Chapter 9

As we were obliged to attend divine service strictly on Sunday, I was allowed to go to the Episcopal church in the village, which agreed very well with my parents' views. I quite fell into the sentiment of the sect, and so went to Professor Dodd to ask for permission from the Faculty to change my religion. When he asked me how it was that I had renegaded into Trinitarianism, I replied that it was due to reflection on the perfectly obvious and usual road of the Platonic hypostases eked out with Gnosticism. I had found in the College Library, and read with great pleasure almost as soon as I got there, Cudworth's "Intellectual System" (I raided a copy as _loot_ from a house in Tennessee in after years, during the war), and learned from it that "it was a religious instinct of man to begin with a Trinity, in which I was much aided by Schelling, and that there was no trace of a Trinity in the Bible, or rather the contrary, yet that it _ought_ consistently to have been there"--a sentiment which provoked from Professor Dodd a long whistle like that of Uncle Toby with Lilliburlero. "For," as I ingeniously represented, "man or God consists of the Monad from which developed spirit or intellect and soul; for _toto enim in mundo lucet Trias cujus Monas est princeps_, as the creed of the Rosicrucians begins (which is taken from the Zoroastrian oracles)"--here there was another long subdued whistle--"and it is set forth on the face of every Egyptian temple as the ball, the wings of the spirit which rusheth into all worlds, and the serpent, which is the _Logos_." Here the whistle became more sympathetic, for Egypt was the professor's great point in his lectures on architecture. And having thus explained the true grounds of the Trinity to the most learned theologian of the Presbyterian sect, I took my leave, quite unconscious that I had said anything out of the common, for all I meant was to give my reasons for going back to the Episcopal Church. As for Professor Dodd, he had given me up from the very first interview to follow my idols as I pleased, only just throwing in argument enough to keep me well going. He would have been the last man on earth to throw down such a marvellous fairy castle, goblin-built and elfin-tenanted, from whose windows rang AEolian harps, and which was lit by night with undying Rosicrucian lamps, to erect on its ruin a plain brick, Old School Presbyterian slated chapel. I was far more amusing as I was, and so I was let alone.

I had passed my examination about the end of June, and I was to remain in Princeton until the autumn, reading under a tutor, in the hope of being able to join the Sophomore class when the college course should begin. There I was utterly alone, and rambled by myself in the woods. I believed myself to be a very good Christian in those days; but I was really as unaffected and sincere a Poly-Pantheist or Old Nature heathen as ever lived in Etrusco-Roman or early German days. A book very dear to my heart at that time was the _Curiositez Inouyes_ of Gaffarel (Trollope was under the impression that he was the only man in Europe who ever read it), in which there is an exquisite theory that the stars of heaven in their courses and the lines of winding rivers and bending corn, the curves of shells and minerals, rocks and trees, yes, of all the shapes of all created things, form the trace and letters of a stupendous _writing_ or characters spread all over the universe, which writing becomes little by little legible to the one who by communion with Nature and earnest faith seeks to penetrate the secret. I had found in the lonely woods a small pond by a high rock, where I often sat in order to attain this blessed illumination, and if I did not get quite so far as I hoped, I did in reality attain to a deep unconscious familiarity with birds and leafy shades, still waters, and high rising trees; in short, with all the sweet solemnity of sylvan nature, which has ever since influenced all my life. I mean this not in the second-hand way in which it is so generally understood, but as a _real_ existence in itself, so earnestly felt that I was but little short of talking with elfin beings or seeing fairies flitting over flowers. Those who explain everything by "imagination" do not in the least understand how _actual_ the life in Nature may become to us. Reflect for a minute, thou whose whole soul is in gossip and petty chronicles of fashion, and "sassiety," that in that life thou _wert_ a million years ago, and in it thou wilt be a million years hence, ever going on in all forms, often enough in rivers, rock, and trees, and yet canst not realise with a sense of awe that there are in these forms, passing to others--ever, ever on--myriads of men and women, or at least their _life_--_how_ we know not, as _what_ we know not--only this, that the Will or creative force of the Creator or Creating is in it all. This was the serious yet unconscious inspiration of my young life in those days, in even more elaborate or artistic form, which all went very well hand in hand with the Euclid and Homer or Demosthenes and Livy with which my tutor Mr. Schenk (pronounce _Skank_) was coaching me.

My reading may seem to the reader to have been more limited than it was, because I have not mentioned the historians, essayists, or belletrists whose works are read more or less by "almost everybody." It is hardly worth while to say, what must be of course surmised, that Sterne, Addison, Goldsmith, Johnson, Swift, and Macaulay--in fine, the leading English classics--were really well read by me, my ambition being not to be ignorant of anything which a literary man should know. Macaulay was then new, and I devoured not only his works, but a vast amount by him suggested. I realised at an early age that there was a certain cycle of knowledge common to all really cultivated minds, and this I was determined to master. I had, however, little indeed of the vanity of erudition, having been deeply convinced and constantly depressed or shamed by the reflection that it was all worse than useless, and injurious to making my way in life. When I heard that Professor Dodd had said that at seventeen there were not ten men in America who had read so much, while Professor Joseph Henry often used words to this effect, and stern James Alexander in his lectures would make deeply learned allusions intended for me alone--as, for instance, to Kant's "AEsthetik"--I was anything but elated or vain in consequence. I had read in _Sartor Resartus_, "If a man reads, shall he not be learned?" and I knew too well that reading was with me an unprofitable, perhaps pitiable, incurable mania-amusement, which might ruin me for life, and which, as it was, was a daily source of apprehension between me and my good true friends, who feared wisely for my future.

I absolutely made James Alexander smile for once in his life--'twas sunshine on the grim Tarpeian rock. I had bought me a nice English large type Juvenal, and written on the outside in quaint Elizabethan character form--I forget now the name of the author--the following:--

"Ay, Juvenall, thy jerking hande is good, Not gently laying on, but bringing bloude. Oh, suffer me amonge so manye men To treade aright the traces of thy penne, And light my lamp at thy eternal flame!"

We students in the Latin class had left our books on a table, when I saw grim and dour James Alexander pick up my copy, read the inscription, when looking up at me he smiled; it was a kind of poetry which pleased him.

I remember, too, how one day, when in Professor Dodd's class of mathematics, I, instead of attending to the lecture, read surreptitiously Cardanus _de Subtilitate_ in an old vellum binding, and carelessly laid it on the table afterwards, where Professor Dodd found it, and directed at me one of his half-laughing Mephistophelian glances. Reading of novels in lectures was not unknown; but for Dodd to find anything so caviare-like as Cardanus among our books was unusual. George Boker remarked once, that while Professor Dodd was a Greek, Professor James Alexander was an old Roman, which was indeed a good summary of the two.

I have and always had a bad memory, but I continued to retain what I read by repetition or reviewing and by _collocation_, which is a marvellous aid in retaining images. For, in the first place, I read entirely by GROUPS; and if I, for instance, attacked Blair's "Rhetoric," Longinus and Burke Promptly followed; and if I perused "Rambles in the Footsteps of Don Quixote," I at once, on principle, followed it up with "Spain in 1830," and a careful study of Ford's Guide-Book for Spain, and perhaps a score of similar books, till I had got Spain well into me. And as I have found by years of observation and much research, having written a book on Education partly based on this principle, ten books on any subject read together, profit more than a hundred at intervals. And I may here add, that if this record of what I read be dull, it is still that of my real youthful life, giving the clue to my mind as it was formed. Books in those days were the only events of my life.

Long before I went to college I had an attack of Irish antiquities, which I relieved by reading O'Brien, Vallancey, the more sensible Petrie, and O'Somebody's Irish grammar, aided by old Annie Mooney, who always remained by us. In after years I discovered an Ogham inscription and the famed Ogham tongue, or _Shelta_, "the lost language of the bards," according to Kuno Meyer and John Sampson.

During my first half-year a college magazine was published, and I, a Freshman, was requested to contribute to the first number. I sent in an article on the history of English poetry. Before I wrote it, the great man among the senior students asked leave to be allowed to write it with me. I did not quite like the idea, but reflecting that the association would give me a certain prestige, I accepted his aid. So it appeared; but it was regarded as mine. Professor Dodd said something to me about the inexpediency of so young a person appearing in print. I could have told him that I had already published several poems, &c., in Philadelphian newspapers, but reflecting that it was not kind to have the better of him, I said nothing. From that time I published something in every number. My second article was an essay on Spinoza, and I still think it was rather good for a boy of sixteen.

There was the College and also a Society library, out of which I picked a great deal of good reading. One day I asked Professor John MacLean, the college librarian, for the works of Condorcet. His reply was, "Vile book! vile book! can't have it." However, I found in the Society library Urquhart's translation of "Rabelais," which I read, I daresay, as often as any mortal ever did. And here I have a word to say to the wretched idiots who regard "the book called Rabelais" as "immoral" and unfit for youth. Many times did I try to induce my young friends to read "Rabelais," and some actually mastered the story of the goose as a _torche-cul_, and perhaps two or three chapters more; but as for reading through or enjoying it, "that was not in their minds." All complained, or at least showed, that they "did not understand it." It was to them an aggravating farrago of filth and oddity, under which they suspected some formal allegory or meaning which had perished, or was impenetrable. Learn this, ye prigs of morality, that no work of genius ever yet demoralised a dolt or ignoramus. Even the Old Testament, with all its stores of the "shocking," really does very little harm. It requires _mind for mind_ in reading, and vice becomes unattractive even to the vicious when they cannot understand it. I did understand Rabelais, and the _Moyen de Parvenir_, and the _Cymbalum Mundi_, and Boccaccio (I owned these books), and laughed over them, yet was withal as pure-minded a youth as could well be imagined without being a simpleton. For, with all such reading, I best loved such a book as Bromley's "Sabbath of Rest," or sweet, strange works of ancient Mysticism, which bore the soul away to the stars or into Nature. Such a combination is perfectly possible when there is no stain of dishonesty or vulgarity in the character, and I had escaped such influences easily enough.

A droll event took place in the spring. It had been usual once a year--I forgot on what occasion--to give to all the classes a holiday. This year it was abolished, and the Sophomore, junior, and senior classes quietly acquiesced. But we, the Freshmen, albeit we had never been there before, rebelled at such infringement of "our rights," and absented ourselves from recitation. I confess that I was a leader in the movement, because I sincerely believed it to be a sin to "remove old landmarks," and that the students required more rest and holidays than were allowed them; in which I was absolutely in the right, for our whole life, except Saturday afternoons, was "one demnition grind."

The feeling which was excited by this "Freshman's rebellion" was one of utter amazement, or awful astonishment tempered with laughter, not unmingled with respect. It was the terrier flying at the lion, when the great mastiff, and bloodhound, and Danish dog had quietly slunk aside. There were in the class beside myself several youths of marked character, and collectively we had already made an impression, to which my intimacy with George Boker, and Professor Dodd, and the very _elite_ of the seniors, added not a little force. We were _mysterious_. Hitherto a Freshman had been the greenest of the green, a creature created for ridicule, a sort of "leathery fox" or mere tyro (_ty_--not a ty-pographical error--_pace_ my kind and courteous reviewer in the _Saturday_)--and here were Freshmen of a new kind rising in dignity above all others.

Which reminds me of a merry tale. It was usual for Freshmen to learn to smoke for the first time after coming to college, and for more advanced students to go to their rooms, or find them in others, and smoke them sick or into retreating. I, however, found a source of joy in this, that I could now sit almost from morning till night, and very often on to three in the morning, smoking all the time, being deeply learned in Varinas, Kanaster, and the like; for I smoked nothing but real Holland tobacco, while I could buy it. A party of Sophomores informed George Boker that they intended to smoke me out. "Smoke _him_ out!" quoth George; "why, he'd smoke the whole of you dumb and blind." However, it came to pass that one evening several of them tried it on; and verily they might as well have tried it on to Niklas Henkerwyssel, who, as the legend goes, sold his soul to the devil for the ability to smoke all the time, to whom my father had once compared me. So the cigars and tobacco were burned, and I liked it extremely. Denser grew the smoke, and the windows were closed, to which I cheerfully assented, for I liked to have it thick; and still more smoke and more, and the young gentlemen who had come to smother me grew pale, even as the Porcupines grew pale when they tried to burn out the great Indian sorcerer, who burned _them_! But I, who was beginning to enjoy myself amazingly in such congenial society, only filled Boker's great meerschaum with Latakia, and puffed away. One by one the visitors also "puffed away," _i.e._, vanished through the door into the night.

"Shall I open the window?" asked George.

"Not on my account," I replied. "I rather enjoy it as it is."

"I begin to believe," replied my friend, "that you would like it in Dante's hell of clouds. Do you know what those men came here for? It was _to smoke you out_. And you smoked them out, and never knew it." Which was perfectly true. As for smoking, my only trouble was to be able to buy cigars and tobacco. These were incredibly cheap in those days, and I always dressed very respectably, but my smoking always cost me more than my clothing.

When we Freshmen had rebelled, we were punished by being rusticated or sent into the country to board. I went to Professor Dodd to receive my sentence, and in a grave voice, in which was a faint ring as of irony, and with the lurking devil which always played in his great marvellous mysterious black eyes, he said, "If you were any other student, I would not send you to the city, and so reward your rebellion with a holiday. But as I know perfectly well that you will go into the Philadelphia Library, and never stop reading till it is time to return, I will send you there."

My parents were then absent with my younger sisters in New England, but I had unlimited credit at Congress Hall Hotel, which was kept by a Mr. John Sturdevant, and where I was greatly respected as the son of the owner of the property. So I went there, and fared well, and, as Professor Dodd prophesied, read all the time. One night I went into an auction of delightful old books. My money had run low; there only remained to me one dollar and a half.

Now, of all books on earth, what I most yearned for in those days were the works of Jacob Behmen. And the auctioneer put up a copy containing "The Aurora or Morning Rednesse," English version (_circa_ 1636), and I bid. One dollar--one dollar ten cents--twenty--twenty-five; my heart palpitated, and I half fainted for fear lest I should be outbid, when at the very last I got it with my last penny.

The black eyes of Professor Dodd twinkled more elfishly than ever when I exhibited to him my glorious treasure. He evidently thought that my exile had been to me anything but a punishment, and he was right. For a copy of _Anthroposophos Theomagicus_ or the works of Robert Fludd I would have got up another rebellion.

It was quite against the college regulations for students to live in the town, but as I never touched a card, was totally abstemious and "moral," and moreover in rather delicate health, I was passed over as an odd exception. Once or twice it was proposed to bring me in, but Professor Dodd interfered and saved me. While in Princeton for more than four years, I never once touched a drop of anything stronger than coffee, which was a great pity! Exercise was not in those days encouraged in any way whatever--in fact, playing billiards and ten-pins was liable to be punished by expulsion; there was no gymnasium, no boating, and all physical games and manly exercises were sternly discouraged as leading to sin. Now, if I had drunk a pint of bitter ale every day, and played cricket or "gymnased," or rowed for two hours, it would have saved me much suffering, and to a great degree have relieved me from reading, romancing, reflecting, and smoking, all of which I carried to great excess, having an inborn impulse to be always doing something. That I did not grapple with life as a real thing, or with prosaic college studies or society, was, I can now see, a _disease_, for which, as my peculiar tastes had come upon me from nervous and Unitarian and Alcottian evil influences, I was not altogether responsible. I was a precocious boy, and I had fully developed extraordinary influences, which, like the seed of Scripture, had in my case fallen on more than fertile ground; it was like the soil of the Margariten Island, by Budapest, which is so permeated by hot springs in a rich soil that everything comes to maturity there in one-third of the time which it does elsewhere. I was the last child on earth who should ever have fallen into Alcott's hands, or listened to Dr. Channing or Furness, or have been interested in anything "ideal"; but fate willed that I should drink the elfin goblet to the dregs.

George H. Boker had a great influence on me. We were in a way connected, for my uncle Amos had married his aunt, and my cousin, Benjamin Godfrey, his cousin. He was exactly six feet high, with the form of an Apollo, and a head which was the very counterpart of the bust of Byron. A few years later N. P. Willis described him in the _Home Journal_ as the handsomest man in America. He had been from boyhood as precociously a man of the world as I was the opposite. He was _par eminence_ the poet of our college, and in a quiet, gentlemanly way its "swell." I passed a great deal of my time in his rooms reading Wordsworth, Shelley, and Byron, the last named being his ideal. He ridiculed the Lakers, whom I loved; and when Southey's last poem, "On Gooseberry Pie," appeared, he declared that the poor old man was in his dotage, to which I assented with sorrow in my heart. Though only one year older than I, yet, as a _Junior_, and from his superior knowledge of life, I regarded him as being about thirty. He was quite familiar, in a refined and gentlemanly way, with all the dissipation of Philadelphia and New York; nor was the small circle of his friends, with whom I habitually associated, much behind him in this respect. Even during this Junior year he was offered the post of secretary to our Ambassador at Vienna. From him and the others I acquired a second-hand knowledge of life, which was sufficient to keep me from being regarded as a duffer or utterly "green," though in all such "life" I was practically as innocent as a young nun. Now, whatever I heard, as well as read, I always turned over and over in my mind, thoroughly digesting it to a most exceptional degree. So that I was somewhat like the young lady of whom I heard in Vienna in after years. She was brought up in the utmost moral and strict seclusion, but she found in her room an aperture through which she could witness all that took place in the neighbouring room of a _maison de passe_; but being a great philosopher, she in time regarded it all as the "butterfly passing show" of a theatre, the mere idle play of foolish mortal passions.

Even before I began my Freshman year there came into my life a slight but new and valuable influence. Professor Dodd, when I arrived, had just begun his course of lectures on architecture. To my great astonishment, but not at all to that of George Boker, I was invited to attend the course, Boker remarking dryly that he had no doubt that Dodd thanked God for having at last got an auditor who would appreciate him. Which I certainly did. I in after years listened to the great Thiersch, who trained Heine to art, and of whom I was a special _protege_, and many great teachers, but I never listened to any one like Albert Dodd. It was not with him the mere description of styles and dates; it was a deep and truly aesthetic feeling that every phase of architecture mirrors and reciprocally forms its age, and breathes its life and poetry and religion, which characterised all that he said. It was in nothing like the subjective rhapsodies of Ruskin, which bloomed out eight years later, but rather in the spirit of Vischer and Taine, which J. A. Symonds has so beautifully and clearly set forth in his Essays {98}--that is, the spirit of historical development. Here my German philosophy enabled me to grasp a subtle and delicate spirit of beauty, which passed, I fear, over the heads of the rest of the youthful audience. His ideas of the correspondence of Egyptian architecture to the stupendous massiveness of Pantheism and the appalling grandeur of its ideas, were clear enough to me, who had copied Hermes Trismegistus and read with deepest feeling the Orphic and Chaldean oracles. The ideas had not only been long familiar to me, but formed my very life and the subject of the most passionate study. To hear them clearly expressed with rare beauty, in the deep, strange voice of the professor, was joy beyond belief. And as it would not be in human nature for a lecturer not to note an admiring auditor, it happened often enough that something was often introduced for my special appreciation.