Part 2

Her love of nature was genuine. As a young woman she could distinguish the colors of a flying bird. When she had a house of her own in the country, she preferred a spot remote from the world of society; went there as early as possible in the spring, and stayed as late in the autumn as she could. She delighted in the place; loved the air, the trees, the smell of the ground. She enjoyed her garden; liked to see plants grow. Every morning after breakfast she went out to inspect the grounds, and came back laden with modest flowers; in the fall with pine cones, the flame of which she enjoyed. On her last evening, quite unaware of her coming end, she sat on the piazza, and looked at the sunset, wrapped in shawls, though it was midsummer, for she was weak and emaciated but patiently tranquil.

Her habits were simple, not from parsimony but from taste. She cared nothing for decoration or display. She spent no more than was necessary on dress or furniture. She was fond of old-fashioned, solid things. In the midst of abundance, her appetite was for plain food, yet she was no ascetic or prude, but a largehearted, sensible woman, sober and serious but genial too.

Browning makes Paracelsus say:

'T is only when they spring to heaven that angels Reveal themselves to you; they sit all day Beside you, and lie down at night by you,-- Who care not for their presence,--muse or sleep, And all at once they leave you and you know them.

This is in a measure true. Death is a great revealer. Unfortunately it is a great deceiver also, putting wings on very earthly bodies. But in this instance, the qualities were all there in the living form, and all clearly visible to those who sat all day beside my mother. Death did but brush away a little film that hung before distant eyes.

Until near middle life I had the example and advice of these dear spirits. It is my privilege to have their blood in my veins. That was my best endowment, and kept me always hopeful of a better future in the time to come. The dream of a nobler age for literature, art, science, humanity, came directly from my father. The desire to do something to make the dream an actual fact, to prove myself as of some service in the world, came from my mother. His was the love of intellectual liberty. Hers was the passion for practical accomplishments. He was a scholar. She was a worker.

Both had thoughts deeper than they could express. Both were utterly sincere in their calling, and the limitations of their age alone confined their advance. The times were quiet then; the world was small and disconnected; Boston was a little place and shut off even from American cities by difficulties of travel and by exorbitant rates of postage. Thus responsibility was mainly confined to individuals. There were no wearing duties; no perplexing cares; even railroad disturbances did not worry, for there was no railroad speculation, and no railroad system. Hours were early, dinner was at two or half-past, tea at six or seven, the evening ended at ten, and was spent with books, melodious music, or playful games of amusement, not of instruction. There were few social gatherings; balls were very rare, seldom lasting later than eleven o'clock. There was an occasional concert, and here and there a theatre, but there were no great dinner parties. Social problems were exceedingly simple; the classes were divided by lines that nobody attempted to pass over. Socialism was unborn, and labor agitations were unknown. In a word, there was such a thing as leisure, and this was used chiefly for the cultivation of the mind.

My father was greatly interested in the education of his boys; watched all their attainments; taught them French; encouraged their learning how to box, and fence, and swim; while my mother shed an atmosphere of peace over the whole household. She made one joke only, as far as my memory serves me,--and I mention it here lest any one should suppose there was a lack of sunshine in her nature. My father was very fond of "vöslauer," an Austrian red wine. When the last bottle was produced my mother, said archly, "your _face_ will _lower_ when it is all drunk up." It was not much of a joke, but a small jest will show the spirit of fun quite as well as a large one.

There was a singular combination of aspiration with peace at that time. Probably there is as much aspiration now as there was then, perhaps more; but it is associated with social reform rather than with personal perfection; there is peace, too, at the present day, but it is harder to get at and needs to be sought most often in private homes; the inward peace is found in all periods.

How the principles then formed would bear the strain of a later age or a larger sphere remained to be proved. Fifty years ago the modern era with its complications and perplexities could not even be suspected. The foundations alone could then be laid.

II. EDUCATION.

Of the primary schools it is unnecessary to speak. They were of the same kind that were established in Boston at that period. Indeed I can recollect but two, one, a child's school of boys and girls, kept by a Miss Scott, at the corner of Mt. Vernon Street and Hancock; the other a boys' school kept by a Mr. Capen, a poor hump-backed cripple who could not get out of his chair, but wheeled himself about the room, and kept on his table a cowhide, which was pretty generously exercised. The school was on Bedford Street behind the "Church of Church Green." A little alley-way ran along in the rear of the church through which I used to go to the school-house.

The Latin School was an old institution brought hither by Rev. John Cotton, who remembered the Free Grammar School founded in Lincolnshire, England, by Queen Mary, in which Latin and Greek were taught. It was established here, in 1635, five years after the landing of Winthrop, two or three years before Harvard College. When I was there, it stood on School Street, opposite the Franklin statue. It had a granite front and a cupola. The head-master was Charles K. Dillaway, an excellent scholar, a faithful teacher, an agreeable man. He had to resign in consequence of ill-health. The tutors were Henry W. Torrey and Francis Gardner, who afterwards became head-master. Both were pupils of the school. Mr. Frederick P. Leverett, author of the Latin Lexicon, was chosen to succeed Mr. Dillaway, but died before assuming the office. The next head-master, during my course, was Epes Sargent Dixwell, a most accomplished man, an elegant scholar, a gentleman of the world, very much interested, as I remember, in the plastic art of Greece. He is still living, and amuses himself by writing Greek. Mr. Dixwell held office till 1851, when he established a private school. The discipline of the Latin School was strict but mild. Corporal punishment was the unquestioned rule, but it was never harshly administered, though the knowledge that it might be undoubtedly did a good deal toward stimulating the ambition of the scholars. Here and there no doubt a boy exasperated the teacher by idleness or disorder; possibly at moments the teacher was nervous and irritable. I recollect a single instance in which he was over-sensitive, too prone to take offence, which fastened suspiciously upon some individual scholar; but injustice was a very rare occurrence. We learned Greek and Latin, the rudiments of algebra, writing and declamation; but the best part of the education I received in those days was an atmosphere of elegant literature, derived from friends of my father. I used to see William H. Prescott taking his walk on Beacon Street, in the sun, and have often sat in his study in his tranquil hours, and heard him talk. The beautiful library of George Ticknor, at the head of Park Street, was open to me, and I can see his form now as he walked on the Common. George S. Hillard, the elegant man of letters, was a familiar figure on the street. Charles Sumner, then a young law student, strode vigorously along, his manner even then suggesting the advent of a new era.

In 1846, I listened to his oration before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University on the Scholar [Pickering]; the Jurist [Story]; the Artist [Allston]; the Philanthropist [Channing]; and his bold declamation was strangely in contrast with the academical gown that he wore. Daniel Webster used to stalk by our house, the embodiment of the Constitution, the incarnation of law, the black locomotive of the train of civilization. Ralph Waldo Emerson often sat at my father's table diffusing the radiance of serene ideas, and heralding the diviner age that was to come.

From the Latin School to Harvard College was an easy transition. There existed an impression that Latin-School boys might take their ease for the first year at Cambridge, because they were so well prepared, but I found enough to do; there was the great library, there were the advanced studies, there was the more perfect training. The President was Josiah Quincy, the elder. Henry W. Longfellow was professor of modern languages; Cornelius C. Felton, the ardent philhellene, taught Greek; Charles Beck, a German, taught Latin; Benjamin Peirce was professor of mathematics; James Walker was an instructor in intellectual and moral philosophy; Joseph Lovering, teacher in chemistry. Among the tutors were Bernard Roelker, in German; Pietro Bachi, in Italian; Francisco Sales, in Spanish.

The new buildings now in the college yard were not erected; Holworthy (1812), Stoughton (1804-1805), Hollis (1763), Harvard (1766), Holden (1734), Massachusetts Hall (1720), University Hall (1812-1813) were in existence. There were no athletics; there was no gymnasium; there was no boating; there was little base-ball. There were few literary societies; so that we were driven back mainly upon intellectual labor. The professors' houses were always open, and there was choice society in the town. I recollect particularly well going to the house of John White Webster, who was executed later for the murder of Dr. Parkman. He was very fond of music and had a daughter who sang finely, besides being handsome. She afterwards married Mr. Dabney, of Fayal. The Doctor was a nervous man, high strung, but good-natured and polite. His fatal encounter with Dr. Parkman I always attributed to a sudden outbreak of passion.

Within the grounds of the college we were quite studious, companionable among ourselves. There was no rioting, no excess of any kind. Walking and swimming in the river Charles were our chief recreations. Connection with Boston was infrequent and difficult, as there was no railroad. The Sundays could be passed in the city if the student brought a certificate that he went regularly to church; otherwise it was expected that the First Church, or one of the others, should be frequented. The instruction was of a cordial, friendly, courteous, and humane kind; the professors were enthusiastic students in their departments. I well recollect Professor Longfellow's kindness; Professor Felton's ardor (I visited Pompeii with him in 1853). Charles Beck was a burning patriot in the war. Pietro Bachi's great eyes lighted up and glowed as he talked about Dante. Bernard Roelker afterwards became a lawyer in New York. Charles Wheeler and Robert Bartlett, tutors, both rare spirits, died young. On the whole, life at Harvard College was exceedingly pleasant, and a real love of learning was implanted in young men's bosoms.

The corner-stone of Gore Hall was laid in 1813. The books were moved into the library in the summer vacation of 1814. There were forty-one thousand volumes at that time.

In the early part of my career, I took my meals in Commons, at an expense of two dollars and a quarter a week, the highest price then paid. Commons was abolished for a time in 1849, it being found difficult to satisfy the students, who for some years had boarded in the houses in the neighborhood.

There were excitements too. Though there was no gymnasium, or boating, and little foot-ball, base-ball, or cricket (these games were all very simple and rudimentary), there were the clubs, the "[Greek: Alpha Delta Phi]," still a secret society, and occupying a back upper room, to which we mounted by stealth,--the same room serving for initiations and sociables,--was exceedingly interesting in a literary point of view. There were papers on Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, delightful conversations, anecdotes, songs.

The "Institute of 1770" taught us elocution, and readiness in debate; the "[Greek: Phi Beta Kappa]," no longer a secret society, and no longer actively literary, hung over us like a star, stimulating ambition and inciting us to excellence in scholarship.

Altogether it was a delightful life; a life between boyhood and manhood; of purely literary ambition, of natural friendship. There was no distinction of persons, no affected pride. We found our own level, and kept our own place. Money did not distinguish or family, only brains. There was no care but for intellectual work; there was no excess save in study. Expenses were small, indulgences were few and simple. The education was more suited to those times than to these, when culture must be so much broader, and social expectations demand such varied accomplishments.

III. DIVINITY SCHOOL.

To enter at once the Divinity School was to start on a predestined career. From childhood I was marked out for a clergyman. This was taken for granted in all places and conversations, and my own thoughts fell habitually into that groove. There was nothing unattractive in the professional career as illustrated by my father. I was the only one of a large family of brothers who pursued the full course of studies at Cambridge, or who showed a taste for the scholastic life. An appetite for books rather than for affairs pointed first of all to a literary calling, while a fondness for speculative questions, a leaning towards ideal subjects, and a serious turn of mind naturally suggested at that time the pulpit. An inward "experience of religion," which in some other communions was regarded as essential to the character of a minister of the gospel, was not demanded. Religion was rather moral and intellectual than spiritual, a matter of mental conviction more than of emotional feeling. The clerical profession stood very high, higher than any of the three "learned professions," by reason of its requiring in larger measure a tendency towards abstract thought, an interest in theological discussions, and a steady belief in doctrines that concerned the soul. Literature was not at that period a profession; there was no Art to speak of except for genius of the first order like that of Allston or Greenough. Men of the highest intellectual rank, whatever they may have become afterwards, tried the ministry at the start. The traditions of New England favored the ministerial calling. The great names, with here and there an exception, were names of divines. The great books were on subjects of religion; the popular interest centred in theological controversy; the general enthusiasm was aroused by preachers; the current talk was about sermons. The clergy was a privileged class, aristocratic, exalted.

Divinity Hall had been dedicated in August, 1826. It was situated on an avenue about a quarter of a mile from the college yard. It contained, besides thirty-seven chambers for the accommodation of students, a chapel, a library, a lecture-room, and a reading-room; it stood opposite the Zoölogical Museum. Before it was a vacant space used for games. Behind it was meadow land reaching all the way to Mr. Norton's. Just beyond it was Dr. Palfrey's residence. George Rapall Noyes, D.D., was elected in May, 1840, with the title of "Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages, and Dexter Lecturer on Biblical Literature." He had already translated the poetical books of the Old Testament, and it was his eminence as a translator which had won him fame while a minister at Petersham. It was his duty also to explain the New Testament, and in addition to give lectures in systematic theology. Besides all this he was to preach in the college chapel a fourth of the year. He steadily grew in the respect and attachment of the young men; his authority in the lecture-room was very great; his opinions were carefully formed and precisely delivered; and his shrewd, practical wisdom was long remembered by his pupils. Convers Francis, D.D., appointed to the "Parkman Professorship," after the resignation of Henry Ware, Jr., was his associate. The branches assigned to him were ecclesiastical history, natural theology, ethics, the composition of sermons, and instruction in the duties of a pastor; besides all this he was to preach half of the time in the college chapel. Dr. Francis was an accomplished scholar and a faithful teacher. The best man, too, for his position, at a time when in an unsectarian school it was exceedingly desirable that the professors should harmonize all tendencies; for with a strong sympathy with "transcendentalism," as it was then called, he had been a most successful parish minister, a very acceptable preacher, and a man in whom all the churches had confidence.

At Cambridge, owing to the influence of Buckminster, Ware, and Norton, Unitarian opinion prevailed, though the controversial period had passed by when I was there. The clouds of warfare no longer discharged lightning; there was no roll of thunder; only a faint muttering betrayed the former excitement; and the memory of old conflicts hovered round the spots where the fights had been hottest. Marks of strife were still visible on texts, and chapters were scarred with wounds. Comment still lingered near the passages where polemics had raged, and the blood burned as we read the tracts or studied the essays of the champions we admired.

It was impossible to forget the interpretations that had been given to words or phrases. A strictly scientific study, either of the Bible or the creed, was therefore out of the question. But the course of exercises was broad, generous, inclusive, as far as this was feasible. The bias was decidedly unorthodox, yet without the bitter temper of opposition. The old system was rather set aside than attacked. It was assumed to have been vanquished in the fair field. The professors were liberal in their views. A small but serviceable library furnished the students with a certain amount of needed material, the college library was freely opened to them, and the collections of the professors were gladly placed at their disposal. The days were fully occupied with lectures, recitations, discussions, exercises in writing out and taking of notes. Once a week there was a debate on some general theme not connected with the topics of the class-room; and at the latter part of the course there was special training in the composition and delivery of sermons, accompanied by a brief experience of extemporaneous speaking. The Unitarian ministry was alone contemplated; no wide divergence from it was encouraged, and the conservative methods of interpretation were the ones recommended. Some knowledge of Greek and Latin being presupposed, the study of Hebrew was made the one study of language, and this was pursued with the best available helps. Biblical criticism naturally took a prominent place in the current curriculum, under the guidance of the most distinguished authorities; books of every school were recommended, whether old or new, Catholic or Protestant, "conservative" or "liberal," Horne, Tholuck, De Wette being consulted in turn. The New Testament and "Historical Christianity" were taken for granted; and these meant belief in miracles, which were defended against rising objections of the Strauss and Paulus schools, the former holding by the "mythical" theory, the latter favoring the notion of a natural explanation of some sort. The hostility towards rationalism was decided. This was forty years ago, before the "historical method," as it was called, instituted by Baur, Schwegler, Zeller, Sneckenburger, and the _Theologische Jahrbücher_, had any expositor in this country, long before the Dutch school, the later French school--Kuenen, Reville, Reuss, Nicolas, Renan,--came out. The great issue was the credibility of the miracles of the Old and New Testaments. The half-monastic life we led at Divinity Hall cut us off a good deal from social amenities, reform agitations, attempts to change institutions, and even from the deeper currents of religious sentiment. None but the very observant took note of Brook Farm, or heeded the movements in behalf of Association that were going on in other communities. Whatever was outside of the "Christian" ministry concerned us but little. The professors did not direct our eyes to the mountain tops or call attention to the bringers of good tidings from other quarters than the Christian Revelation, as explained by its scholars and writers. Even such a phenomenon as Emerson did not make a profound impression on the average mind.

A tone of old-fashioned piety pervaded the establishment. A weekly prayer-meeting, always attended by one of the professors, though officially rather than as a stimulator, was much in the manner and spirit of similar exercises at Andover. The students were cautioned against excessive intellectualism. Several of them spent their Sundays in teaching classes of the young in the neighboring towns, in ministering to the sick in hospitals, or in carrying the monitions of conscience to the criminals in the prison at Charlestown. The aims of a practical ministry were thus kept in view as well as the circumstances of the time permitted. Of course the school could not be a philanthropic institution any more than it could be independent or scientific. It was committed to a special purpose, which was the supply of Christian pulpits with instructed, earnest, devoted men. That they should be Unitarians was expected; that they should be Christians in belief was demanded. There were two ever-present spectres, "orthodoxy" and "rationalism," the one represented by Andover, the other by Germany. Audacity of speculation when unaccompanied by practical piety was discountenanced, and in flagrant instances rebuked.

The literal form of the orthodox creed, it need hardly be said, was made more prominent than its imaginative aspect. This was inevitable, for the object was to assail it rather than to understand it. To be perfectly fair to all sides was, under the circumstances, not to be expected at a period so near the era of controversy. An earnest, ingenuous youth could find at Cambridge all the courage and impulse he needed, for the atmosphere of the place was neither chilling nor depressing. The less emotional, more intellectual scholar was left to pursue his studies undisturbed, the wind of spiritual feeling not being strong enough to carry him away.