copy of your poem until I should have ascended from the profound abysm of the metaphysical abstractions and the stringent coil of logical sequences in which I have been entangled for the last six weeks into a purer and freer atmosphere — I had an opportunity proffered me by Mr. Osgood, the Reverent, of taking a profound plunge into the fathomless waters of the Hegelian philosophy and for the time I was shut out from all the sweet influences of the natural world — from these uppermost depths I sometimes caught a glimpse of the upper sky and the constellation stars, but deprived of their fair framework, the purple hills and the soft mists of the horizon, they looked cold and wan, and I am glad to ascend into a warmer atmosphere — your poem is beautiful and its sad sweet monotony represents with a rare fidelity the mood from which it sprang — it seems an effluence rather than a creation — your imagination seems so little indebted to any school, and its creations remind us so little of any prototype that it can be adjudged by none, but must be allowed to wander on its own sweet will — “its liberties and laws”.(1)

“If we believe what is currently reported and generally believed, there is, somewhere in New England, a faction of discontented men and maidens who have conspired to love everything Teutonic, from Dutch to German infidelity” Theodore Parker wrote humorously to the Dial.

“The opposers of German literature are fond of advocating the claim of cannon sense over philosophy, of elevating actual over the ideal,” she wrote, “They talk much, and rather vaguely of Transcentalism [[Transcendentalism]], they tell us of the folly of believing in innate ideas, and triumphantly quote Locke and his ‘tabula rase’. They are afraid of all vagueness and mysticism, and tremble like children at the shadowy appearances seen in the twilight. They will have nothing [page 209:] to do with that which they cannot handle, — they will receive nothing which they cannot fully comprehend, — they like to see all objects clearly and sharply defined in the broad light of day. Yet at night, in the darkness, we may see much that cannot be seen by day. The near glare of the sun conceals from us those far lights of heaven, that are forever burning in the vaults of space, even as the acute shrill sounds of day, prevent us from hearing the deep voices of nature. The Shekinah, which was by day only a cloud of smoke, became by night a pillar of fire.

In literature their favorite models are those writers who are most remarkable for clearness, polish and precision. They seem to prefer vigorous rather than comprehensive thinkers, — writers whose vision is clear but limited, — who deal manfully with facts and events, but care not to penetrate beyond the surface of being, showing us things as the are, without questioning of the how and the why. They love to ‘pace steadily and safely along with the smooth-tongued Addison, the gorgeous Johnson, and the sublime Burke., never deviating from the direct path, and looking upon all who go down in diving bells, or mount up in balloons, as harebrained tempters of fate, They fear all new aspects of truth, and gravely tell us, that ‘it is better with our fallible natures and limited capacities, to rest with humble reliance upon certain ideas and opinions that have been received as plausible, reject all speculations upon subjects which can never be decided nor far developed, while the soul remains in the thrall of flesh’.

Supposing a reflective mind could bring itself to act upon this suggestion, or rather to cease from acting, for ourselves, we know of no opinions which have been universally received as ‘plausible’, and did we know any such, we could not receive them as truths, until they had been stiteLitted to the test of our own reason. ‘Who shall tell us that any man or class of men have monopolized the right of thought? What is truth to another is not truth to us, until our own understanding has verified it. Whatever danger there may be in leaving every man to decide for himself, there is surely far less than in any attempt to restrict the individual right of opinion, through regard to expedieney or respect for authority.

We could not, if we would, have everyman a philosopher, and we think there need be little fear, that our countrymen will become infected by an undue fondness for abstract researches. The mind that has never tried to grasp the great probles of human life and destiny, — that has never sought to wrest a reluctant [page 210:] meaning from the hieroglyphic characters inscribed on the broad page of nature, needs no such restriction, — the mind that has done this, will hardly be checked in its upward impulse by the cui boni of the utilitarian. It sounds almost like mockery, to ask one who has ever caught a single ray of the warm, living light of the sun of truth, to satisfy himself with the frippery, gilt-paper toy of plausibility’.”

“These timid counsellors,” she continued, “remind us of Salomon's slothful man, who keeps housed and says, ‘there is a lion in the streets, if I go forth I shall be slain’. There are some who cannot be thus easily restrained, — they must ‘go forth’, even at a worse peril, — they meet the lion and wrestle with it as they may, — .and often do they find that when they look their formidable foe calmly in the face, he loses all his terrors and becomes at once harmless and tract able.

These people are constantly opposing Revelation to Nature, and Faith to Reason. We cannot agree with them in apprehending any danger to Christianity, from the investigation of calm, tolerant, philosophic spirits, who fear not to look at both sides of a question lest they should meet with something opposed to established and time-hallowed opinions.

The timid faith that fears to question, cannot satisfy us, — such assent is far worse than honest denial. The only fatal skepticism, as it seems to us, is that of the man who wants faith in the human soul. and fears to trust its promptings.

For ourselves, we rejoice in the increasing number of those, who are willing to fellow truth wherever she may lead the, in the spirit of that childlike confidence and perfect love which casteth out fear. We look for the time when philosophy shall aid in reconciling reason and faith, — not by depressing faith but by elevating reason. When we shall be able to interpret in all its beautiful simplicity the word. of him, who taught us to read the gospel of nature [page 211:] to observe the lilies of the field, — and to seek for the kingdom of heaven within our own hearts.

The enforcement of this self-reliance, this faith on the power of the individual to discover for himself truth, is one of the leading heresies of which the ‘New School’ is accused. Yet highest stars of heaven may be seen mirrored within the single drop of dew that trembles within the heart of the violet.

This faith in truth and nature, — this desire to free the mind from its slavery to deeds and conventionalities, though the growth of no particular school, has, it is true, within the last twenty years been more profoundly felt, and more easily inculcated, than at any former period. It gives a tone to all noblest iiterature of the day, and is slowly but surely working a change in the character of the times.

It is this which prompted the obnoxious declaration of Dr. Channing, that ‘man is great as men, be he what and where he may’. This is what was implied by Emerson, when he said, ‘let a man plant himself on his instincts, and the whole world will come round to him’. It is this which illumines every page of Carlyle as with the glory of an inspired scroll, and imparts to the profound philosophy of Cousin its vivifying power.

This doctrine which, was taught by a few sincere and simple spirits, amid the darkest gloom of Jewish superstition and bigotry, has caused one of the most true-hearted believers of our day to assert that the vital truths of Christianity are too deeply wrought into the very nature of the human soul, to be in any danger from a free and fearless examination into the true character of the Christian miracles. It is this growing conviction which is beginning to render all persecution for opinion's sake as disgraceful as it ever was futile, — and this it is, above all, which is teaching the instructors and guardians of youth, that the great objects of education are not to be achieved by the exhibition of facts, or the inculcation of theories, but by developing and strengthening the powers of the mind for individual and independent action.

Much, though not all of this is, we think, attributable, more or less directly, to the Germans. Much, that in our own literature is but faintly and dimly shadowed forth, is in theirs developing itself [page 212:] in free luxurious growth. In the German literature, to use one of their own expressive phrases, ‘Man finds himself’. — The ‘sweet, sad, music of Humanity’ pervades every department of it. In its deep, earnest, philosophic spirit; in its fearless, trusting, transparent simplicity; in the holy fervor of its poets, the serene, spiritual, far-reaching gaze of its theologians and moralists, we may find much which even the rich classical literature of England cannot supply.

To us German has ever been a bright land of promise, since first in the early youth we listened, with kindling heart and eager sympathy, to the tidings which Madame de Stael had brought us of a people, who, in an age of artificiality, had dared to follow the suggestions of their own spirits, and to show us nature, as she had mirrored herself within their own hearts. And now, having possessed ourselves of the golden key, which is to unlock to us this rich world of thought, we cannot but glory in our new found treasures, and endeavor to win others to become partakers of our joy.”

“The man of ‘time serving mediocrity’,” she wrote, “moulded and manufactured after safe conventional rules and formulas, treads the broad highways and beaten paths of life with a mechanical, unquestioning conformity, looking neither to the right nor to the left, neither before nor after, and asking only, ‘what shall he eat, what shall he drink, and where-withal shall he be clothed’. Such a man is occupied with the immediate and the palpable, and he does not heed the sad changes, the fearful contrasts, and all the mysterious contradictory phenomena of human life. He feels no heart-sickening discrepancy between the wants of the spirit and the actual condition of the external world. ‘No bright vision of beauty and love exists within his of mind, to pale the splendor of the outward, and make him dissatisfied with reality’. Such a man knows nothing of those by which energetic sensitive spirits exhaust themselves in a ceaseless conflict with the actual.

On the other hand the Promethean ardor of genius, chained to the hard and sterile rock of reality, feels [page 214:] itself preyed upon by the vulture of unsatisfied desires, which pant after the ideal.”

“Too often while sitting at the feast of life, like the stranger guest at the Egyptian banquet, their eyes are turned sadly upon the veiled memorial of morality, where from beneath its embroidered pall, the hollow visage of death seems to mock them with its ghastly and spectral gaze. Too often neglectful of the cheering intercourse, and all the kindly familiar charities of social life, they stand solitary and apart in a wild and visionary world, brooding in misanthropic gloom over the perplexing mysteries of life, questioning the past and the future, and sending forth their proud thoughts to ‘wander through eternity’.”

“When we see the noble and the gifted”, she wrote, “who went forth in the morning of life with loving hearts and eager, expectant spirits, in search of knowledge and happiness, returning ere midday from their fruitless quest, with energies prematurely wasted, with blanched cheek and blighted hope; sick at heart and sullied, perhaps in fame; then a deep oppression seizes us; we longer trust ourselves to think; we would fain cease to feel; but nature, kind and friendly nature, will not leave to nourish our sick fancies. She wins us out of these dark moods, for the most part whether we will or not. And he does this most successfully, she most effectually cheers and strengthens us, by showing us examples of great man, who have borne unblenchingly the heat and burden of the day; men who have passed from hope to faith through the fiery trials of doubt, and even such a one to us is Goethe.” [page 215:]

“Oh” said Goethe, “if these people had but the heart to commit some indiscretions, there would be hope of them — they would at least be restored to their on natural soil, free from all hypocrisy and acting; and whenever that is the case, one may entertain the hope that something will spring from the germ of good which nature has implanted in every individual.”

“Do not these words express a profound truth?” she wrote. “Nay, do they not even furnish an adequate solution of the one great problem, the existence and origin of evil — since they teach that evil is but imperfection, the absence and negation of good, (in a greater or lesser degree the necessary condition of all created beings) even as in the natural world cold is the absence of heat, and darkness of light?”

“It has always seemed to me unnatural to write to more than one person at a time. Either I am engrossed in a correspondence or am good for nothing in it. I am not excited. by the thought as by the face of the companion. I pray you forgive my bad correspondence in consideration of my being a ready talker.

Your article looks vary fair in print, and is, I am told, much commended, but I fear Orestes Brownson pays in nought more solid than praise. Such was the case, and on beginning this year when he applied to several persons to aid him, I know he offered no more glittering bait. But I will inquire.

There are few German books for sale in Boston, now Bartlett has given up his shop. You will be more likely to find them at Behr's in New York. The volume of Tieck could not, I presume, be bought; you might get it front the library of Harvard University if you have a friend there. I send you a book of mine, one of Richter's finest works. I think its fancy, humor, and sweet humanity will delight you. You can keep it till April; you will find it quite a study, for Richter loves to coin words, and seeks his thought even in the most distant mint.” [page 219:]

I am delighted that there is some prospect of my receiving from you an essay of John Paul Richter. I know but little of him, except from hearsay (for I an not a German scholar, you must remember) but what 1 do know of him is altogether in his favor. I have spelt out some pages of his writings which have delighted me much. He has a richer soul than Goethe, though I should think less talent. Goethe was unquestionably a great man, but I cannot worship him. He does not speak to my wants, my longings, nor to my hopes, and yet I an inclined to think better.(1)

“You joke about my Gods and Goddesses, but really my class in Boston is very pleasant. There I have real society, which I have not before looked for outside the pale of intimacy. We have time, patience, mutual reverence and fearlessness enough to get at one another's thoughts. Of course our treatment of topics is superficial but good I think as far as it goes I took up the Grecian mythology as a good means of opening a vista to the plane I sought and the topics were pursued thus:

Jupiter — Creative Energy, Will.

Apollo — Genius

Bacchus — Geniality

Venus Urania — Ideal Beauty

Cupid and Psyche — Redemption of the Soul by Human Experience.

Venus again, on whom they wrote and talked.

Pallas — very adequately treated.

I then availed myself of a good opportunity to drop mythology and begin again by dividing the Universe into

Poesy, Philosophy, Prose

then Poesy (following Coleridge's classification) into Poetry, Music, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and the histrionic art. We then took up Poetry and after some consideration of its different forms, are taking up poets. Shakespeare and Burns next time. This in reference to some discussion of the words satire, wit and humor called up by the question given out for last time, whether there be any such thing as satirical poetry? I wish you would write and send me your definitions of poesy, poetry, wit and humor, fancy and imagination.

I wish you would come to town and be present at one of the conversations.

As soon as Mr. Emerson's lectures are over, I am to take that evening to give readings from Goethe's works on the Fine Arts to a small circle.

These sort of things suit me very well. I also read some fine books, have now and then some thoughts and see some good people. So I am more good-natured. [page 221:] than when you knew me, for then I had less leisure, less sympathy and less congenial pursuits. I still intend to come to P. in order to show myself in this more favorable light, in April or May, probably. You must invite Lorenzo Da Ponte to meet me.”(1)

“These conversations at the beginning,” says the Cambridge History of American Literature, “were not free from amateurishness and a narrowly self cultural ideal, but they had deeper qualities, the promise of powers more fully revealed in her Woman in the Nineteenth Century and her collected Papers on Literature and Art, which despite their uneven quality reveal her as one of the best equipped, most sympathetic critics produced in America prior to 1850. Margaret was one of the first of the literary emancipators in both time and importance.”(3)

“It was not limited to contemporary thinkers of western Europe”, wrote Charles M. Perry. “The names of Plato, Cudworth, Berkeley, and others began to make their appearance in American writings as well as those of Kant, Cousin, and Coleridge; and even the mystics of India were not unknown to Boston's cultured circles. Nor was the new learning confined to theology and philosophy only; it embraced also the Biblical criticism of Tubingen, the geology of Sir Charles Lyell, a belief in the perfectibility of the human race, and a ‘riotous delight in pure literature’.”(1)

In our everyday lives we deal with facts known to us through our five senses, and with ideas — just as real as these facts — beyond the reach of our senses. Beyond the realm of sense and thought proper, there are unseen forces which control our lives often more truly than those which we can see and understand. These transcendent truths are called intuitions, or innate ideas, which one cannot explain, but which one acts on in life as confidently as if they belonged to sense and reason. He who sees and believes in the things in the realm beyond experience, making then real to himself, is an idealist.(1)

“The great philosopher and the poet is he who understands the spirit of the age”, she declared, no do this he must transcend the existing order of things” overlooking it from a point of view above the level of his contemporaries, and attainable as a common standpoint only to succeeding generations; and just in proportion as he transcends the possible level, is his speech an enigma or a reproach to the multitude, who, regarding their own minds as a normal measure of human intelligence, oppose themselves with sullen determination to the new revelation and groan like the mandrake when a new idea threatens to uproot them from the soil in which they vegetate.”

“A man of Emerson's large faith and intuitive reason”, she explained, “who has drunk deep at the fontal truths of being, and sent his plummet to the ocean-depths of thoughts cannot accomodate [[accommodate]] his free unchartered utterance to the limited apprehension of men, [page 225:] who, engrossed by the narrow arts of detail, have no capacity for the wisdom of the complex.”

“In proportion as matter is divested of its rigid positiveness and substantial objectivity, do we the more readily conceive of it as a permanent mode of existence, capable of infinite adaptations to the wants of the spiritual intelligences that are associated [page 226:] with it. The inferences of modern science in relation to this subject are pregnant with results of the highest importance to spiritual and mental philosophy.”

A sufficiency of life — a true vital integrity — would enable us to transcend these pernicious distinctions, and to see that love and wisdom are inseparable.. Can the contemplation of eternal verities leave the heart cold and void? Is not the holy energy of true love ever sagacious, far-sighted and prophetic? Truth is not isolated; it is not a part, but the whole. It is love, and beauty, and joy. The wise man does not believe and opine, but he knows and is the very truth which he utters. His thought is action: his knowledge is love.

It is very common to hear persons speak of mind as if reason, imagination and sensibility constituted different and distinct portions of it; though the consciousness speaks ex cathedra, of a living unity. This is in part attributable to the popular empirical psychology which bears the same relation to the true, as the Grecian theology to the Mosaic. And as the Hellenic deities make war upon each other, so in the popular psychology the faculties are represented as antagonistic as a profound intellect and a loving heart. Yet, all great philosophers and theosophists have been devout and good men — else were their theories as profitless as their lives.

“Here then”, Mrs Whitman wrote, “lies the grand difficulty, the radical error of the popular creed — as of the Kantian ethics which closely approximate to it. Kant makes the highest morality to consist of the strength of a man's will — a power to conform his life to an idea of duty. Yet that which reason or conscience imposes as “the right” neither wins his credent love by its beauty, nor brings with it blessedness and joy. .Its rewards are referred. to a distant period and an exoteric source. Kant has been not unjustly charged with dislocating and subdividing the faculties of the human mind. He puts far apart knowledge and power, being and doing, wisdom and love. In like manner he divides the universe into antagonistic parts and principles, as matter and spirit, God and nature, good and evil [[,]] etc. Yet, not until men saw this opposition projected into a strong light, did they feel its inadequacy, and seek to restore the great idea of essential unity in a system adapted to the wants and culture of the age. Jacobi was one of the first to call attention to the vital defects of the Kantian philosophy, which sees nothing in Christianity but a code of duties, and represents the creator of the universe as a mere Supreme Being — “Deus extramundanus” — apart from the creation and from man. In referring all action to a souse of obligation, in defining duty, as an antagonistic principle, Kant leaves the subject involved in that “eternal revelment” from which few men know how to disengage it. [page 228:]

But these difficulties lie not in Emerson's path. He dwells over in that clear and serene region where neither Locke nor Arriman, Typhon or Devil, interfere to divide with God the empire of the universe. With the great thinkers of all times he sees no evil is pure; that the principle of good enters into things. “There is no pure lie, no pure malignity in nature — the belief in depravity is the last profligacy and profanation — there is no scepticism, no atheism but that”. The malevolent man is he who holds all things as evil; and hence his destructive propensity . ... Emerson seems with the Platonists to regard evil as a defect, a privation, a deviation from subsistence. He sees that God imparts to all things good and to each that quantity of good which it is qualified to obtain. This faith cannot subsist within a purely dualistic philosophy where wrong stands opposed to right, as a Devil to a God rather than as negation to Being; but in proportion as we free ourselves more and more from a false, fragmentary and superficial life, the soul more distinctly articulates her gospel of peace and love; we then not only believe, but know, that all evil is relative, all being progressive, all life but an emanation from the Divine.

It is this beautiful soul trusts and not self trust, as some would render it, that Emerson inculcates from a faith so sweet and inward that the scoffer is silenced and the caviller rebuked.

“It suggested to Swedenborg his doctrine of correspondence — to Fourier his theory of universal analogy — and to Schelling the parallelism that exists between the laws of thought — or as Hegel has more intensively expressed it — Die Absolute Einheit des Begriffs und der Objectivitat — ‘the absolute oneness of thought and its object’.” Mrs. Whitman wrote. “It inspired St. Simon with his devout conception of the [page 230:] collective life of humanity, and revealed to him its harmonious and progressive development, thereby imparting to history an epic character which ennobles every phase of its progress. Under its influence science itself seems rapidly outgrowing its purely empirical limits, and approximating to a more large and poetic conception of the generic unity and dynamic power of nature. Perhaps without falling back on the abhorrent theory of the materialists, we shall yet find that the mind has its physique and nature of her Psyche. If the same law prevails in the natural as in the moral world — if the same primal energy informs them, then science becomes at once mystic and devout — a portal through which we have access to the penetralia of that beautiful temple of nature, of which Heraclitus said, ‘Enter, for here too are Gods’.

The Pythagoreans thought that if the essence of all things arts of cognition, it is only in so far as the things of which the world consists, partake of it. With equal truth we might say that if the things of which the world consists admit of cognition, it is only in so far as they partake of the. essence of all things — ‘Deus immundanus’. Only through our oneness with actual being can we assume the possibility of actual knowledge.

An able writer in the Westminster Review, in analyzing the great doctrine of Spinoza, says, ‘No believer in Ontology, as a possible science can resist the all embracing dialectic of Spinoza, but it is our strength that me reject all metaphysics as frivolous. Men can never arrive at a knowledge of things as they are in themselves. Turn it which way you will, there is nothing in the consciousness but the consciousness itself to know more would involve the necessity to be more.’ Aye verily! — but this identical fact of being more is that on which the believer in absolute cognition grounds his faith. no philosophy can explain the relation of thought to its object, which conceives of man as an isolated and detached particle of the great whole (a belief which we cannot even state without a paradox). But a more profound observation shows us the manifold, living and essential union which inwardly and invisibly unites all individuals with each other and with nature. Only through a ‘mystical union of all things resting in God’ can we explain the most familiar facts of experience — far less the subtle mysteries of those evanescent and abnormal states in which the soul, transcending the limits of time and space, holds commune with the invisible world, recalls the past and foresees the [page 231:] future — moods when

The new Platonists, who regarded this class of phenomena as a kind of natural magic of divination, based the possibility of such powers on the essential connection and dependence of all things.

The great idea then which has exercised so vast an influence on the age is the unity of being, or as a recent critic on the ‘Teutonic Metaphysics or American Transcendentalism’ has satirically expressed it, ‘everything is everything and everything is everything else’. We cannot be surprised at the vagueness and folly which this writer finds in a philosophy which he vainly attempts to grasp. The same plant will not grow in every soil. Yet is this ‘Each in all’ philosophy no mere ‘Hall of Phantasy’, no ‘Blind Man's Holiday’, or ‘Fool's Paradise’, but a sure ground of holiest loves, of sternest courage, of serenest patience, and above all of unfailing charity.”

“From this chaos of partial and opposing systems,” Mrs. Whitman explained, “Schelling freed himself by a daring and sublime hypothesis, a bold affirmation of ontological truth, which affected not to justify itself by any laborous [[laborious]] psychological analysis, but to the elucidation of which all recent discoveries in mental and physical science indubitably tend. [page 232:]

The fatal defect of the Kantain philosophy, the difficulty of imputing validity to our subjective conceptions, is here supplied by assuming the identity of that which knows with that which is known; thus integrating all antagonisms, even. the great antagonism of matter and spirit, the insuperable problem in every system.

In the philosophy of Schelling, the real and the ideal are equally represented. God and nature no longer appear as two conceptions fundamentally and essentially distinct, but all things are living and instinct with a divine energy. The idea of progress as a gradual development in humanity of this inherent energy was now for the first time intelligibly and distinctly stated. Only recently have men begun to know that the destiny of the race is onward forever onward. The successive forms, laws, creeds, and institutions of society are no longer regarded as ultimate, and it is seen that any attempt to perpetuate the same beyond the title when they represent the average intelligence of society, can only lead to stagnation and paralysis. We have learned the significance of the proverb that says the new wine cannot be kept in the old bottles.”.

Every new discovery in physics teaches us that all difference is phenomenal. The integrity of being is detected under manifold disguises. The farther we push our inquiries into the different departments of sciences the more obvious are the analogies subsisting between them. In nature all the lines blend and converge toward a common center. The moment we attempt to distinguish and define, to draw lines and affix boundaries, we are plexed and baffled by her fluidity and sameness. In the crystal we already detect a paradigm of vegetable forms, in the vegetable an approach to the sentient instinct, while sensation and volition present strange and subtle analogies with electricity. The discovery of the dependence of the chemical affinities of bodies on their electric states — the detection of electric forces in magnetic phenomena — the close analogies subsisting between light, heat, and sound, all point to one primal energy in nature, the agent in all natural phenomena, as in the mind that perceived them — for mind itself, in ao far as we are acquainted with its mode of of being, is but a subtle force vibrating to the impulsion of other forces external to itself.

And what then is the omnipresent energy which determines alike the regular form of a crystal, the symmetrical structure of a flower, and the cyclic motions of a planet; perhaps even the mysteries and harmonies of the human soul? What is this invisible power, itself intangible and imponderables, from which all this bright apocalypse of visible nature is evolved? — which under certain ascertained conditions originates life in inanimate matter, which dissolves into airy nothing the substance of the most solid mountains, which makes and unmakes things.

“Nature”, says Emerson, “is the incarnation of a thought and turns to a thought again.” Paradoxical [page 234:] as this may seem, it is the affirmation of a simple fact. Berkeley after all, was perhaps nearer the truth than has been imagined. For the question between him and his opponents was not whether the objects of perception have a real existence out of the mind, but simply whether they have a solid substantial existence — whether the things which affect us from without matter or spirit.

When Berkeley says that these objects and qualities are but the immediate effect of the ever present Deity, he assumes a sublime truth in strict accordance with the results to which all modern researches into the internal structure and equilibrium of matter evidently point. All that we know of matter may be comprised in a statement of the law by which certain forces emanating from certain centers act upon each other. None of our senses ever go behind these forces, and we are unable to determine whether they have a substantial basis or proceed simply from an ideal center.

Since Leibnitz rejected the Newtonian theory of hard impenetrable, insoluble atoms, and introduced his own hypothesos monads, or simple spiritual unextended units, essentially possessed of attractive and repulsive forces, science has been slowly but surely approximating to a more spiritual apprehension of the material world and of the laws by which it is governed, — to theory which should remove the great stumbling block of matter which has proved so formidable an obstacle in the path of the cosmologist, and which the Nanicheans and their modern disciples have elevated the rival and adversary of Deity. This theory of Leibnitz when presented in a more finished state by Boscovitchy very generally superseded that of Newton. His idea that the properties of bodies depend on certain forces emanating from geocentric points, or points bearing certain relations to each other in space has subsequently received a striking confirmation from the discovery that the chemical affinities of bodies depend on their .electric states; and the physical philosopher already confidently anticipates the time when the chemical problem shall be changed into a mechanical problem — a question of forces, distance and time.

“But what then,” asks the materialist, “are these ultimate atoms — these extended points — or, as Exley has recently more correctly designated them, these ‘spheres of force’? — in what do the powers and properties that pertain to them inhere?” To this question science has returned no positive answer. All [page 235:] our inquiries into the laws of sensation and the phenomena which induce sensation have revealed to us only “an elastic fluid vibrating to the impulsion of elastic media.”

“The intellect ignores matter.” “Solidity is an illusion of the senses.”

May we not then reasonably assume that the latent, yet immediate and inherent principle of the forces which represent matter is the great “caused entity” of Spinoza, which manifests itself under the two modes or attributes of “extension and thought”. The life of “the world”? Thus are we again brought back to the great fact of unity in diversity — to the primal manifestation of that mysterious law of polarity which comprehends all phenomena — to that absolute identity which is the starting point and result of all philosophy. And thus is the mystic God — lore of an earlier age elucidated and justified by the scientific researches of our own.

“My dear cousin,” Susan wrote to Mrs. Whitman concerning her grandmother's death, “you don’t know how your letter disappointed me. I asked for details — but it was not for the last poor fluctuation of [page 237:] bodily life that I wished to hear; I wanted to know if there were any indications of life within — your letter gave me no satisfaction. Did she hot, when so near eternity, and, as you say, frequently expressing a wish to die, give any indication of the frame and posture of her mind in view of it? And amidst all your kindnesses and attentions to her, for every one of which believe me I thank you sincerely did you never ask her if she was ready for her great change? did you help her to prepare for it? did you do what you could do to lead her to a knowledge of herself and to acquaintance and peace with God? I know my poor Grandma, in the days when I knew her, gave no sign of being a Christian, and I do not suppose she had any adequate notion of what the term implies. Was there any change in her afterwards? Did she love her Bible? did she love sweet prayer? My cousin, a Christian can no more live without sweet prayer the a man can live without breathing — no mom.”(1)

“What would I have given”, she said, “for one token that she felt her own utter sinfulness and looked to Christ in the only way that can avail, in that living faith that always works by love; as an infant looks to its mother in confiding and depending affection, and with much the same sort of feelings, but with it is mixed the sense of guilt and grateful [page 238:] consciousness that Christ has taken the burden of it on his own shoulders.”

The objections which your fair correspondent has raised against my ‘Doctrine of the Will’, I feel bound to consider. If she were a good Presbyterian Divine, I should call her a ‘foeman worthy of my steel’, but my gallantry will not suffer me in this case to use such language even figuratively — I will not believe myself engaged in a contest, but with rather imagine that I am in the court of wit and beauty pleading the cause of a great truth — I expect to be heard impartially, and shall indeed be most honored if the fair judge decide in my favor.

The principal objective which she raises is that my statements are contradictory. In one place I affirm that the will can resist the motives drawn both from the reason and the sensitivity and then be a ‘free will of indifferency’ — In another place I affirm that the will cannot act without an aim and object of action — and again that where ‘reason and desire prompt to the same act, there is a moral certainty as to the manner in which the will will determine itself’. Now I do not think there is any contradiction if I be rightly understood. The apparent contradiction is not new to me.

I am going to write either to you or to Miss Lynch before to an essay on “Free Will and Necessity”. I am not willing that you should disagree with me. You and Miss Lynch are the only friends I have who cling to the doctrine of necessity, and I believe when I have fairly stated my views, you will both of you accept them. You see that although I was beaten in the discussion, I do not own myself vanquished. I shall return to the charge as soon as I get the present number of the Review off my hands.(1)

“The editor of the Boston Quarterly,” she wrote, “has been sometimes classed among the New England disciples or teachers of transcendentalism, and he has, in fact, from time to time exhibited some predilections for its doctrines, as diluted by Cousin, but he has never found that point of view, from which alone these truths can be seen and comprehended as one harmonious system. He has by turns affirmed and denied the great truth of man's knowledge of the absolute, through the mystical union of God with humanity. Yesterday be believed in the impersonality of the reason; today to deny its personality, is to deny our own. In laboring to define human personality, and to demonstrate the exact nature and scope of its powers of cognition, will, etc, he involves himself in endless contradictions and inextricable difficulties, thus furnishing another evidence that nature abhors limitations, overflowing all our landmarks, and annulling all our distinctions. In one of these aphorisms of Novalis, where a profound truth is often expressed under a bold and startling paradox, he says, ‘men think it is a vulgar error to represent God as a person, but we have yet to learn that man is not less impersonal than God’. When we attempt to separate man from his life in God, we have nothing left but Mr. Brownson's ‘simple faculty of cognition’, or the ‘Tabula rasa’ of Locke. In his denial of the impersonal reason, in his review of Charles Elwood, April 1842, Mr. Brownson seems already to have forgotten ‘that life which is the light of the world, and in which we live, and move, and have our being’, a gospel, which in 1841, he quoted as containing the only intelligible solution of these problems.”(1)

“I regret to learn,” he wrote, ‘’that you are afflicted as you mention, but I am happy to observe the calmness with which you are able to look on sickness and death. I have never been able in my life to point to death to myself as a king of terrors. To me there is nothing unpleasant in the thought of dying save that of parting for a short time from those I love. And how know I that I am parting from them. Strip off the veil of flesh and we should see those of our friends who have already gone, nearer us; and why shall we not be permitted to hover near the spots dear to us, and to watch over those we loved? Perhaps we may still be of service to them, and even more than we were when [page 243:] in the body. How many of the rich thoughts which spring up spontaneously in our minds are suggested by some friend of ours in the spirit lands? And how many of the warm rich feelings which glow within us, we know not wherefores are kindled up by the loved departed. I do not know whether you believe this notion or not, but I do, although my loved ones are still in the flesh.”(1)

My dear Friend, Mrs. Whitman,

The tone of your letter does not at all surprise me. I was sure you would be wrapt in admiration in the perusal of the book. I share in a great deal of your enthusiasm, though I should make abatements when you do not. But I regard this work, as a whole, as the most astounding prodigy this world has ever seen next to Swendenborg's oracles. Its developments of the creative process are magnificently true as well as truly magnificent. The ante-historical details I am inclined to receive though not quite assured. The Biblical and theological are, though masterly in its accumulation of results, in the main replete with falsities and pregnant with mischief. It ignores the fundamental natural truths of the universe, and b virtually giving ascendancy to Wisdom over Love blunders into the most grevious [[grievous]] fallacies respecting the nature of Evil, and the whole theme of human Redemption. I speak plainly on this subject, and you know my standpoint is not that of ancient and obsolete orthodoxy.

Now all of this I can perfectly explain on the ground of Swedenborg's “blazon” of the spirit-world, but no other system will afford the Key. I am about preparing for the press an elaborate article on the subject In conjunction with Mr. Barrett in which we [page 246:] shall solve all the phenomena, and still concede the asserted origin of the book and all its real merit.

He has sadly misrepresented Swedenborg, notwithstanding the reverence with which he evidently regards him, and we shall show that when he is inconsistent with him he is inconsistent with himself. —— Still I beg you to believe that I have a most exalted idea of the work on the ground of its intrinsic merits, but mainly in the philosophical department . ... I was equally stumbled with yourself in regard to the passages respecting the “intensely deformed”. I think it must mean that they have no identity as such. As to the other the idea seems to be that the first sphere is unfolded from the system to which our sun belongs, which he says is the fifth, but why he calls this the last, I am not so cleat.

You ask whether he understands and appreciates his revelations when in the normal state”. He does very fully, and this makes him one of the most instructive and charming companions you can imagine. He mind has been wonderfully expanded by the process through which he has passed, and the wisdom of Thurseus seems to emanate from this blooming yhout of 20, for he is very handsome and most fascinating from the simplicity of his manner and certain guileless grave that is wreathed about him. He has the least self-consciousness — almost — of any person I have ever known.

He has been, he says, internally forbidden to be magnetized any more for a year, but he goes into the state voluntarily for the examination of disease and certain other purposes of use. He can see nothing when he aims merely to gratify whether his own or that of others. — is to diseases, he only requires a lock of hair or a letter from the patient, and he examines the case in detail, and then writes out in the dark when it is ready to be dispatched by mail. At present he has a great number of applications on hand, and I do not know whether he could receive any more.

He is a most interesting young man and destined to be a world's wonder. His next book will be awaited with the utmost eagerness. .Previous to its appearance however, I understand it is the purpose to publish a small volume containing some remarkable visions which he has had, and in which the present volume originated. I advise you to keep a lookout for the book.. It will be full of marvels. He is now at Poughkeepsie, though expected shortly in the city. [page 247:]

You speak of George Parker. Do you not mean Theodore? I learn that he is in raptures with the volume, and that he will soon review it — in the new Journal to be issued in December.

To your question why I give more credit to Swedenborg than to Davis, I should require many letters to reply. Swedenborg is seven heavens above Davis in all that he has said of the other world. Onl think of the gigantic genius — the perfected nature, and the angelic morals of the man. Read my forth-coming work — “Documents concerning Swedenborg” — and see what a character the world has overlooked. Read too Wilkinson's “Popular Sketch” which I send you with this. I know you respect Swedeborg, but I am persuaded you have as yet a very inadequate conception of the grounds on which he claims it.

I send for your perusal a letter of Davis written to me some weeks ago in answer to some strictures I made on his work — particularly in respect to the origin of evil. As I leave the city next week on a journey to the west, I am oblige to request its return by Tuesday.(1)

The pleasure I received from your communication, great as it was, would have been greater could I have heard a better account of your health. But the right kind of tidings on this score it seems are yet in the future. That is, what we your friends term the right kind of tidings. As to your own reports I suppose, your “better would be our worse”. And that you would at the last extremity say with good old Baxter — “Almost well”. But Oh Death! What a mystery of mysteries. How am I overwhelmed in the thought of it. How near yet how remote. We see it — think of it — speak of it — wonder at it — shudder at it — and then enter in dark domains and know it! . ... On many points I am too much in the same category to breathe a whisper of questioning, yet in other respects I know I stand on other ground, and am entitled to speak a little ex cathedra. Imagine me then sitting not on a throne or tripos but in your quiet parlor, and by your side, and looking into the soft blue of your eye, and what think you I should say? Something very near akin to this: —

My dear madam you profess allegiance to a right reason. You claim to be led by a true philosophy in making up your mind on the high theme of your destiny. You cannot, you say, forego the heedful listenings to the inner oracle of soul's sanctuary. God has given you intuitions, and you cannot slight them. Your deepest spirit avows reverence, grateful love, holy fear, the height of all filial emotions toward the infinite paternity, the Fountain overflowing, and overflowing of good, of Blessedness of Truth. And yet — yet — you do not find the word of Revelation the pabulum of your soul. Your hopes and happiness can maintain themselves independent of this outward record. You do not disparage it. You do not despise it — and yet you do not find it indispensable to your progress toward perfection. Eva here I am sure you are wrong. As a philosopher you are not at liberty to set aside or make little of the fact that God has spoken. This is to us the great fact of the universe. No homage to reason can authorize us to go [page 249:] forward as if this were not the case. I profess as profound a deference to serve reason as anyone living and still I am constrained to bow to the divine dicta of revelation. Like-minded I think you ought to be. If you cannot discard the evidence that this volume in its integrity has come forth from God — (and you cannot) — then you ought to feel the deepest concern to bring its averments into harmony with your reason. For it is impossible that — rightly understood — there should be any conflict between them. You must not think to throw the responsibility of this upon others You are bound to answer to yourself the great question. Who is Jesus Christ? And what was his true mission to earth. And now my friend I have set you a problem to work upon till I see you again which I am in hopes may be during the summer ... I scold you somewhat you perceive, but I will defy you to like me any the less on that account, for you know I am truly liberal, and that I have a most unfeigned personal regard for you. So hate me if you can. Ostracise me if you can.(1)