Part 24

There are no stirring adventures, no record of any achievements of genius in these memoirs, but the unpretending pages reflect a clear image of two fine characters, well adjusted to the social conditions amid which they lived. Both had beauty and dignity of person, warm sympathies, good brains, abundant energy, and a spirit of hospitality which made their home the focus where the worth and intellect of the village were wont to gather and to shine brightest and warmest. Northampton has now its row of thriving stores, to which the people from neighboring villages flock on market-days, making a cheerful bustle. The elms, planted by the pioneers on either side the street, from the boughs of one of which Jonathan Edwards had preached to the Indians, now spread a goodly shade. A four-horse stage from Boston, ninety miles distant, comes in every evening with bugle horn sounding gaily. The driver is the personal friend of the whole town, for his tenacious memory never lets slip a single message or commission—save on one memorable occasion, when he forgot to bring back his wife who had been visiting in Boston, and so furnished the village with a long-enduring joke. The social judge, when he hears the horn, takes his hat and with alert step and cheerful face, glowing in the evening light, hastens to Warner’s Tavern where the coach draws up, to welcome the arrivals and bring any friend who may be among them to his own home—and any stranger too, who seems in ill-health or sorrow, and not likely to be made comfortable at an inn. When the judge and his wife go yearly to Boston, a throng of neighbors flock into the library overnight, where the packing goes on, not only to take an affectionate leave, but to bring parcels of every size and commissions of every variety,—a pattern with request to bring back dresses for a family of five; and “could they go to the orphan asylum and see if a good child of ten could be bound out till she was eighteen? and if so, bring her back.” One requests them to call and see a sick mother at Sudbury, another a sick sister at Ware. Finally, a little boy, with bundle as large as himself, asks “if this would be too big to carry to grandmother?” “I’ll carry anything short of a cooking-stove,” says the kind lady; and wherever the stage stops to change horses, she runs round to hunt up the sick friend or deliver the parcel.

Here is a picture, in brief, of a day of home-life at a later period when the children are mostly grown up and the judge has retired from the Bench. It is the grey dawn of a summer’s day, and the mother is already up and doing, while the rest of her large family, all but the husband, are still asleep. Dressed in short skirt and white _sacque_, she goes with broom and duster to her parlor and dining-room, opens wide the windows to the sweet morning air and the song of the birds, and puts all in order. At six o’clock she calls up her two maids, puts on her morning-dress and white cap, takes the large work-basket that always stands handy in the corner—for she mends not only for the family but for the maids and the hired man—and works till breakfast, when often fifteen or twenty cheerful souls assemble round the table. After which, with help of children and grandchildren, the dishes are swiftly washed, the table cleared, and husband and wife are then wont to take their seat at the front door, that they may greet the passer-by or send messages to neighbors: she with the work-basket and the book that always lay handy under the work—some essay, poem, history, novel (for she is an omnivorous reader, and her letters intelligently discuss current literary topics)—or with the peas and beans to shell and string for dinner; he with the newspaper. Among the passers-by with whom they chat come, at certain seasons of the year, the judges of the Supreme Court and other notable men,—Baron Renné, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Emerson, too, while he was yet a young unknown Unitarian minister. Seldom does the large family sit down to dinner without guests, for any one who drops in is asked to stay, or some wearied-looking passer-by is pressed to step in. In the afternoon the mother’s chosen seat is at the window of the west parlor looking towards the hills, and then the young people flock around while she reads aloud through the long summer afternoons. All must share in her enjoyment, and often is the wayfarer, some “good neighbor” or “intellectual starveling,” beckoned in “just to hear this rich passage we are reading—it won’t take long.” If she finds any with a strong desire for knowledge, she never rests till the means to supply the want are found, and more than one youth of promise afterwards fulfilled owed his first good chance in life to this wise, generous-hearted woman.

GLIMPSE THE THIRD.

Northampton to-day carries her two hundred and thirty odd years lightly, and, save for the lofty and venerable elms, looks as young as the youngest of towns. How, indeed, can anything but the trees ever look old in America, since the atmosphere does not furnish old Time with moisture enough to write the record of his flight in grey tones and weather stains, and lichens, and worn and crumbling edges? Hawthorne’s “old manse” at Concord was the only ancient-looking house I saw. Either it had never been painted, or the paint was all worn off, and so the wooden walls had taken a silver-grey color, and, with its picturesque situation close to the Concord river and by the side of the field in which was fought the first battle in the War of Independence, it well deserves the honor and renown that have settled on it, both as associated with Emerson’s ancestors, his own early days, and with Hawthorne’s romance. But in general the yearly fresh coat of paint is a sort of new birth to the old houses, which makes them indistinguishable from modern ones, wood being still the material used in country-places for detached houses. But step inside some one or two of these pretty modest-looking cottages, under the shade of the Northampton elms, and you will find the low ceiling, the massive beams, small doors and windows, corner cupboards, and queer ups and downs along the passages, which tell that they were put up by hands long since mouldered in the grave, and make you feel as if you were at home again in some old Essex village.

Socially, the little town may be regarded as a kind of Cranford—but Cranford with a difference. There is the same preponderance of maiden ladies and widows—for what should the men do there? New England farming is a very slow and unprofitable affair compared with farming in the West, and there are no manufactures of any importance. There are the same tea-parties, with a solitary beau in the centre, “like the one white flower in the middle of a nosegay;” the same modest goodness, kindliness, refinement, making the best of limited means and of restricted interests. But even under these conditions the spirit of enterprise and of public spirit lurks in an American Cranford, and strikes out boldly in some direction or other. What would Miss Jenkyns have said to the notion of a college which should embody the most advanced ideas for giving young women precisely the same educational opportunities as young men? She would justly have felt that it was enough to make Dr. Johnson turn in his grave. Yet such a scheme has been realized by one of the maiden ladies of Northampton or its immediate neighborhood, in Smith College—a really noble institution; where, also, the experiment is being tried of housing the students, not in one large building, but in a cluster of pretty-looking, moderate-sized homes, standing amid lawn and garden, where they are allowed, under certain restrictions, to enter into and receive the society of the village, so that their lives may not be a too monotonous routine and “grind.”

Another maiden lady has achieved a still more remarkable success, for she had no wealth of her own to enable her to carry out her idea—which was, to perfect and to introduce on a large scale the method, devised in Spain some hundred years ago, developed by Heinicke, a German, by Bell of Edinburgh, and by his son, in a system of “visible speech,”—for enabling the deaf and dumb to speak, not with the fingers but the voice, dumb no longer, and to hear with the eyes, so to speak, by reading the movements of the lips. Miss Harriet Rogers, who had never witnessed this method in operation, began by teaching a few pupils privately till her success induced a generous inhabitant of Northampton, Mr. Clarke, to come forward with £10,000 to found a Deaf and Dumb Institution, of which her little school formed the nucleus, and her unwearied devotion and special gifts the animating soul. Step into a class-room in one of these cheerful looking houses, surrounded by gay flower borders and well-kept lawns, standing on a hill just outside the town,—for here, too, the plan of a group of buildings has been adopted. About twenty children, boys and girls, are ranged, their faces eagerly looking towards a lady who stands on a raised platform. Her presence conveys a sense of that gentle yet resistless power which springs from a firm will, combined with a rich measure of sympathy and affection. She raises her hand a little way, and then moves it slowly along in a horizontal direction. The children open their mouths and utter a deep sustained tone, a plaintive, minor, wild, yet not unmusical sound. She raises it a little higher, and again moves it slowly along. The children immediately raise the pitch of their voices and sustain a higher tone. Again the voices, following the hand, sustain a yet higher, almost a shrill note. Then the hand waves up and down rapidly, and the tones faithfully follow its lead in swift transition, till they seem lost in a maze of varying inflexions; but always the voices are obedient to the waving hand. The teacher then makes a round O with thumb and forefinger, gradually parting them like the opening of the mouth. This is the sign for crescendo and diminuendo. The voices begin softly, swell into a great volume of sound, then die away again, still with those peculiar plaintive tones; yet much do the children seem to enjoy the exercise, though, to most of them, remember, the room is all the while soundless as the grave. They learn to vary the pitch of their voices partly by feeling with the hand the vibrations of the throat and chest,—quick and in the throat for high tones, slow and in the chest for low ones—partly by help of Bell’s written signs, which represent the position peculiar to each sound of the various organs of speech—throat, tongue, lips, back of the mouth, &c. This was a class of beginners chiefly learning to develop and control their hitherto unused voices. Inexhaustible is the patience, wonderful the tact employed by Miss Rogers and her able assistants in the far more difficult task of teaching actual speech. A small percentage of the children will prove too slow and blunt of perception ever to master it, and will have to be sent where the old finger alphabet is still the method in use. Some, on the other hand, will succeed so brilliantly that it will be impossible for a stranger to detect that they were once deaf-mutes,—that they seize your words with their eyes, not with their ears, and have never heard the sound of human speech, though they can speak. And the great bulk will return to their homes capable of understanding in the main what is going on around them, and of making themselves intelligible to their friends without recourse to signs.

Our actual Cranford over the sea, then, has a considerable advantage over the Cranford of romance, in that her heroines do not wait for the (in fiction) inevitable, faithful, long-absent, mysteriously-returning-at-the-right-moment lover to redeem their lives from triviality, and renew their faded bloom. And, in the present state of the world’s affairs, what is more needed than the single woman who succeeds in making her life worth living, honorably independent, and of value to others? Through such will certainly be given new scope and impetus to the development of woman generally, and in the long run, therefore, good results for all.

Among the solid achievements of Northampton must also be mentioned an excellent free library, with spacious airy reading-room, such as any city might be proud of. There is also a State lunatic asylum, with large farm attached, which not only supplies the most restorative occupation for those of the inmates who are capable of work, but defrays all the expenses of the institution, with an occasional surplus for improvements.

If I were asked what, after some years spent in America, impressed me most unexpectedly, I should say of the people, as of the New England landscape, So like! yet so different! I speak, of course, not of superficial differences, but of mental physiognomy and temperament. Given new conditions of climate, soil, space, with their subtle, slow, yet deep and sure modifying influences,—new qualities to the pleasures of life, new qualities to its pains and struggles, new social and political conditions, new mixing of old races, different antecedents, the primitive wrestle with nature by a people not primitive but inheriting the habits and characteristics of advanced civilization,—and how can there but result the shaping of a new race out of old world stock, a fresh instrument in the great orchestra of humanity? Indicate these differences, these traits! says the impatient reader. They are too subtle for words, like the perfume of flowers, the flavor of fruit,—too much intermingled with individual qualities also, at any rate for mere descriptive words, though no doubt in time the imaginative literature of America will creatively embody them.

One lesson whoever has lived in, not merely travelled through America, must learn perforce. It is that the swift steamers, bringing a succession of more or less keen observers, the telegrams and newspapers, which we fondly imagine annihilate space and make us fully cognizant of the character and affairs of our far-off kindred are by no means such wonder-workers. In spite of newspapers, and telegrams, and travellers, and a common language and ancestry, we are full of misconceptions about each other. Nay, I found the actual condition of my own country drift slowly out of intelligible sight after a year or two’s absence. Even if every word uttered and printed were true, that which gives them their significance cannot be so transmitted; whilst the great forces that are shaping and building up a people’s life and character work silently beneath the surface, so that truly may it be said of a nation, as of an individual, “The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with its joy.” Save by the help of vital literature—in that, at last, the souls of the nations speak to one another.—_Blackwood’s Magazine._

LAST WORDS ABOUT AGNOSTICISM AND THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY.

BY HERBERT SPENCER.

Those who expected from Mr. Harrison an interesting rejoinder to my reply, will not be disappointed. Those who looked for points skilfully made, which either are, or seem to be, telling, will be fully satisfied. Those who sought pleasure from witnessing a display of literary power, will close his article gratified with the hour they have spent over it. Those only will be not altogether contented who supposed that my outspoken criticism of Mr. Harrison’s statements and views, would excite him to an unusual display of that trenchant style for which he is famous; since he has, for the most part, continued the discussion with calmness. After saying thus much it may seem that some apology is needed for continuing a controversy of which many, if not most, readers, have by this time become weary. But gladly as I would leave the matter where it stands, alike to save my own time and others’ attention, there are sundry motives which forbid me. Partly my excuse must be the profound importance and perennial interest of the questions raised. Partly I am prompted by the consideration that it is a pity to cease just when a few more pages will make clear sundry of the issues, and leave readers in a better position for deciding. Partly it seems to me wrong to leave grave misunderstandings unrectified. And partly I am reluctant on personal grounds to pass by some of Mr. Harrison’s statements unnoticed.

One of these statements, indeed, it would be imperative on me to notice, since it reflects on me in a serious way. Speaking of the _Descriptive Sociology_, which contains a large part (though by no means all) of the evidence used in the _Principles of Sociology_, and referring to the compilers who, under my superintendence, selected the materials forming that work, Mr. Harrison says:—

Of course these intelligent gentlemen had little difficulty in clipping from hundreds of books about foreign races sentences which seem to support Mr. Spencer’s doctrines. The whole proceeding is too much like that of a famous lawyer who wrote a law book, and then gave it to his pupils to find the “cases” which supported his law.

Had Mr. Harrison observed the dates, he would have seen that since the compilation of the _Descriptive Sociology_ was commenced in 1867 and the writing of the _Principles of Sociology_ in 1874, the parallel he draws is not altogether applicable: the fact being that the _Descriptive Sociology_ was commenced seven years in advance for the purpose (as stated in the preface) of obtaining adequate materials for generalizations: sundry of which, I may remark in passing, have been quite at variance with my pre-conceptions.[62] I think that on consideration, Mr. Harrison will regret having made so grave an insinuation without very good warrant; and he has no warrant. Charity would almost lead one to suppose that he was not fully conscious of its implications when he wrote the above passage; for he practically cancels them immediately afterwards. He says:—“But of course one can find in this medley of tables almost any view. And I find facts which make for my view as often as any other.” How this last statement consists with the insinuation that what Mr. Harrison calls a “medley” of tables contains evidence vitiated by special selection of facts, it is difficult to understand. If the purpose was to justify a foregone conclusion, how does it happen that there are (according to Mr. Harrison) as many facts which make against it as there are facts which make for it?

The question here incidentally raised concerns the primitive religious idea. Which is the original belief, fetichism or the ghost-theory? The answer should profoundly interest all who care to understand the course of human thought; and I shall therefore not apologize for pursuing the question a little further.

* * * * *

Having had them counted, I find that in those four parts of the _Descriptive Sociology_ which give accounts of the uncivilized races, there are 697 extracts which refer to the ghost-theory: illustrating the belief in a wandering double which goes away during sleep, or fainting, or other form of insensibility, and deserts the body for a longer period at death,—a double which can enter into and possess other persons, causing disease, epilepsy, insanity, etc., which gives rise to ideas of spirits, demons, etc., and which originates propitiation and worship of ghosts. On the other hand there are 87 extracts which refer to the worship of inanimate objects or belief in their supernatural powers. Now even did these 87 extracts support Mr. Harrison’s view, this ratio of 8 to 1 would hardly justify his statement that the facts “make for my [his] view as often as any other.” But these 87 extracts do not make for his view. To get proof that the inanimate objects are worshipped for themselves simply, instances must be found in which such objects are worshipped among peoples who have no ghost-theory; for wherever the ghost-theory exists it comes into play and originates those supernatural powers which certain objects are supposed to have. When by unrelated tribes scattered all over the world, we find it held that the souls of the dead are supposed to haunt the neighboring forests—when we learn that the Karen thinks “the spirits of the departed dead crowd around him;”[63] that the Society Islanders imagined spirits “surrounded them night and day watching every action;”[64] that the Nicobar people annually compel “all the bad spirits to leave the dwelling;”[65] that an Arab never throws anything away without asking forgiveness of the Efrits he may strike;[66] and that the Jews thought it was because of the multitudes of spirits in synagogues that “the dress of the Rabbins become so soon old and torn through their rubbing;”[67] when we find the accompanying belief to be that ghosts or spirits are capable of going into, and emerging from, solid bodies in general, as well as the bodies of the quick and the dead; it becomes obvious that the presence of one of these spirits swarming around, and capable of injuring or benefiting living persons, becomes a sufficient reason for propitiating an object it is assumed to have entered: the most trivial peculiarity sufficing to suggest possession—such possession being, indeed, in some cases conceived as universal, as by the Eskimo, who think every object is ruled by “its or his, _inuk_, which word signifies “_man_,” and also _owner_ or _inhabitant_.”[68] Such being the case, there can be no proof that the worship of the objects themselves was primordial, unless it is found to exist where the ghost-theory has not arisen; and I know no instance showing that it does so. But while those facts given in the _Descriptive Sociology_ which imply worship of inanimate objects, or ascription of supernatural powers to them, fail to support Mr. Harrison’s view, because always accompanied by the ghost-theory, sundry of them directly negative his view. There is the fact that an echo is regarded as the voice of the fetich; there is the fact that the inhabiting spirit of the fetich is supposed to “enjoy the savory smell” of meat roasted before it; and there is the fact that the fetich is supposed to die and may be revived. Further, there is the summarized statement made by Beecham, an observer of fetichism in the region where it is supposed to be specially exemplified, who says that:—

The fetiches are believed to be spiritual, intelligent beings, who make the remarkable objects of nature their residence, or enter occasionally into the images and other artificial representations, which have been duly consecrated by certain ceremonies.... They believe that these fetiches are of both sexes, and that they require food.

These statements are perfectly in harmony with the conclusion that fetichism is a development of the ghost-theory, and altogether incongruous with the interpretation of fetichism which Mr. Harrison accepts from Comte.

Already I have named the fact that Dr. Tylor, who has probably read more books about uncivilized peoples than any Englishman living or dead, has concluded that fetichism is a form of spirit-worship, and that (to give quotations relevant to the present issue)

To class an object as a fetish, demands explicit statement that a spirit is considered as embodied in it or acting through it or communicating by it.[69]

... A further stretch of imagination enables the lower races to associate the souls of the dead with mere objects.[70]

... The spirits which enter or otherwise attach themselves to objects may be human souls. Indeed, one of the most natural cases of the fetish-theory is when a soul inhabits or haunts the relics of its former body.[71]