Part 9

His ill-health however did not prevent him from studying and writing. The following autumn he went into the office of a lawyer and member of Congress in Castine and read "Blackstone," "Chitty on Bills," and some other law-books. The study of law is in itself an excellent nerve tonic, balancing the mind and strengthening the character. Nothing could have been better for him at this juncture, and it is an unlimited pity that he did not continue it longer. But the law could never have satisfied the aspirations of his nature any more than Columbus might have been satisfied with sailing a packet in the Mediterranean. He liked the study of it, and once spoke with great respect of "Chitty on Bills" wishing he could find a work on theology or politics that contains so much good sense; but he longed for something beyond it. The congressman had a good opinion of his abilities and held out the prospect of a partnership to him, but personal ambition was not an ingredient in Wasson's nature. He was discontented and ready for a change.

One day in June 1849 he was sent to a distant town on what was to his sensitive moral nature a most disgusting expedition; namely, to help a lucrative client take the poor debtor's oath, and so avoid a partially unjust debt. On his return home he stopped at a country store to make a small purchase, and there at the end of the shelf he saw a cheap dingy copy of Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus." He purchased it, and read it in his wagon by the evening light. He had tried to read it before, but failed to make his way in it. It was the first clear message and sure token of a spiritual life that had yet reached him. He had lived through the "everlasting no," and here was the "everlasting yea" set plainly before him. Years afterward M. D. Conway told Carlyle of walking in the woods at Groveland with Wasson, and how his face became radiant with internal light when he spoke of "Sartor Resartus."

This new-birth from above seized upon him like a fever. He now felt that he had a mission in life; a message to mankind. And in what way could he deliver this message? How could he make known to others what was in his full heart, except from the pulpit? For the first time he conceived the ministry as a high-minded and ennobling profession. He decided accordingly to go into the church. His family were Calvinists, and Calvinism was the only mode of faith of which he knew very much. That such a step should have been inspired by the writings of a heretic like Carlyle was in itself a contradiction which foreboded an ultimate collision. Yet no man perhaps ever lived who had a clearer sense of a Divine Presence in the universe than Thomas Carlyle, and it was this which Wasson recognized in him. Poets and philosophers are naturally heretical, because they take the short road of genius which others find it difficult to follow. But all believers finally arrive at the same destination.

He entered the theological seminary at Bangor in 1849 and graduated in 1851. It may be he went there with a youthful idea of reforming the church. At any rate his boldness of thought and free utterance brought him into suspicion with his fellow students, and at one time reports were in circulation that he was to be expelled for heresy. With his customary directness he went to the president, Dr. Pond, and inquired if there was any truth in this. The doctor, who really liked Wasson, received him with a kindly, patriarchal manner and said: "Do not be troubled, my young friend, we all have our seasons of doubt. I have had mine; but take my word for it that it is all right. For look at those saints up there in glory. How did they get there?" Such an argument was not likely to relieve the fermentation in his mind. Walking the streets of Bangor at this time was Dr. Frederick Henry Hedge, the man of all others who might have solved Wasson's doubts in a satisfactory manner, and with whom Wasson afterwards found himself in more complete moral and intellectual sympathy than with any other of his friends. Wasson saw him frequently, but had no opportunity of making his acquaintance. So nearly do we either hit it, or miss it, all through life!

The only person who sympathized with him in his progressive views of religion was Miss Abbie Smith, the daughter of an apothecary in Newburyport, Massachusetts. She was visiting at the house of her brother who was one of the instructors at the Seminary. That he should have fallen in love with her, and soon become engaged to her is therefore not surprising. They were married the year after his graduation, and she continued a faithful, industrious and uncomplaining wife; his mainstay in ill-health and misfortune till the end. They were not always happy together; but it is a rare marriage where that is the case. Wasson's struggle with the world was often reflected in his own family, disturbing the harmony and comfort of it. His wife once said quite gravely, that there were others from whom her husband would probably have made a selection if he had not offered himself to her. He was always a favorite with the other sex, and equally fond of their society. As he never troubled himself much as to what people said of him, this gave rise to a good deal of talk which his opponents took advantage of to disparage his character. He was once a witness in a divorce case, and a rather tricky lawyer who had a remarkable faculty for what Bacon calls "turning the cat in the pan," succeeded in making him appear at a disadvantage; but Mrs. Wasson told me that he was in the right. If his wife had no suspicion of him we need have none.

He went directly from Bangor to Groveland, a pleasant village beautifully situated on the Merrimack, which from Haverhill to the sea is one of the finest American rivers. His _fiancee_ had numerous relatives in the place, and it was owing to her influence that he received a call there. At first all the signs were favorable; the young minister was well liked, and his parishioners were only afraid that a man of such rare ability would soon gravitate to a larger congregation. So he might have done, if his ardent, aspiring soul would have permitted him to temporize with his conscience, and to be content with mere popularity and doing good on a small scale. But the thought that was matured within him could no longer be restrained. The dangerous seed sown by reading "Sartor Resartus" had now become a strong young tree and must have air and light or it would perish. In October 1852 he preached a sermon that fairly astounded his amiable parishioners. He argued that regeneration and salvation were not to be obtained by blind faith in Jesus, but by intelligent moral culture and spiritual development. This view was, as far as I know, original with Wasson, and should be distinguished from the anti-miraculous standpoint of Parker and the natural supernaturalism of Emerson. Almost at the same hour an English naturalist was applying the same principle to the origin of species, and the evolution of the human race from the lower animals. The Englishman's clear, inductive insight was matched by the philosophical penetration of an American. The Darwinian theory now stands uncontested among scientific men, and whether admitted or not there is quite as surely an evolution apparent in the history of religion, not very unlike it. This is the lesson of the nineteenth century.

The following day one of the deacons of the church called upon Wasson to inform him that his sermon had given offence and that he must retract from his position. "But," replied the minister, "I cannot! I am not going to retract it." Thirty years after this Wasson laughed as heartily, as a suffering person very well could, while he recollected the expression of astonishment on the worthy deacon's face. That a man should do wrong for the sake of money or some material advantage was conceivable to him--he had known instances of that; but that any man should so stand in his own light both for this world and the next, was a moral incongruity which he could not understand. Wasson would not withdraw from his position, but followed it up the next Sunday by a still more energetic statement. There was nothing left now but deposition. A conference was called and Wasson regularly expelled from the Congregational brotherhood. Even some Unitarians also shared in the horror. About a third part of his congregation, however, were converted by him and established an independent church; so that after all he achieved a kind of victory.

Wasson had now escaped in a two-fold sense from the fog-banks and shallow waters of his native coast and henceforward was to sail forth bravely upon the high seas. The conflict he had passed through attracted no little attention from thoughtful and cultivated people, and even those who did not wholly agree with him admired the honest manliness with which he defended his views. Polite society opened its doors to him. Wherever he went now he was received as a distinguished guest. He soon made the acquaintance of eminent scholars and men of letters,--of Sumner, Parker and Emerson. He made friends everywhere. He began to publish essays and poems; at first in the "Christian Examiner," and afterwards in the "Atlantic Monthly." In those days of plain living and high thinking it was not customary for magazine writers to sign their names, (so modest were they,) to their contributions; and in this way Wasson just missed the general celebrity which they might have brought him, but their merit was recognized by those of whose good opinion he was chiefly desirous.

The effort, however, had been too much for him. The only chance of recovery from a nervous disorder lies in freedom from mental agitation. An injured nerve requires a longer time to heal than a broken bone and quite as much care and self-denial. Any serious disturbance to the circulation produces a pressure in the blood vessels of the nervous centres, and tears away the improvement that has commenced there. Then nature has to begin her work over again; and if this happens repeatedly nature becomes tired of working in vain and refuses to give further assistance. This was Wasson's misfortune. He was sensitive and excitable by temperament, the injury to his spine had made him still more so, and the mental agitation he experienced during 1852 and 1853 was enough to prevent him from ever being restored to perfect health. During these two years he must have endured nothing less than the tortures of the inquisition; and no doubt some of his Calvinistic neighbors considered it a judgment on him for his heresy. A mutilated life is not so very bad after one is used to it, but the beginning is terrible. It is like being surrounded with invisible barbed fences, which we inevitably run against and lacerate ourselves with, until we learn to bear in mind their exact position. Accidents too happen to nervous invalids which other people seem generally to escape from. Wasson was at one time making fair progress in his condition when suddenly one day, as he was walking through Boston, the door of a house opened and a lady slipping on some ice and tripping over the steps fell right into his arms. This was a highly diverting adventure for a young clergyman, but it cost him weeks of suffering. A somewhat similar strain came upon him when his first child was born. He does not seem to have ever met with a physician who understood his case. One worthy doctor in Worcester invited him to his house and drove with him in his sulky for more than half a year, without accomplishing anything for him. He went on a voyage to London and another to Smyrna, without any better result than suffering from bad food and stormy weather. After the first voyage his condition was so bad that, as he said of it once, he scarcely knew whether it was day or night: but the climate of Asia Minor agreed with him and he returned from Smyrna at least better for so much experience. I think his first real improvement came during his stay at my father's house. There he had plentiful repose, both of mind and body, and if good medical treatment had been added he might have made a substantial gain.

In the spring of 1864 Bradford, the marine artist, being ambitious to paint icebergs in their native wilds, organized a sailing party for Labrador and invited Wasson to go with them. This was the first enterprise of the kind that gave him permanent benefit. Fortunately they encountered no severe storms. The cool, bracing air of the polar regions was better than galvanism and stimulated his nerves to work in the proper way. Sailing along the coast they were able to anchor almost every night in smooth water. The fish they caught, the strange birds they saw and stranger human creatures, were a cheerful entertainment to him. He became quite a sportsman, and even joined one day in the pursuit of a polar bear. He returned in the autumn practically cured of his trouble, but to regain his strength was out of the question: he suffered besides very badly from dyspepsia. However he was able to preach regularly, to make speeches in public, to work in his garden and write perhaps three hours a day. Such a person is not greatly to be pitied, and if he had fortunately possessed a small competency we might now look upon him as a prosperous man: but his only property consisted of a good working library and five hundred dollars which a friend had given him. The next eight years were the best and most productive of his life; and he might have continued in the same course but for another most unfortunate accident. The supply of coal in his government office gave out, and the requisition for a fresh quantity was not promptly filled. Wasson sat writing in a cold room. There was a sudden change of weather, a severe snow squall, and the result was--pleurisy. This changed to bronchitis which worried and weakened him for the following ten years, and finally carried him off in his sixty-fifth year. That he went through a severe fever at the house of his friend Henry A. Page of Medford is hardly worth considering, for he was so tenderly and beautifully cared for there as almost to make it an enviable experience; but in 1879 cataracts formed on both eyes, one of which had been injured long before, and when they were operated on, two years later, the sight was restored to his injured eye (such as it was previously) but not to the other, so that he was left very nearly blind. He attributed this catastrophe to the quantity of belladonna which had been prescribed for him.

Such was his pathological history and a truly terrible one it is. Who can remember the like of it? Certainly Job's trials were not heavier nor were they borne with more fortitude and patience. In the midst of his severest troubles he wrote "All is well:" a noble religious poem equal to the hymn of Cleanthes or the twelfth ode of Horace; and in one of his earlier essays he speaks of tragedy as possessing such beauty and grandeur that he is almost ready to believe it is the proper goal and destination of earthly life. In "Epic Philosophy" he says: "Strife is around man, and strife is within him; the lightning thrusts its blazing scymitar through his roof, the thief creeps in at his door, and remorse at his heart. Who, looking on these things, does not acknowledge that man is indeed fearfully as well as wonderfully made? Who would not sometimes cry, 'O that my eyes were a fountain of tears, that I might weep, not the desolations of Israel alone, but the hate of Israel to Edom and of Edom to Israel, the jar, the horror, the ensanguined passion and ferocity of Nature'? But when we would despair, behold we cannot. Out of the conscious heart of humanity issues forever, more or less clearly, a voice of infinite, pure content. 'Through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for THOU art with me.' Sometimes, when our trial is sorest, that voice is clearest, singing as from the jaws of death and the gates of hell. And now, though the tears fall, they become jewels as they fall; and the sorrow that begot them wears them in the diadem of its more than regal felicity."

This is the echo of his own experience; the spiritual diagnosis of his case. With what fortitude he endured his maladies those who knew him best can bear witness. He was no ideal Stoic nor self-conscious martyr; but more like an Homeric hero fighting his troubles, bearing them bravely, talking of them sensibly, always glad to receive sympathy but never seeking it, and complaining when he could endure no longer. He never tried to comfort himself by sophistical reflections, but elevated thoughts were always his chief consolation. Conversation about great writers and thinkers always seemed to strengthen him.

Mr. Frothingham in his excellent memoir speaks of Wasson as a self-consuming nature. Such a statement may apply to men like Schiller and John Sterling but it can hardly be said of one who lived to be sixty-four years old. If he had not been a remarkably patient, prudent, temperate and altogether practical man his disorder would have consumed him long before that time. It gave him no margin for wilfulness. Except when he spoke in public, his life was regulated with mathematical accuracy. There was something almost death-like in his self-control, and yet at times that also had to give way. If he had lived otherwise his case would have grown continually worse. The only recreation he had was working in his garden, and an occasional game of billiards. Four or five times a year he would go to a symphony concert, to hear Matthew Arnold lecture, or to see a distinguished actor. People who blamed him for not recovering his health knew not what they did. A Philadelphia doctor has made himself quite famous by curing women who have become nervous and debilitated from an unhealthy mode of life and drinking strong tea, but that is a very different thing from curing a true nervous disorder. Sumner's case was almost exceptional. He was cured in three years by Dr. Brown-Sequard and made perfectly well; but he had temperament, climate, and everything that money might give, in his favor. A good many invalids have been helped by Brown-Sequard after other doctors had failed to help them. A sturdy New Hampshire farmer wounded his foot with an axe and was supposed to have split a nerve in it. The wound healed perfectly but he never was able to do a whole day's work afterward. An oarsman in the international regatta of 1869 who was a man of enormous physical strength, deranged his nerves in some way and shot himself rather than endure the kind of life that was forced upon him.

The Wasson family was of Ulster-Irish descent, or as it is often improperly called Scotch-Irish. There is little Scotch blood in Ulster however, and the Wassons claimed to be descended from the Lollard heretics who were driven out of England in Henry the Fifth's time. John C. Calhoun belonged also to this class of men, who are noted for their industry, sobriety, mental vigor and inflexible tenacity. The county of Ulster contains only about one-eighth of the population of Ireland and yet it pays forty-six per cent of the Irish taxes. David Wasson, Senior, was trial justice for Brooksville, and was greatly dreaded by disorderly persons. He presided with dignity, and maintained better order than is often found in a country court-room. Wasson himself was more than Saxon; he was a German in mind, body and character, though he never went to Germany till after he was fifty. He had a German figure, much like his father's but broader; high square shoulders, a straight forehead and wide mouth. His features were strong and refined without being specially handsome. His brow was very fine and the eyes beneath it of so clear a blue as to be noticeable even at some distance.

There are men whom it is a delight to be with, whose "actions are as pleasant as roses," whose absence we regret as soon as they leave the room; but Wasson was not one of these. He had no personal charm like Longfellow or Wendell Phillips. He was more of a gentleman than many who pride themselves on that distinction, and he had very good manners, but not a very good style. A noted snob of those days and parasite of distinguished people said that he could have no faith in the genius of a man who dressed like Mr. Wasson. He would probably have dressed much better if he had possessed more abundant means, but I never saw him dressed in a way that anyone could rightfully complain of. His voice was pleasant but there was neither grace nor elegance in his speech. Usually it was direct, forcible, monotonous, with a very distinct enunciation; but sometimes it became drawling and wearisome with a peculiar accent on certain words which struck the ear too pointedly. This however was only among his friends; it did not happen in public. But all thought of human imperfections vanished as soon as he began to talk on one of his favorite topics; and there was a long list of them. You recognized that you were in the presence of a master mind, an analytical genius, who could take the world to pieces and put it together before your very eyes.

His conversation was better than his writing; in form, in freedom, and in warmth of feeling. He must have been the finest talker of his time. Carlyle could match him perhaps in quite a different manner; but I have never heard of any others. Lowell was what would have been called in Shakespeare's time a "witty and conceited gentleman" and John Weiss still more so; but neither of them could give the flow of original thought which came from Wasson like a pure mountain stream. Neither were they such complete masters of their subject. Like Carlyle he required suitable auditors to bring him forth at his best: but while Carlyle was mightiest when, his hearers were opposed to him Wasson always needed a somewhat sympathetic audience. If he saw unfriendly faces around him his ideas became congealed and his discourse controversial. At other times it was like following the course of a great unknown river, full of grand views and surprising discoveries. Nothing interests like imagination, or is more wholesome than good criticism. Yet he had no desire to be an autocrat of the drawing-room. He welcomed the opinions of others and encouraged free discussion. No man could be more ready to accept amendments to his propositions. Pride of opinion was nowhere to be found in him: he was only too modest and unassuming. If his friends did not agree with him he would reply with a mildly interrogative "Yes?" and then proceed as before. The finest rhetoric and even splendid oratory seemed poor compared with the plain statement of this unswerving seeker of the truth.