{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_36489/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_36489","id":"gutenberg_36489","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36489","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Sociology","Social history","United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Sharon Joiner, paksenarrion, Bryan Ness and\nthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\nhttp://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images\ngenerously made available by The Internet Archive/American\nLibraries.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n            MODERN SOCIETY.\n                  BY\n           JULIA WARD HOWE.\n\n                BOSTON:\n           ROBERTS BROTHERS.\n                 1881.\n\n            COPYRIGHT, 1880,\n          BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.\n\n              PRINTED BY\n         ALFRED MUDGE AND SON.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n    MODERN SOCIETY                    5\n\n    CHANGES IN AMERICAN SOCIETY      49\n\n\n\n\nMODERN SOCIETY.\n\n\nWhat means this summons, oh friends! to the groves of Academe? I heard,\nin the distance, the measured tread of Philosophy. I mused: \"How grave\nand deliberate is she! How she matches thought with thought! How\npatiently she questions inference and conclusion! No irrelevance, no\nempty ballooning, is allowed in that Concord school. Nothing frivolous\nneed apply there for admission.\" And lo! in the midst of this severe\nentertainment an interlude is called for in the great theatre. The stage\nmanager says, \"Ring up Puck. Wanted, an Ariel.\" And no Shakespeare being\nat hand, I, of the sex much reproved for never having produced one, am\ninvited to fly hither as well as my age and infirmities will allow, and\nto represent to you that airy presence whose folly, seen from the\nclouds, is wisdom; that presence which, changing with the changes of the\nyear and of the day, may yet sing, equally with the steadfast stars and\nsystematic planets,--\n\n    \"The hand that made me is divine.\"\n\nModern society, concerning which you have bid me discourse to you, is\nthis tricksy spirit, many-featured and many-gestured, coming in a\nquestionable shape, and bringing with it airs from heaven and blasts\nfrom hell. I have spoken to it, and it has shown me my father's ghost.\nHow shall I speak of it, and tell you what it has taught me? You must\nthink my alembic a nice one indeed, since you bid me to the analysis of\nthose subtle and finely mingled forces. You have sent for me, perhaps,\nto receive a lesson instead of giving one. You may intend that, having\ntried and failed in this task, I shall learn, for the future, the\ndifficult lesson of holding my peace. For so benevolent, so\ndisinterested an intention, I may have more occasion to thank you\nbeforehand, than you shall find to thank me, having heard me.\n\nBut, since a text is supposed to make it sure that the sermon shall have\nin it one good sentence, let me take for my text a saying of the\nphilosopher Kant, who, in one of his treatises, rests much upon the\ndistinction to be made between logical and real or substantial\nopposition. According to him, a logical opposition is brought in view\nwhen one attribute of a certain thing is at once affirmed and denied.\nThe statement of a body which should be at once stationary and in motion\nwould imply such a contradiction, of which the result will be _nihil\nnegativum irrepraesentabile_.\n\nA real or substantial opposition is found where two contradictory\npredicates are recognized as coexistent in the same subject. A body\nimpelled in one direction by a given force, and in another by its\nopposite, is easily cogitable. One force neutralizes the other, but the\nresult is something, viz., rest. Let us keep in mind this distinction\nbetween opposites which exclude each other, and opposites which can\ncoexist, while we glance at the contradictions of all society, ancient\nas well as modern.\n\nHow self-contradictory, in the first place, is the nature of man! How\nsociable he is! also how unsociable! We have among animals the\ngregarious and the solitary. But man is of all animals at once the most\ngregarious and the most solitary. This is the first and most universal\ncontradiction, that of which you find at least the indication in every\nindividual. But let us look for a moment at the contrasts which make one\nindividual so unlike to another. We sometimes find it hard to believe\nthe saying that God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth.\nThis in view of the contrast between savage and civilized nations, or\nbetween nations whose habits and beliefs differ one from the other. In\nthe same race, in the same family also, we shall find the unlikeness\nwhich seems to set the bond of nature at defiance.\n\nSee this sly priest, bland and benevolent in proportion to the narrow\nlimits of the minds which he controls. He hears the shrift of the\nbrigand and assassin, of the girl mastered by passion, of the unfaithful\nwife and avenging husband. He gives an admonition, perhaps a grave one.\nHe inflicts a penance, light or severe. He does not trust his penitents\nwith the secret which can heal the plague-sores of humanity,--the secret\nof its moral power. But see the meek flock who come to him. See the\nwhole range of consciences which cannot rest without his dismissing\n_fiat_. The rugged peasant drops on his knees beside the confessional.\nHis horny palm relinquishes, without hesitation, the coin upon which it\nhas scarcely closed. Or here alights from her carriage some woman of the\nworld, bright in silks and jewels. With a hush and a rustle, reaching\nthe lowly bench, she, too, drops down, rehearses her wrong-doing,\npromises such reparation as is enjoined, and asks for the word of peace.\nNow this confessor, and one or more of his penitents, may be the\nchildren of the same father and mother, and yet they shall be as unlike\nin attitude and in character as two human beings can be. In the closest\nalliance of blood you may thus find the opposite poles of one humanity.\n\nHumanity is, then, a thing of oppositions, and of oppositions which are\npolar and substantial. Its contradictions do not exclude, but, on the\ncontrary, complement each other, and the action and reaction of these\ncontradictions result in the mighty agreements of the State and of the\nChurch, the intense sympathies and antipathies which bind or sunder\nindividuals, the affections and disaffections of the family.\n\nThe opposite extremes of human nature embrace, between them, a wonderful\nbreadth and scope. The correlation and coaction of this multitude of\nopposing forces on the wide arena of the world naturally give rise to a\nseries of manifestations, voluntary and involuntary, changeful in form\nand color as a phantasmagoria, fitful as a fever-dream, but steadfast\nand substantial in the infinite science, out of which all things come.\nThe unity in this web of contradictions is its great wonder. How if this\nunity prove to be the law of which the oppositions are but one clause?\nHow if the perfect unity were only attainable through the freedom of the\nnatural diversity? And what is the substance and sum of this fundamental\nagreement? The desire of good, the progressive conception of which\nmarks, more than anything else, the progress of the race. We cannot tell\nout of what dynamics comes the initial of this fruitful and productive\nopposition. It is, perhaps, the very unity of the object which develops\nthe diversity of action. In the progress of human society the diversity\nbecomes constantly multiplied. Is the sense of the unity lost in\nconsequence? No, it grows constantly with the growth of this opposing\nfact. As education is enlarged, as freedom becomes more general and\nentire, the agreement of mankind becomes greater in the objects to be\nattained for the promotion of their best interests.\n\nWe can suppose a family cast upon a barren shore, or forced to sit down\nin the midst of an uninhabited region. All of its members will wish to\nsecure the necessary conditions of life, such as food, fuel, shelter,\nsafety from destructive agencies. If left to themselves, one will\nnaturally bestir himself to find fish, game, or fruits; another will\nbring in firewood; a third will plan a tent or hut; a fourth will stand\nsentry against any possible alarm. So a camp is a world in miniature;\nand if food and drink be plenty, and there be time to think of\nrecreation, some one will carve a pipe from reed or willow, and, in\nanswer to the piping, will come the dance. Or, if our pilgrims are too\nmystic and solemn for this, hymns will be sung, and the voice of prayer\nwill lift the soul out of the poverty of its surroundings into that\nrealm of imagination whose wealth far exceeds that of Ormus or of Ind.\n\nI seem to hear at this point the _non placet_ of those who ask for one\nthing and receive another. I was not sent for to philosophize, but to\nrepresent; and, with regard to the former process, \"how not to do it\"\nshould have been my study. Modern society is my theme. Where shall I\nfind society for you? Henry Thoreau found it here, in the passionless\nface of Nature. Here, the shy Hawthorne could dwell unmolested, not even\novershadowed by the revered sage who makes reserve and distance such\nimportant elements of good manners. Mr. Alcott has transplanted here\nthose olives whose sacred chrism rests upon his honored brow. The\nsociety which my words shall introduce here must be neither vulgar nor\ndull.\n\nNow, if I had a flying-machine! Well, I have one, and its name is\nMemory. Sit with me, upon its movable platform, and I will give you some\npeeps at the thing itself, leaving you to discuss after me its _raison\nd'etre_, its right to be. In experimental analysis, specimens are always\nexhibited. Let us look at modern society in Cairo, Shepherd's hotel, and\nthe omnibus that bears one thither. The _table d'hote_ unites a\ncatalogue as various as that of Don Giovanni. Here sit Sir Samuel and\nLady Baker, famous as African explorers. You may all know something of\nthe entertaining volumes which chronicle their discoveries and\nadventures. Lady Baker wears, at times, a necklace made of tiger's\nclaws. Her husband shot the tiger in the great wilds of Africa, she\nloading the gun with which he did it.\n\nShe is Roumanian by birth, English by adoption, fair and comely. Sir\nSamuel is a burly Briton. They have with them a young African servant,\ndark and under-sized, with wild, crimped hair. Sir Samuel tells me that\nthis is altogether the best human creature he ever knew. Lady Baker does\nnot resent the extreme statement. I sit at table between a Russian count\nand an English baronet. The Russian and his two daughters are amiable\nand simple people. The baronet is a stanch Tory, as you will think\nnatural when you hear his story. He was once a poor boy, hard at work in\na coal mine. He used to walk six or seven miles daily, after working\nhours, in order to acquaint himself with those three Fates who are\nfamiliarly called the three R's. Becoming an expert in the coal\nbusiness, he went through the upward grades of his profession, became a\nlarge owner of mines, and has now a heavy contract for supplying the\nEgyptian government with coal. He is a member of Parliament, and, when I\nsaw him, was ready to start homeward on the first news of a division in\nthe House. It was lately stated in a London paper that Lord Beaconsfield\nwould probably raise him to the peerage before his own retirement from\noffice. So, it may have been done by this time.\n\nMy Russian neighbors are much troubled about the fate of a poor Italian\nfamily whose chief has lost his occupation, and which is thus reduced\nto the extreme of want. \"Why not get up a subscription at this hotel?\"\nsay I. They are very willing that I should. I draw up a paper, we sign\nour names and contributions. Sir George snubs us dreadfully, but gives\nus a sovereign. Sir Samuel snubs, and gives nothing. The necessary sum\nof money is raised, and the family is sent to its own country. Here, you\nsee, are Russia, England, and America, combining, on Egyptian soil, to\nsave Italy. This strange mixture is characteristic of the medley of the\ntime.\n\nWe will not move yet, for the panorama of the table will save us that\ntrouble. Here is one of the recognized beauties of London society. A\nvery pretty woman, with dewy eyes, pearly teeth, dark, glossy hair, and\na soft, fresh complexion. A French wardrobe sets off those natural\nadvantages, with its happy disguises and apposite revelations. But it is\nnot good for beauty that it should become a profession. This lady's fine\neyes and teeth are made to do duty with such evident persistence of\nintention, that one absolutely dreads to see the glitter of the one and\nthe flash of the other in the gymnastic of an advertised flirtation.\n\nI cannot yet release you. Here are two gentlemen who wear the\n_tarbouche_ with their European costume. They were rebels in our war of\nsecession, and at its close took service with the Khedive. Ignoring\nancient sectional differences, they are very cordial with us, their\ncountrywomen. They would be glad to see their country again, but cannot\nget their salaries paid, the French and English commissioners having\ntaken the direction of Egyptian finances, and making no allowance for\nthe past services of these American officers, who were dismissed at\ntheir instance.\n\nWe are still at Shepherd's _table d'hote_, and before us sit an English\nnobleman and his wife, who have obtained permission to give a _fete_ at\nthe Pyramids. A gay party of English residents and visitors are\ngathering to accompany them, and presently the carriages and cavalcade\nstart, with a band of music, and a small army of servants. They\nilluminate the Great Pyramid with colored fires, race their horses and\ndonkeys through the desert, sup and sleep in the Khedive's _kiosk_, not\nwithout much boisterous mirth and disturbance.\n\nOr, behold me on Bairam day, paying a New-Year's visit to the harem of\nthe Khedive. A row of grinning eunuchs, black as night, guard the\nentrance. After various turns of ceremonial, we greet the three\nprincesses, all wives of the Khedive, who has many others not of this\nrank. In order not to give offence, we are obliged to smoke the\n_chibouque_, a pipe about five feet in length. We smile and courtesy at\nthe proper moment, but find conversation difficult. They are curious to\nhear where we came from, and whither we are going. I ask whether they,\nalso, enjoy travelling, and am reminded that their institutions do not\nallow it. These poor princesses little knew that in two months from that\ntime an involuntary journey awaited them, on the occasion of the\nKhedive's abdication, and departure from the country.\n\nWe please ourselves, in these days, with the praise of Islamism, and\nthink, quite rightly, that Mahomet and his Koran had their _raison\nd'etre_, and have done their part for mankind. But here is Islamism in\nmodern society. The howling dervishes sit on the ground groaning _Allah,\nAllah_. By and by they rise, and bend their heads backward and forward\nuntil the most eminent among them fall in fits, and are taken up in an\nunhappy condition. Within a short distance from our hotel, we hear of a\ncompany of men met for a religious exercise. One of them chews a glass\ngoblet and swallows it. Another endeavors to swallow a small snake. A\nthird gashes himself wildly with a sword. These are religious\nenthusiasts. If their faith be genuine, these dangerous experiments,\nthey say, can do them no harm.\n\nThese things remind us of the temptation of Christ: \"If thou be the Son\nof God, cast thyself down from hence.\"\n\nBut let us leave the city and hotel, and betake ourselves to the\nhistoric river, dumb with all its mouths, and poor with all its wealth.\nModern society is well represented on board our steamer. Here are two\nCalifornian gentlemen, two sons of a Sandwich Island missionary, two or\nthree Italians. Here is a sister-in-law of John Bright. She has visited\nAlaska, and considers this Nile trip a small parenthesis in her voyage\nround the world. Here are an English couple, belonging to fashionable\nlife. Here is a clergyman of the same nation, who glories in the fact\nthat Dr. Johnson hated, or said he hated, a Whig. Here is an American\nwho cannot visit the ruins because his whole day is divided into so many\nglasses of milk, to be taken at such and such times.\n\nWe land one day at Assiout, and visit its bazaars. The trade in ostrich\nfeathers is brisk, the natives steadily raising their prices as the\ndemand increases, until we find that the feathers might be more cheaply\nbought in London or Paris. Amid the general confusion of tongues I am\naccosted by a handsome youth, cleanly and civil, who speaks fair\nEnglish, and asks if he can serve me.\n\nWho are you? A pupil of the American Mission School in this place. He\nbrings two of his fellow-pupils to speak with me. One of these is a\ngirl, whose innocent, uncovered face seems to rebuke the hidden faces of\nthe Arab women, veiled and disfigured to evince their modesty, but\nmaking more evident the immodesty of the men.\n\nWe return to our steamer, followed by a crowd of boys and girls,\nshrieking and naked, who plunge into the water to get the _backshish_,\nwhich some of our party throw them. On the bank stand two beautiful\nyouths, nearly black, with eyes like sloes, and with crisped hair\nstanding erect like a flame above their foreheads. They are clad in\nkilts of white cotton cloth. Struck with their beauty, we inquire of\nwhat tribe they are. \"Of the Bischouri,\" says our dragoman, \"a tribe of\nthe desert, who feed only upon uncooked grain.\" To the last their bright\nsmile pursues us with its pathos. Would that they, too, were pupils of\nthe American Mission School. Would not our vegetarian chief send for\nthem?[1]\n\n    [1] Mr. Alcott, Dean of the Concord School of Philosophy, has\n          always been known as a vegetarian.\n\nWe gallop across the sands to a point opposite Philae, and reach the\nsacred spot by boat. We picnic among its tombs, climb its _pylon_, and\nremark upon the beauty of the view. At the first cataract, which is very\nnear this place, an Arab woman shows me her baby with the pride of Eve\nor Queen Victoria. It has a nose-ring of brass wire, and similar\nadornments in the top of each ear. On my way back to the boat, my pocket\nis picked by a cunning youth. The Arabs of the desert will compare in\nthis respect with the Arabs of European streets. A little Arab girl\noffers to sell me her rag doll, whose veil is bedizened with spangles. A\nlittle water-carrier, proud of her English, says, \"Lady, give me\nbackshish.\"\n\nThis shall end my peep at modern society in Egypt.\n\nBut one more personal remembrance you must accord me. The scene is a\ndirty, muddy street in a Cyprus seaport. The time is not far from noon.\nI am exploring, with some curiosity, the new jewel which Lord\nBeaconsfield has added to the crown of Great Britain.\n\nWhat a mean, poor bazaar is this; what dull streets, what a barren place\nto live in, especially since _methymenic_ Albion has drunk up all the\nbest of the wine! I pass a shop, and a bright presence beams out upon\nme. It is Lady Baker, with her fair, luminous face, full of energy and\nresource. Sir Samuel, she tells me, is in the back shop buying hardware\nfor a hard journey. For they intend to travel through the island in a\nhuge covered wagon, drawn by oxen, which will be to them at once vehicle\nand hotel. Where they went, and how they fared, I know not, nor would it\nhere import us, if I did. I only mention the appearance of these friends\nin this place, because this appearance was so characteristic of modern\nsociety, and because so many of its elements appeared there in their\npersons. The education and high society of England, the court, the\nliterary circles, the almighty publisher, for an intended volume was\nsurely looming in the foreground of their picture. And here I have\nclearly got hold of one feature of modern society; this is, that\neverything is everywhere. The Zulus are in London, the Londoners in\nZululand. Empress Eugenie, the exploded star of French fashion in its\nhighest supremacy, visits Cape Town. The stars and stripes protect\nAmerican professors on the shores of the Bosphorus, within view of Mount\nLebanon. It would not surprise us to learn that a party of our\ncountrymen had read the Declaration of Independence beside the Pools of\nSolomon, or within the desolate heart of Moab.\n\nIn Jaffa of the Crusaders, Joppa of Peter and Paul, I find an American\nMission School, kept by a worthy lady from Rhode Island. Prominent among\nits points of discipline is the clean-washed face which is so enthroned\nin the prejudices of Western civilization. One of her scholars, a youth\nof unusual intelligence, finding himself clean, observes himself to be\nin strong contrast with his mother's hovel, in which filth is just kept\nclear of fever point. \"Why this dirt?\" quoth he; \"that which has made me\nclean, will cleanse this also.\" So without more ado, the process of\nscrubbing is applied to the floor, without regard to the danger of so\ngreat a novelty. This simple fact has its own significance, for if the\ninnovation of soap and water can find its way to a Jaffa hut, where can\nthe ancient, respectable, conservative dirt-devil feel himself secure?\n\nThe maxim also becomes vain nowadays, that there should be a place for\neverything, and that everything should be in its place. Cleopatra's\nNeedles point their moral in London and in New York. The Prince of Wales\nhunts tigers in the Punjaub. Hyde Park is in the desert or on the Nile.\nAmerica is all over the world. Against this universal game of \"Puss in\nthe Corner,\" reaction must come, some day, in some shape, or anywhere\nwill mean nowhere, for those who, starting in the geographical pursuit\nof pleasure, fail to find it and never return home.\n\nThe oppositions of humanity have undergone many changes. Paul\ncharacterized them in his day as \"Greek and Barbarian, bond and free,\nmale and female.\" Christianity effaced old oppositions and created new\nones. The old oppositions were national, personal, selfish. The new\nopposition was moral. It struck at evils, not at men, and tended to\nunite the latter in a patient and reasonable overcoming of the former. I\nknow that the white heat at which its first blow was dealt left much for\nphilosophy to elaborate, for science to adjust and apply. A Jesus,\narrived at the plenitude of his intellectual vigor, could only have\nthree years in which to formulate his weighty doctrine, and could not\nhave had these without much care and hindrance. His work lay in the\nnormal direction of human nature. In spite of lapses and relapses,\nmankind slowly creep towards the great unification which will make the\nsavage animals and the selfish passions the only enemies of the human\nrace. Modern society rests upon this unification as its basis of action.\nA positive philosophy which Auguste Comte did not elaborate absorbs its\nhighest thought, and dictates its largest measures.\n\nAnd so prophetic souls bid farewell to the old negations. In their view,\nthe lion is already reconciled to the lamb. The taming of the elements\nprefigures the general reconciliation. The deadly lightning runs on\nerrands and carries messages. The Titan steam is the servant of commerce\nand industry, meek as Hercules when armed with the distaff of Omphale.\nEmulation, the desire to excel, exquisite, dangerous stimulant to\nexertion, is not in our day educated to the intensification of self, but\nto the enlargement of public spirit and of general interest. The\nconstant discoveries of new treasures in our material world, of gold,\nsilver, iron, and copper, of states to be built up and of harvests to be\nsown and reaped, are accompanied by corresponding discoveries\nconcerning the variety of human gifts and their application to useful\nends. What men and women can be good for may be more voluminously stated\nto-day than in any preceding age of the world's history.\n\nComparison should be a strong point in modern society. When travelling\nwas laborious and difficult, the masses of one country knew little\nconcerning those of another. When learning was rare, and instruction\ncostly and insufficient, the few knew the secrets of thought and\nscience, the many not even knowing that such things were to be known.\nWhen wealth was uncommon, luxury was monopolized by a small class, the\ngreater part of mankind earning only for themselves the right to live\npoorly. When distinctions were absolute, low life knew nothing of high\nlife but what the novelist could invent, or the servant reveal. How\nchanged is all this to-day! Competence, travel, tuition, and intelligent\ncompany are within the reach of all who will give themselves the trouble\nto attain them. The first consequence of this is that we become able to\nmake the largest and most general comparison of human conditions which\nhas ever been possible to humanity, nor does this ability regard the\npresent alone. The unveiling of the treasures of the past, the\ninterpretation of its experience and doctrine which we owe to the\nscholar and archaeologist, enable us to compare remote antiquity with the\nthings of the last minute. The work of antiquarian science culminates in\nthe discovery of the prehistoric man. Theology had long before invented\nthe post-historic angel. Now, indeed, we ought to be able to choose the\nbest out of the best, since the whole is laid in order before us. But\nthe chronic trouble hangs upon us still. Had we but such wisdom to\nchoose as we have chance to see! The gifts of our future are still shown\nus in sealed caskets. Which of these conceals the condition of our true\nhappiness? The leaden one, surely, of which we distrust the dull\nexterior, trusting in the inner brightness which it covers.\n\nWhat is the problem of modern society?\n\nHow to use its vast resources. Here is where the office of true ethic\ncomes in. No gift can make rich those who are poor in wisdom. The wealth\nwhich should build up society will pull it down if its possession lead\nto fatal luxury and indulgence. The freedom of intercourse which makes\none nation known to another, and puts the culture of the most advanced\nat the service of the most barbarous, is like a flood which carries\neverywhere the seeds of good and of evil. The ripening of these depends\nmuch upon the accident of the human soil they may happen to find. But\ncareful husbandry will have even more to do with the result.\n\nTo America it was said at the outset, \"Prepare to receive the World, and\nto make it free.\" Oh, World, so full of corruption and of slavery, wilt\nthou not rather bind us with thy gangrenous fetters? Wilt not the wail\nof thy old injustice and suffering prolong itself until the new strophe\nof hope shall be lost and forgotten?\n\nWhere is God's image in this human brute who lands on our shores, full\nonly of the insolence of beggary? Far, far be from us ever the methods\nand procedures which have made or left him what he is. Honor and glory\nto those patient, good men and women who will redeem his children from\nthe degradation which seems almost proper to him. Theirs be a crown\nabove that of the poet or orator!\n\nModern society, then, is chiefly occupied with a vast assimilation of\nnovelties. This task is by no means imposed upon us alone. While the\nNew World has to digest races and traditions, the Old World has to\ndigest ideas. Thanks to the good Puritan stomach which we inherit, the\nprocess goes on here, with little interruption. But across the seas, in\nRome, in Germany, in Russia, what nausea, what quarrelling with the\nfatal morsel upon which Providence compels the lips to close!\n\n\"_Non possumus!_\" say the priests of the old order. \"_Possum_,\" replies\nthe eternal power. The French republic and the English monarchy succeed\nbest in this altering of old habits to suit new emergencies. But where\nextremes are greatest, the contest is naturally fiercest. A Pope fears\nthe cup of poisoned chocolate, and dares not drink the wine of the\neucharist without a taster; the throne of the Russian autocrat is over\nthe deadly mine of the Nihilist. German vanity and diplomacy bring back\nthe shadow of the mediaeval muddle. The living heart's blood of humanity\ncomes to us out of these struggles, an immeasurable gift, for good or\nfor evil. Can we be quick enough with our schools, just enough in our\ngovernment, sincere and devout enough in our churches? What will Europe\ndo with the ideas? What will America do with the people? These are the\nquestions of the present time.\n\nOne of the serious social questions of the day is the omnipotence of\nmoney. People often use this expression in a _quasi_ sarcastic sense,\nnot seriously intending what they say. But the power of money nowadays\nis such that it becomes us seriously to ask whether there is anything\nthat it cannot do. What ancient strongholds of taste, sentiment, and\nprejudice has it not stormed and carried?\n\nA servant, who sought a place during the first years of the shoddy\ninflation, asked a lady who was willing to engage her, \"Are you shoddy,\nma'am, or old family? I want to live with shoddy, because it pays the\nhighest wages.\" The watchwords of society as often come from its humbler\nas from its higher level, and this woman unconsciously uttered the word\nwhich was to rule society from that time to this. Money, during the last\ntwenty years, has swept over most of the old landmarks, and obliterated\nthem.\n\nReligion itself stands aghast at this baptism of gold, which can convert\nthe alien and the heathen, ay, the brigand and the robber, into saints\nof social prestige. For money bribes the court and pulpit, and buys the\npress; the highest rank, the highest genius, pay homage to it. If the\nduke has not money, he will seek in wedlock the most undesirable of\nwomen, if she be also the richest. Royalty bows to the splendid cloak of\nvulgarity, and invites it to dine and drive. Happy day, you will say,\nfor labor, which money symbolizes. Monarchs may well show it respect.\nBut money does not always symbolize honest and intelligent industry. A\ngreat fortune often represents transactions akin to theft; sometimes the\nthing itself, which the world is Spartan enough to approve of, if the\ncriminal can only escape positive detection. Those, too, who have earned\ntheir money honestly, leave it to children who turn their back upon the\nclass of which their parents came, and desire to know nothing of the\nbread-winning arts which they were constrained to practise.\n\nWe have had, within the last ten years, a severe lesson concerning the\ninstability of wealth in some of its most trusted forms. Yet are we not\ncompelled by sympathy and antipathy, at the bottom of our hearts, to pay\nit an homage which our lips would not avow? Do we not desire wealth for\nour children as the condition which shall set our minds at rest\nconcerning them? When we see mediocrity and vulgarity riding in the\nswift carriage, and wearing the jewels and the robes, bright in\neverybody's eyes and praised in everybody's mouth, do we not harbor\nsomewhere a regret that we have not, in some way possible to us, set our\nbest abilities to work to secure a similar distinction for ourselves?\n\nIt should not frighten one to see the court and its underlings venal.\nCourt and courtiers are a show, and money is the condition by which a\nshow lives. But I look into the domain of letters, and ask whether that\nis still uncorrupted. I do not think that it is. The refined tastes of\nliterary people lead them to value entertainment at the hands of the\nrich. The luxurious rooms, the abundant table, the easy _persiflage_ in\nwhich worldly tact knows enough to flatter recognized talent. Do not\nthese _illicebrae_ seduce, to-day, even the stern heart of philosophy?\n\nHow unkind was society to Margaret Fuller! It was reluctant to show her\nthe courtesy due to a gentlewoman. Its mean gossip treated her as if she\nhad been beyond the pale of elegance and good taste, verging away even\nfrom good behavior. What was her offence against society? A humanity too\nlarge and absorbing, a mind too brave and independent for its\ncommonplace. Add to these the fact that she had neither fashion nor\nfortune. The things she asked for are granted to-day by every thinking\nmind, and she is remembered as illustrious. But if she could come back\nto-morrow as she was, poor in purse and plain in person, and assume her\nold leadership, would Boston treat her any better than it did in days of\nyore? Would she not find, even among Brook farmers, a looking toward\nBeacon Street which might surprise her? The literary man, who went so\nbravely from abstract philosophy to its concrete expression, whose\nlearned hands took up the spade and hoe, and whose early peas were\npraised by those who contemned his principles, would he, at a later\nday,--grown urbane and fashionable,--would he have bowed without a pang\nto his former self, if he had met him, dusty and on foot, in Central\nPark, he himself being well mounted?\n\nI said just now that money could buy the press. This is shameful,\nbecause the press, more than any other power, can afford to be frank and\nsincere. Freedom is the very breath of life in its nostrils, yet is it\nto-day largely salaried by the enemies of freedom. While speaking of the\npress, I will mention the regret with which I lately read, in the\n\"Boston Daily Advertiser,\" an editorial treating of the expulsion of the\nJesuits from France. The writer, who denounced this measure with some\nseverity, described the religious body with which it deals as a band of\nmild and inoffensive men, chiefly occupied with the tuition of youth. He\nmight as well have characterized a tiger as a harmless creature,\nincapable of the use of firearms.\n\nTo me the worship of wealth means, in the present, the crowning of low\nmerit with undeserved honor,--the setting of successful villany above\nunsuccessful virtue. It means absolute neglect and isolation for the few\nwho follow a high heart's love through want and pain, through evil and\ngood report. It means the bringing of all human resources, material and\nintellectual, to one dead level of brilliant exhibition--a second Field\nof the Cloth of Gold--to show that the barbaric love of splendor still\nlives in man, with the thirst for blood, and other _quasi_ animal\npassions. It means, in the future, some such sad downfall as Spain had\nwhen the gold and silver of America had gorged her soldiers and nobles;\nsomething like what France experienced after Louis XIV. and XV. I am no\nprophet, and, least of all, a prophet of evil; but where, oh where,\nshall we find the antidote to this metallic poison? Perhaps in the\nhomoeopathic principle of cure. When the money miracle shall be\ncomplete, when the gold Midas shall have turned everything to gold, then\nthe human heart will cry for flesh and blood, for brain and muscles.\nThen shall manhood be at a premium, and money at a discount.\n\nThe French have found, among many others, one fortunate expression. They\nspeak of a life of representation, by which they mean the life of a\nperson conspicuous in the great world. This society of representation\nhas some recognition in every stage of civilization, since even nations\nwhich we consider barbarous have their festivals and processions. The\nministerial balls in Paris, and perhaps many other entertainments in\nthat city, are of this character.\n\nThe guests are admitted in virtue of a card, which is really a ticket,\nthough money cannot command it. Many of the persons entertained are not\npersonally acquainted with either host or hostess, and do not\nnecessarily make their acquaintance by going to their house. Everything\nis arranged with a view to large effects: music, decorations, supper,\netc. A party of friends may go there for their own amusement, or a\nsingle individual for his own. But there are no general introductions\ngiven, there is no social fusion.\n\nNow this I call society of representation. It bears about the same\nrelation to genuine society that scene-painting bears to a carefully\nfinished picture. People of culture and education enjoy a peep at this\nspectacular drama of the social stage, but their idea of society would\nbe something very different from this. Where this show-society\nmonopolizes the resources of a community, it implies either a dearth of\nintellectual resources, or a great misapprehension of what is really\ndelightful and profitable in social intercourse.\n\nWhere the stage form of society predominates too largely, its intimate\nform languishes and declines. The communings of a chosen few around a\ntable simply spread, with no view to the recognition of the great\nBabylon, but rather with a pleasure in its avoidance; refined sympathy\nand support given and received in a round of daily duties, by those\nwhose hands are busy and whose minds are full; the inner sweetness of a\nbeautiful song or poem, the kindling of mind from mind, till all become\nsurprised at what each can do,--this sort of society maintains itself by\nkeeping the noisy rush of the crowd at arm's length. Horace says,--\n\n    \"Odo profanum vulgus et arceo,\"\n\nand I, a democrat of the democrats, will say so too. I reverence the\nmasses of mankind, rich or poor. My heart beats high when I think of the\ngood which human society has already evolved, and of the greater good\nwhich is in store for those who are to come after us. But I hate the\nprofane vulgarity which courts public notice and mention as the chief\nend of existence, and which, in so doing, puts out of sight those\nvarious ends and interests which each generation is bound to pursue for\nitself, and to promote for its successors.\n\nThe time of poor Marie Antoinette was the culmination of such a period\nof show. Its glare and glitter, and its lavish waste, had put out of\nsight the true and intimate relations of man to man. And so, as the\ngilded portion of the age made its musters of beautiful empty heads, of\nvanities throned upon vanities, the ungilded part made its deadly muster\nof discontent, displeasure, and despair. The empty heads fell, and much\nthat was precious and noble fell with them. The great stage produced its\nbloody drama, and the curtain of horror closed upon it.\n\nCritics of society usually direct their invective against the\nextravagance and shallowness of this exhibitory department, and would\nalmost make these an excuse for the opposite extreme of misanthropic\nspleen and avoidance. They should remember that while society, from an\ninward necessity, provides for these musterings and displays, it is\nunable to provide for that intimate and personal intercourse which\nindividuals must found and cultivate for themselves. So much is left for\neach one of us to do, to find our peers, and open with them an honest\nexchange of our best for their best. The family most easily begins this,\nwith its intense and ever-enlarging interests. Out of true family life\ncomes a neighborhood; out of a neighborhood the body politic, and the\nbody sympathetic.\n\nIf, in the matter of social intercourse, show is allowed to usurp the\nplace of substance, the indolence of mankind must bear its part of the\nblame. It is far easier to order a suit for the great occasion, than to\nbrighten one's mental jewels for the small one. Many a soldier is brave\non parade, who would not shine on a field of battle. Many a woman will\npass for elegant in a ball-room, or even at a court drawing-room, whose\nwant of true breeding would become evident in a chosen company.\n\nThe reason why education is usually so poor among women of fashion is,\nthat it is not needed for the life which they elect to lead. With a good\nfigure, good clothes, and a handsome equipage, with a little reading of\nthe daily papers, and of the fashionable reviews, and above all, with\nthe happy tact which often enables women to make a large display of very\nsmall acquirements, the woman of fashion may never feel the need of true\neducation. We pity her none the less, since she will never know its\npeace and delight.\n\nIn our own country, at this moment, and in Europe as well, ambitions\nseem to be unduly directed to this department of social action, the\ntraining and discipline for which differ widely from that proper to\nintimate and domestic life. Hence comes an observable regard, not to\nappearances only, but to appearance. As actors often paint their faces\ntoo highly for near effects, in order to look well at the farthest point\nof view, so the dress and manners of the day fit themselves for the\nstage of the great world, and their wearers seem to meditate not only\nwhat will not appear amiss, but what will attract attention by some\nsingularity of becoming effect. Hence the supremacy for the time of\nthose whose calling it is to minister to appearance. The tailor has\nlong been a man of destiny, but the modern plainness of male attire has\nsomewhat sobered his pretensions. But look at the sublime arrogance of\nthe ladies' dressmaker, and the almost equally sublime meekness of the\nvictim, who not only submits, but desires to be as wax in her hands.\nThis supreme functionary has, of course, _carte blanche_ for her\nordinances. The subject says to her, \"Do what you will with me. Make me\nmodest or immodest. Tie up my feet or straighten my arms till use of\nthem becomes impossible. Deprive my figure of all drapery, or upholster\nit like a window-frame. Nay, set me in the centre of a movable tent, but\narray me so that people shall look at me, and shall say I look well.\"\n\nI cannot but hate, to-day, the slavish fashion which seems to have been\ninvented in order to intensify that self-consciousness which is the\nworst enemy of beauty. It is administered by means of a system of lacets\nand whalebones, which everywhere impinge upon nature. A young lady who\nis in her dress like a sword in its scabbard (the French name for the\nfashion is _fourreau_), is made to think of this point, and of that,\nuntil her whole gait and movement become an interrogation of her silks\nand elastics. Can I sit? Can I walk? Can I put this foot forward, or\nlift this hand to my head? Ask the satin strait-jacket in which your\nartist has imprisoned you, receiving high compensation for the service.\nMuch as I resent this constraint and restraint of the body, my saddest\nthought is, that where it is endured the mind has first been enslaved.\n\nForeign travel is so established a feature in American life, that it may\nwell become us to take account of what it costs and comes to.\n\nOur own importation of men and women is various and enormous. They who\ncome to us poor and ignorant in one generation, are seen comfortable and\nwell educated in the next. The disfranchised and landless man comes to\nus, and receives political rights, and the title of a farm in fee\nsimple. No inordinate tribute robs him of the product of his industry,\nbe it large or small. He pays to the State what it pays him well to\nafford, for protection and education. But how is it with the tribute\nwhich Europe levies upon us in the shape of our sons and daughters?\n\nMany polite tastes have, no doubt, been fostered in our young men by\nstudies pursued in a German university, or art learned in a French\nstudio. Some of the best scholars of the elder generation have profited,\nin their youth, by such advantages. But if we go beyond the limits of\nliterary or professional life, we may not consider the results so\nfortunate. Our society-men sometimes become so depolarized in their\ntastes and feelings, as to be at ease nowhere but in Europe, and not\nmuch at ease there. Those who return bring back a love of betting and of\nhorse-racing, and ape the display of European grandees as far as their\nfortunes will allow.\n\nAnd our young women? Some of them study soberly abroad, and return to\ngive their countenance and support to all that is improving and refining\nin their own country. Some float hither and thither, between England and\nItaly, like a feather on the wave, disappearing at last. The Daisy\nMillerish chit is seen, offending in pure ignorance of what common-sense\nshould easily teach mothers and daughters.\n\nFamily groups of Americans are often met with in Europe, in which one\nfigure is wanting. This is the father, absent, in America, working at\nhis business or speculation. These ladies are often companionable\npeople, who enjoy good hotels, galleries, music on the public square,\nand, above all, the sensation of being far from home.\n\nOne feels about them a dreary atmosphere of homelessness. As the writer\nof the Potiphar papers, while watching a gay young mother's performance\nin the \"German,\" was constrained to think of a complaining babe in her\nnursery, so, in hearing those ladies boast of their enjoyments, one\ncannot help remembering with commiseration the wifeless husband and\ndaughterless father at home, who works like a steam-fan to keep these\nbutterflies in motion.\n\nMore sad still are my reflections, when I hear that numbers of American\ngirls, with large or even moderate fortunes, go abroad and allow it to\nbe known that they seek a husband with a title. These are to be had, of\nvarious grades, if the pecuniary consideration be only sufficient. And\nso many of our laborious men of business work hard in order to earn for\nthemselves the luxury of a titled son-in-law, who has not the ability to\nearn his own support, and would scorn to do it if he had.\n\nAmerican women with money are at a premium in fashionable Europe. Even\nwithout this supreme merit, they are favorites. A London journal calls\nattention to the fact that some of the leading ladies in the fashionable\nLondon of to-day are Americans. The versatility of mind and ease of\nmanner which a free and social life develops, appear in strong contrast\nwith the results of the more formal education, which are often seen in\nthe opposite extremes of timidity and assurance.\n\nAs our young men are often entrapped, while abroad, into marriages which\nprove to be very unwise and unsuitable, I wish very much that we might\nbring and keep our young people in a better understanding with each\nother, so that even the most ambitious among them should be content to\nmarry with their peers, and abide in the home of their fathers.\n\nI have been surprised, at some periods of my late visit to Europe, to\nperceive the growing interest of thinking people in all that is most\ncharacteristic of American progress. Again and again, in private and in\npublic, I have found myself invited to discourse concerning the happy\ncountry in which popular education has been so long established, that\nits results are no longer putative, but ascertained and verified. The\ncountry in which the fairest woman, provided she be a modest one, can\nwalk abroad by day or night, unmolested and unsuspected, the country in\nwhich women have acquired the courage to think for themselves, and to\nstand by each other.\n\nThese invitations, though not given in derision, yet seemed akin to the\nHebrew refrain, \"Sing us one of the songs of Zion!\" And when I related\nthe facts familiar to all of us, to those who listened with\nhalf-incredulous wonder, it was, indeed, like singing the Lord's song of\nfreedom in a strange land.\n\nThe reasons why Europe should come to America are obvious and pressing.\nThe reasons why America should visit Europe are equally binding and\ncogent. The material and the moral life of to-day are kept at their\nheight by this flux and reflux of human personality, which carries with\nit every variety of opinion and experience. Could we only send our best\nabroad, and for the best reasons! Could Europe only send her best, also,\nfor their best help and study! But the human average profits first of\nall by its material enlargement, and will be received just as it is. So,\nour fools go abroad, to show that folly is a thing of all times and\nclimes; and, along with the tidal wave of ignorance and bigotry, the\ndark, designing Jesuit seeks our shore, and spins his fatal web among\nour rose-trees. Sun of divine truth, storms of divine justice, sweep\naway the evil and ripen the good!\n\nWhen I see an American of either sex caught in the vortex of European\nattraction, depolarized from natural relations, and charmed into\nalliance with feudal barbarism and ignorance, my heart rings the bell of\nalarm which is hung at the gates of Paradise.\n\nFrom all these Western splendors can this shallow soul turn away? From\nthese golden fields whose overflow gives Europe food, while her human\noverflow gives them labor? From this large construction of human right,\nwhich lifts the cruel yoke from the neck of labor, and gives him who\nearns the livelihood of many his own life to enjoy and perfect? From\nthis holy record of pious endeavor, from these splendid achievements of\nsouls inspired by freedom, thou canst go, joyous and triumphant, to pay\nhomage to the lies which are no longer believed by those who profess\nthem; lies whose fallacy America exposes every day and hour to the\ndetection of the world.\n\nThou wilt accept a title, empty as an egg-shell, for a thing truly\nnoble! Thou wilt call a courtier's grimace polite, a courtesan's fashion\nelegant! Thou wilt curry favor in a vulgar court, courtesying low to a\nprince of harlequins and harlots! Thou, child of the Puritans, wilt\nkneel and kiss the hand which, still and sole, disputes with Christ the\nmastery of the world! Then art thou simply an anachronism! Some are born\ninto the world centuries before their time, some centuries after it.\n\nOther attractions, innocent in themselves, and conceivable to all,\ndetain some of our valued fellow-citizens in perpetual exile. The quiet\nand beauty of English country-life, the literary and artistic resources\nof a foreign capital, the romances of ancient chateaux and cathedrals,\nsome delicious touch of climate, some throbbing beauty of a southern\nsky. How delightful we have found these, it is as much a pain as a\npleasure to remember! But let us also call to mind the lesson of a\nwell-known fairy tale. While Beauty prolongs her absence, the faithful\nBeast languishes and comes nigh unto death. While we enjoy these choice\ndelights, the society to which we belong is sowing its wheat and its\ntares. We are far from the field in which the life of our own generation\nis planted and tended. Every honest heart, every thinking mind, has its\nvalue in the community to which it belongs. Our value, such as it is,\nremains wanting to our community, and, when its crises of trial shall\ncome, we shall not have been trained by watchful experience to\nunderstand either their cause or their remedy.\n\nHow delightful was Italy to Milton! His Allegro and Pensieroso show that\nhe could fully appreciate both its mirth and its majesty. He returns not\nthe less to live out a life of illustrious service in his own country,\nwhere his brave heart and philosophic mind were of more avail to his\ntime than even his sacred song to ours.\n\nNo one has any reason to be surprised at any new manifestation of human\nfolly. Yet I am sometimes surprised, to-day, by the disrespect which is\noften shown to the word \"Protestant.\" This name dates, at farthest, from\nthe time of Luther, but the fact for which it stands is as old as human\nhistory. Moses made a protest when he led his people out of the luxury\nand slavery of Egypt to find the free hills of Judaea, and to build on\none of them a temple to the God of freedom. Christ made His protest\nagainst the hypocrisy and injustice of the old social and ecclesiastical\norder. England and France have made their protests against monarchical\nsupremacy. Both went back from their daring determination, but the\nlesson was not forgotten. The Puritans made their protest when they\nfaced the frowning sea and the savage wilderness, in order that they\nmight train their children, and live themselves in the freedom which\nconscience asks. Mr. Garrison and his associates made their protest\nagainst American slavery. Mrs. Butler, of England, makes her protest\nto-day against the personal degradation of women. Lucy Stone makes hers\nagainst their political enslavement.\n\nDoes society inherit? Is man the heir of man? Whence come those\ncreatures of the present day who smile, and shrug their shoulders, and\nfeebly say, \"We don't protest. Our fathers did something of the kind,\nupon what ground we cannot possibly imagine. But we are quite of another\nsort. We don't protest.\"\n\nTo those courageous souls which, alone and unaided, have been able to\nface the world's passion and inertia,--to those leaders of forlorn hopes\nwho have seen glory in the depths of death and have sought it there,--to\nthose voices proclaiming in the wilderness the triumphant progress of\ntruth,--to those brave spirits whose strength the fires of hell have\nannealed, not consumed,--my soul shall ever render its glad and duteous\nhomage. And if, in my later age, I might seek the crowning honor of my\nlife, I should seek it with that small, faithful band who have no choice\nbut to utter their deepest conviction, and abide its issues. Fruitful\nshall be their pains and privations. They who have sown in tears the\nseeds of unpopular virtue, shall reap its happy harvest in the good and\ngratitude of mankind.\n\n\n\n\nCHANGES IN AMERICAN SOCIETY.\n\n\nI have been invited to speak to you to-day concerning changes in\nAmerican society. In preparing to consider this subject, I cannot but\nremember that the very question of social change is to some people an\nopen one. The supposition of any real onward movement in society is as\nunwelcome and as untrue to these persons as was Galileo's theory\nconcerning the revolution of the earth around the sun. They will assert,\nas indeed they may, that the same crimes are committed in all ages, with\nthe same good deeds to counterbalance them and that the capital\ntendencies of human nature are always substantially the same. This also\nmust be allowed. The error of these friends consists in overlooking the\nmost characteristic and human of these tendencies, which is that of\nprogressive desire. This trait, deeper and stronger than the mere love\nof change, pushes the whole heterogeneous mass of humanity onward in a\nway from which there is no return.\n\nThe laws of human motive and action, meanwhile, remain as steadfast and\nimmovable as the laws by whose application Galileo made his discovery.\nTo discern at once the steadfast truth and its metamorphic developments\nwill be the task of the greatest wisdom.\n\nWhen Theodore Parker invited the religious world to consider the\ntransient and the permanent elements of Christianity, he made a popular\napplication of a truth long known to philosophy. This truth is that life\nin all of its aspects exhibits these two opposite qualities or\nconditions. Much is transient in the individual, more is permanent in\nthe race.\n\nThe study of anthropology, so greatly enriched to-day by discovery and\ninvestigation, would give us much to say under both of these heads, but\nmost, I think, under the last.\n\nI remember that in reading Livy's history of the second Punic war, in\nour own war time, I was struck by certain resemblances between the time\nin which he wrote and that in which I read him. When I learned from his\npages that the merchants and ship-owners of ancient Rome managed to\nimpose the most worthless of their vessels upon the government for the\ntransport of troops and provisions, I exclaimed, \"What Yankees these\nRomans were!\"\n\nIn reading some well-known satires of Horace I have been struck with the\nresemblance of the ancient to the modern bore. Boileau's famous take-off\nof the dinner given by a _parvenu_ is scarcely more than a French\nadaptation of the feast of Nasidienus, as described by the Roman bard\nwho was Boileau's model.\n\nIn Virgil's account of the good housewife, who rises early in order to\nmeasure out the work of the household, and in Solomon's description of\nthe thrifty woman of his time, one sees the value set upon feminine\nindustry and economy in times far removed from our own, yet resembling\nit in this appreciation.\n\nOn the other hand, the dissimilarity of ancient and modern society is\nequally seen in the same mirror of literature. The mention of matters\nwhich, by common consent, are banished from decent speech to-day, the\nposition of Woman, from the vestal virgin buried alive for breach of\ntrust to the _devium scortum_, whom Horace frankly invites to his feast,\nthe gross superstition which saw in religion little save portents and\npropitiation,--these mark on the dial of history an hour as distant from\nour own in sympathy as in time.\n\nYou will wish to hear from me some account of changes which have come\nwithin the sphere of my own observation, both as I have been able to see\nfor myself, and to compare what I have seen with what I have received\nfrom the generation immediately preceding my own. Let me remind you\nthat, with all the advantages of personal observation, it may be more\ndifficult for us to give a true account of the age to which we belong\nthan of more distant times, upon which thought and reflection have\nalready done their critical and explanatory work. Familiarity so dulls\nthe edge of perception, as to make us least acquainted with things and\npersons making part of our daily life. Mindful of these difficulties, I\nwill do my best to characterize the threescore years which have carried\nme into and out of the heart of the nineteenth century.\n\nI have seen in this time a great growth in the direction of liberal\nthought, of popular government, of just laws and useful institutions. I\nhave seen human powers so multiplied by mechanical appliances as to\ndestroy the old measures of time and distance, and almost to justify\nthe veto once laid by the great Napoleon upon the use of the word\n\"impossible\": \"_Ne me dites jamais ce bete de mot_,\" said he; and it has\nnow become more _bete_ than ever.\n\nWhat feature of society has not changed in the phantasmagoria of these\nwonderful lustres? Each decade has made a fool of the one which went\nbefore it. Whether in the region of extended observation and experiment,\nor in that of subtle and profound investigation, human effort has seemed\nin this time to put itself at compound interest, working at once with\nmatters infinitely little and with matters infinitely great, and surely\nintroducing mankind to a higher plane of comfort and co-operation than\nhas been reached in anterior ages.\n\nWhile the mechanism of life has thus been brought much nearer to\nperfection by the labor of our age, the principles of life remain such\nas they have always been.\n\nPile luxury as high as you will, health is better, and the body of a\nwell-fed and not over-worked ploughman is, nine times out of ten, a\nbetter possession than the body of a man of fortune, especially if he be\nat the same time a man of pleasure. Marshal and gild the pomp of\ncircumstance, and do it homage with bated breath, character remains the\ntrue majesty, honor and intelligence its prime ministers. Money can help\npeople to education, by paying for the support of those who can give it.\nBut money cannot excuse its possessor from the smallest of the mental\noperations through which, if at all, a man comes to know what, as a man,\nhe should know.\n\nThe great _desiderata_ of humanity still remain these: to preserve the\nintegrity of nature, the purity of sentiment, and the coherence of\nthought. The great extension of educational opportunities which we see\nto-day should make the attainment of these objects easier than in ages\nof less instruction. But while the pursuit of them is ever normal to the\nhuman race, the inherent difficulties of their attainment remain\nundiminished. Without self-discipline and self-sacrifice, no man to-day\nattains true education, or the dignity of true manhood. For here comes\nin the terrible fact of man's freedom as a moral agent.\n\nCould our age possess and administer the powers of the universe to its\nheart's content, in that heart would yet rest the issues of its life and\nof its death.\n\nThe period of which I have to speak has certainly witnessed great\nimprovements in the theory of hygiene. The old heroic treatment of\ndiseases has nearly disappeared. The nauseous draughts, the\nblood-letting and blisters, have given place to moderate medication, the\nchoice of climate and the regulation of diet. Women have been admitted\nas copartners with men in the guardianship of the public health.\nAthletic sports help the student to fresh blood and efficient muscle,\nwithout which the brain sickens and perishes.\n\nBut even in this department how much is left to desire and to do! Our\ngreatest and richest city is still festering with the corruption that\nbreeds disease. No board of health seems to have power to sweep its side\nstreets and dark alleys. Fashion keeps her avenues clean, and neglects\nthe rest of the vast domain, for which she has her reward in many a\nghastly epidemic. The late Edward Clarke, of Boston,--heaven rest his\nsoul!--could alarm the whole continent with his threats of the physical\nevils which the more perfect education of one sex would entail on both.\nBut he has left no public protest against the monstrosities of toilet\nwhich deform and mutilate the bodies of women to-day, nor against the\nselfish frivolity of life in both sexes, which is equally inimical to\ntrue motherhood and to true fatherhood.\n\nI have seen in fashions of dress and furniture the curious cycle which\nmy elders foretold, and which it takes, I should think, half a century\nto fulfil. My earliest childish remembrance is of the slim dresses which\ndisplay as much as is possible of the outlines of the figure. I remember\nthe _elegantes_ of Gotham walking the one fashionable street of\nfifty-five years ago, attired in pelisses of pink or blue satin. A white\nsatin cloak trimmed with dark fur seemed, even to my childish\nobservation, a chill costume for a pedestrian in the heart of winter. My\nmother's last Paris bonnet, bought probably in 1825, appeared to her\nchildren, twenty years later, such a caricature, that pious hands\ndestroyed it, in order that we might have no ludicrous association with\nthe sweet young creature whose death had left us babes in the nursery.\n\nAfter many fluctuations and oscillations, I have seen modern head-gear\nnear of kin to the subject of this holocaust. I have seen the old forms\nand colors return to popular favor. I have even heard that the very\nwhite satin cloak, which seemed _outre_ to the critic of six years, has\nbeen worn and greatly admired in the recent gay world of Paris. The\nreturn in these cases, it must be said, is not to the identical point of\ndeparture. Progress, according to some thinkers, follows a spiral, and\nis neither shut in a circle nor extended in a straight line. The hoops\nof our great-grandmothers are not the hoops which we remember to have\nseen or worn. Their eelskin dresses are not the model of ours. Still,\nthe recurrence of the same vein of fancy marks a periodical\napproximation to the region or belt of influence in which certain\nforgotten possibilities suggest themselves to the seeker of novelty, and\nin which the capricious, antithetical fancy delights to crown with honor\nall that it found most devoid of beauty a few lustres ago.\n\nDoes this encyclical tendency in the familiar aesthetics of life imply a\ncorresponding tendency in the moral and intellectual movement of\nmankind? I fear that it does. I fear that seriousness and frivolity,\ngreed and disinterest, extravagance and economy, in so far as these are\nsocial and sympathetic phenomena, do succeed each other in the movement\nof the ages. But here the device of the spiral can save us. We must make\nthe round, but we may make it with an upward inclination. \"Let there be\nlight!\" is sometimes said in accents so emphatic, that the universe\nremembers and cannot forget it. We carry our problem slowly forward.\nWith all the ups and downs of every age, humanity constantly rises.\nIndividuals may preserve all its early delusions, commit all its\nprimitive crimes; but to the body of civilized mankind, the return to\nbarbarism is impossible.\n\nThe aesthetic elaboration of ethical ideas, always a feature of\ncivilization, becomes in our day a task of such prominence as to engage\nthe zeal and labor of those even who have little natural facility for\nany of its processes.\n\nThe ignoring of this department of culture by our Puritan ancestors, had\nmuch to do with the bareness of surrounding and poverty of amusement\nwhich almost affright us in the record of their society. With all their\ninsufficiency, these periods of severe simplicity are of great\nimportance in the history of a people. The temporary withdrawal from the\nsensible and pleasurable to the severe verities of ethical study\naccumulates a reserve force which is sure to be very precious in the\nemergencies to which all nations are exposed. The reaction against the\nextreme of this is as likely to be excessive as was the action itself.\n\nIf we tend to any extreme, nowadays, it is to that of making art take\nthe place of thought, as may somewhat appear in the general rage for\nillustration and decoration.\n\nThe ministrations of art to ethics are indeed unspeakably grand and\nhelpful. The cathedrals of the Old World, and its rich and varied\ngalleries, preserve for us the fresh and naive spirit of mediaeval piety.\nReligious art, indeed, becomes almost secularized by its repetitions;\nyet each of its great works has the isolation of its own atmosphere, and\nspeaks its own language, which we reverently learn while we look upon\nit.\n\nOf all arts, music is the one most intimately interwoven with the\nethical consciousness of our own time. The oratorios of Handel and of\nMendelssohn so blend the sacred text and the divine music, that we think\nof the two together, and almost as of things so wedded by God, that man\nmust not seek to put them asunder. When I have sat to sing in the chorus\nof the Messiah, and have heard the tenor take up the sweet burden of\n\"Comfort ye my people!\" I have felt the whole chain of divine\nconsolation which those historic words express, and which link the\nprophet of pre-Christian times to the saints and sinners of to-day. In\nfar-off Palestine I have been shown the plain on which it is supposed\nthat the shepherds were tending their flocks when the birth of the\nMessiah was announced to them. But as I turned my eyes to view it, my\nmemory was full of that pastoral symphony of Handel's, in which the\ndivine glory seems just muffled enough to be intelligible to our abrupt\nand hasty sense. Nay, I lately heard a beloved voice which read the\nchapter of Elijah's wonderful experiences in the wilderness. While I\nlistened, bar after bar of Mendelssohn's music struck itself off in the\nresonant chamber of memory, and I thanked the Hebrew of our own time for\ngiving the intensity of life to that mystical drama of insight and\nheroism.\n\nThe transcendentalists of our own country made great account of the\nrelation of art to ethics, and perhaps avenged the Puritan partiality by\ngiving art the leading, and ethics the subordinate place in their\nstatements and endeavors. But the masters of the transcendental\nphilosophy in Europe did not so. Spinoza, Kant, and Fichte were\nidealists of the severest type. Standing for the moment between the two,\nI will only say that the danger of forgetting the high labors and\nrewards of thought in the pleasure of beautiful sights and sounds is\none to which the highest civilization stands most exposed. To think\naright, to resolve and pray aright, we must retire from those delights\nto the contemplation of that whose sublimity they can but faintly image,\nas we pass with joy from the likeness of our friend into his presence.\n\nLove of ornament is by no means synonymous with love of the beautiful.\nThe taste which overloads dress and architecture with superfluous\nirrelevancies, is often quite in opposition to that true sense of beauty\nwhich is indispensable to the artist and precious to the philosopher.\n\"[Greek: To kalon],\" the Greeks said. Was it a naive utterance on their\npart? Was it through their poverty of expression, or their want of\nexperience, that the same word with them signified the good and the\nbeautiful? No. It was through the depth of their insight, and the power\nof their mental appreciation, that they so stamped this golden word as\nthat it should show the supreme of form on one of its faces, and the\nsupreme of spirit on the other.\n\nThe social domain of religion has also undergone a change. In my early\nlife I remember that all earnest and religious people were supposed to\nlive out of the great world, and to keep company only with one another\nand with the subjects of their charitable beneficence. The\ndisadvantages of this course are easily seen. Free intercourse with the\naverage of mankind is one of the most important agencies in enlarging\nand correcting the action of the human mind. The exigencies of ordinary\nintercourse develop a sense of the dependence of human beings upon each\nother, and a power corresponding to the needs involved in this\ninterdependence. The religious susceptibilities of individuals, which\nare at once very strong in their character and very uncertain in their\naction, are liable to become either exaggerated or exhausted by a course\nof life which should rely wholly upon them for guidance and for\ninterest.\n\nLet us, therefore, by all means have saints in the world, keeping to\ntheir pure standard, and recommending it more by their actions than by\ntheir professions. But these saints must be brave as well as pure.\nUnworthy doctrine must not escape their reprobation. When a just cause\nis contemned, they must stand by it. If the world shall cast them out in\nconsequence, it will not be their fault. The social leagues which group\nthemselves around the various churches of to-day, seem to me a feature\nof happy augury. It is the office of the church to inspire and direct\nthe tone of social intercourse, and these associations should greatly\nhelp it to that end. I lately heard Wendell Phillips complain that\nchurch exercises nowadays largely consist of picnics and other\nmerry-makings. Only a little before, Mr. Phillips, in his reply to Mr.\nParkman's article against Woman Suffrage, had spoken of the growth of\nsocial influence as a good.\n\nIt does, to be sure, look a little whimsical to read on the bulletin of\na Methodist church such announcements as this,--\"Private theatricals for\nthe benefit of the Sunday school.\" But Wesley introduced the use of\nsecular tunes in his church on the ground that the devil should not have\nall the good music. Neither should he monopolize the innocent amusements\nwith which, if they are left to him, he does indeed play the devil.\n\nAlthough the great ocean will always hold Europe at arm's length from\nus, yet the currents of belief and sympathy bring its various peoples\nnear to us in various ways. I remember to have taken note of this long\nbefore the ocean steamships brought the eastern hemisphere within a few\ndays' journey from our own seaboard, and very long before the\ntime-annihilating cables were dreamed of. The French have always had\nwith us the prestige of their social tact and sumptuary elegance. The\nEnglish manners are affected by those among us who mistake the\naristocracy of position for the aristocracy of character. The Italians\nrule us by their great artists in the past, and by their subtle policy\nin the present. The Germans have, as they deserve, the pre-eminence in\nmusic, in metaphysics, and in many departments of high culture.\n\nI have not long since been taken to task by a writer in a prominent New\nYork paper for some strictures regarding the quasi-omnipotence of money\nin the society of to-day. The writer in question enlarged somewhat upon\nthe greatly increased expenditure of money in our own country, as if\nthis must be considered as a good in itself. He concludes his statement\nby remarking that Mrs. Howe has never studied the proper significance of\nthe money question. I desire to say here only that I have not neglected\nthe study of this question, which so regards the very life of society.\nOne of its problems I have ventured to decide for myself, viz., whether\nthe luxury of the rich really supports the industry of the poor.\n\nThe aesthetic of luxury is a mean and superficial one. The critique of\nluxury is compliant and cowardly; and, despite its glittering promise to\npay any price for what it desires, luxury orders poorly, pays poorly,\nand in the end undermines the credit of the State, the very citadel of\nits solvency. I regret and deplore its prevalence to-day, and consider\nit not as the safeguard, but as the most dangerous enemy of republican\ninstitutions.\n\nIn our America, ay, even in our Puritan New England, the day has come in\nwhich economy is a discredit and poverty a disgrace. With the common\nschool ever at work to lift the social level, unfolding to the child of\nthe day-laborer the page which instructs the son of the peer, the cry is\nstill that money is God, and that there is none other. One may ask, in\nthe business streets, whether rich people have any faults, or poor\npeople any virtues. A woman who sells her beauty for a rich dower is\nhonored in church and in State. Both alike bow to the money in her hand.\nOne proverb says that Time is money, as if it were\n\n    \"Only that, and nothing more.\"\n\nAnother proverb says that Money is power. And in this form, no doubt, it\nreceives the most fervent worship, for luxury palls sooner or later,\nwhile ambition is never satisfied. But we constantly meet, on the other\nhand, with instances in which money is not power. Money does not give\ntalent or intelligence. You cannot buy good government, good manners, or\ngood taste: You cannot buy health or life. Do some of you remember the\nshipwreck, some twenty years ago, of a steamer homeward-bound from\nCalifornia? The few survivors told how the desperate passengers brought\ntheir belts and bags of gold to the cabin, and threw them about with a\nbitter contempt of their worthlessness. States have such shipwrecks, in\nwhich avenging Fate seems to say to those who have sacrificed all for\nwealth, \"Thy money perish with thee.\"\n\nThe heroics of history are full of the story of great ends, accomplished\nby very small means. Now a handful of resolute men hold the forces of a\ngreat empire in check, and beat back the ocean surge of barbarism from\nthe marble of their strong will. Now a single martyr turns the scale of\nthe world's affection by throwing into the balance the weight of one\nsmall life. Now a State with every disadvantage of territory, cursed\nwith sterility, or exposed to the murderous overflow of the salt sea,\ntakes its stand upon the simple determination to conquer for itself a\nfree and worthy existence. Frederick of Prussia and his small army,\nWashington, with his handful of men, in these and so many other\ninstances, we admire the attainment of mighty ends through means which\nseem infinitesimal in proportion to them. How shall it be in our\ncountry, to which Nature has given the widest variety of climate, soil,\nand production? Shall we become a lesson to the world in the opposite\ndirection? Shall we show how little a people may accomplish with every\ncircumstance in its favor, and with nothing wanting to its success but\nthe careful mind and resolute spirit? God forbid!\n\nThe belief in pacific methods of settling international differences has\nmade a noticeable progress in my time.\n\nIn my school-days I remember a grave Presbyterian household at whose\nfireside I one day saw an elderly man seat himself, with little notice\nfrom the members of the family. I inquired who he might be, and was\ntold, with some good-natured laughter, that this old gentleman was the\nAmerican Peace Society, _i.e._, the last surviving member of that\nassociation. This was a humorous exaggeration of the truth. Judge Jay,\nof New York, was living at that time, and all the enthusiasm of the\npeace cause lived in him, and no doubt in many others. I have remembered\nthe incident, nevertheless; and when I have seen the stately Peace\nCongresses held in Europe and elsewhere, when I have seen rapacious\nEngland submitting to arbitration, when I have seen the flag of military\nprestige go down before the white banner of Peace, as in the late change\nof the ministry in that country, I have remembered that day of small\nthings, and have learned that the faith of individuals is the small seed\nfrom which spring the mighty growths of popular conviction and sympathy.\n\nThe extensive wars which have taken place within the last forty years,\nas extensive and as deadly as any the world ever saw, are sometimes\nquoted in derision of those who believe, as I do, in the sober, steady\ngrowth of the pacific spirit among people of intelligence. The reasons\nfor this advance lie deeper than the vision of the careless observer may\nreach. Within the period of our own century the value of human life to\nthe individual has been greatly increased by the wide diffusion of the\nadvantages of civilization. The value of the individual to the State has\nbecome greatly increased by the multiplication of industrial resources,\nand by the immense emigration which at times threatens to drain the\nolder society of its working population. The spread of education has at\nonce undermined the blind belief of the multitude in military leaders,\nand toned down the blind ferocity of instinct to which those leaders are\nforced to appeal. Wars of mere spoliation are scarcely permitted to-day.\nWars of pure offence are deeply disapproved of.\n\nThe military and diplomatic injustice of past times has left unsettled\nmany questions of territory and boundary which will not rest until they\nshall be set right. The populations which war has plundered and\nsubjugated, lay their cause before the world's tribunal. In aid of this,\nthe friends of the true law and order are ever busy in forming a nucleus\nof moral power, which governments will be forced to respect. Thus,\nthough the war-demon dies hard, he is doomed, and we shall yet see the\nbattlements of his grim cathedrals places for lovers to woo and for\nbabes to play in.\n\nIn religion I have seen the dark ministrations of terror give way before\nthe radiant gospel of hope. I remember when Doctrine sat beside the bed\nof death, and offered its flimsy synonym to the eyes upon which the\nawful, eternal truth was about to dawn. I remember when a man with a\npoor diploma and a human commission assumed to hold the keys of heaven\nand hell in his hands, and to dispense to those who would listen to him\nsuch immortality as he thought fit. I remember when it went hard with\nthose who, in forming their religious opinions, persisted in daring to\nuse the critical power of their own judgment. They were lonely saints;\nthey wandered in highways and byways, unrecognized, excommunicated of\nmen. No one had power to burn their bodies, but it was hoped that their\nsouls would not escape the torment of eternal flame. I have seen this\ntime, and I have lived to see a time in which these rejected stones,\nhewn and polished by God's hand, have come to be recognized as\ncorner-stones in the practical religious building of the age. What a\ndiscredit was it once to hear Theodore Parker! How happy are they now\nesteemed who have heard him! Let not Mr. Emerson's urbanity lead him to\nforget the days in which polite Boston laughed him to scorn. Brook Farm\nwas once looked upon as a most amusing caricature. But when the world\nlearned something about Nathaniel Hawthorne, George Ripley, William\nHenry Channing, John Dwight, and George William Curtis, the public heart\nbowed itself with remorseful homage before the ruined threshold of what\nwas, with all its shortcomings, a blameless temple to ideal humanity.\n\nIt is quite true that every change which I have seen in the society of\nmy time cannot be said to be, in itself, for the better. The price of\nprogress, like that of liberty, is eternal vigilance.\n\nA time of religious enfranchisement may induce a period of religious\nindifference. Cosmopolitan enlargement may weaken the force of\npatriotism. The charity of society may degenerate into an indifference\nconcerning private morals, which, if it could prevail, would go far\ntowards destroying public ones. Humanity ever needs the watchman on the\ntower. It needs the warning against danger, the guidance out of it. I\ncan imagine a set of prophets less absolute than the Hebrew seers, whose\ndenunciation of evils, near or present, should always couple itself with\nprofound and sober suggestions of help. And this will be the work of\nfaith in our day, to believe in the good which can overcome the evil,\nand to seek it with earnest and brave persistence.\n\nLet me return for a moment, very briefly, to what I touched upon just\nnow, the great changes in religious thought which this century has\nwitnessed. What manifold contrasts have we observed in this domain! What\na wild and wide chase in the fields of conjecture! What impatience with\nthe idols of the past, historical and metaphysical! There have been\nmoments in the last twenty years in which one might have said to the\nreligious ideals of past ages that the time had come in which every one\nwho raised his hand against them thought that he was doing God service.\nThis iconoclasm had its time, and, one supposes, its office.\n\nBut the religious necessities of mankind are permanent, and will outlast\nany and all systems of pure criticism. The question arises, in all this\nhavoc of illusory impressions, Who is to provide for the culture and\ndirection of those instincts of reverence which are so precious to, so\nineradicable in the race? We must ask this service of those who believe\nthat religion is, on the whole, wiser than its critics. Those who have\nbeen able to hold fast this persuasion will be the religious trainers of\nour youth. Those who have relinquished it will have no more skill to\nteach religion than a sculptor will have to feed an army.\n\nThe greatest trouble with human society is, that its natural tendency\nleads it, not to learn right measure through one excess, but, on\nbecoming convinced of this, to rush into an opposite excess with equal\nzeal and equal error. The mechanism of society requires constant\ncorrection in order to keep up the succession of order and progress\nthrough and despite this proneness to extravagance and loss of power.\nThis rectification of direction without interruption of movement is the\noffice of critical and constructive thought. Precious are the men, and\nrare as precious, who carry this balance in their minds, and, while the\nship lurches now on this side and now on that, strain after the compass\nwith masterful courage and patience. We have all known such men, but we\nhave known, too, that their type is not a common one.\n\nAmong all who are out of work to-day, so far as the market is concerned,\nthose men of careful and critical judgment are the least called for, and\nthe least wished for by the majority of men. Headlong enthusiasm,\nheadlong activity, headlong doubt and cynicism, the prevalence of these\nshows the force with which the present whirl of the spindle was cast.\nFair and softly, my quick-flying Century. To find out whether you are\ngoing right or wrong, whether you are faithful or faithless, solvent or\nbankrupt, you must have recourse to these same slow, patient men and\nwomen, who try such questions by a more accurate and difficult method\nthan that of the popular inclination.\n\nI find that the philosopher Kant, writing more than a hundred years ago,\nremarks that in so sociable an age as his own Culture must naturally be\nexpected to assume an encyclopedic character. It will, he says,\nnecessarily desire to present a manifold number of agreeable and\ninstructive acquisitions, easy of apprehension, for entertainment in\nfriendly intercourse.\n\nThese words seem prophetic of the efforts after general information,\nwith a view to conversation as an accomplishment, which have constituted\na marked feature of American and English society within forty years. In\nthe dissolving view of the public predilection, this object has lost\nmuch of its prominence. The ornate and well-rounded periods of the\nconversationist are not more in request, nowadays, than were the\nhigh-sounding sentiments of Joseph Surface to Sir Peter Teazle, when\nexperience had shown him their emptiness.\n\nBlunt speech and curt expression rather are in favor. The heroines of\nnovels are supposed to fall in love with men of a somewhat brutal type.\nAdonis is out of fashion. Hercules pleases, and even Vulcan is\npreferred. One thinks that the influence of the mercantile spirit may be\nrecognized in this change. Long speeches and roundabout statements are\nfound not to pay. The man who listens to them with one ear, hearkens\nwith the other for the ocean telegrams, news of the stock market,\nconsiders the maturing of a note, the success or failure of a scheme.\nWhen there is no one to listen, loquacity itself will grow economical of\nbreath.\n\nThe world is quite right in its tacit protest against over talk. A great\ndeal of empty, irrelevant speech is liable to be imposed upon the\ngood-nature of society in the garb of instructive conversation. It is\nweary to listen by the hour to men or women who principally teach you\ntheir own opinion of their own erudition. But woe to the world if its\nhaste and greed should ever be such that the true teacher should want an\naudience, the long lessons of philosophy find interpreters, but no\npupils.\n\nThe present is, on the whole, an encyclopedic, cosmopolitan era. I\nsuppose that it succeeds as a reaction to one of more special and\nisolated endeavor. The example and influence of Goethe have had much to\ndo with the formation of the ideas of culture which have been prevalent\nin our time. This wonderful man went, with such a happy tact, from one\nthing to another. In poetry he did so much, in high criticism so much,\nin science so much, and in world-wisdom so much! How naturally were the\nlovers of study, who made him their model, led to undertake, as he did,\nto render the most eminent service, to attain the highest honors in a\ndozen different departments!\n\nBut the man Goethe was more wonderful even than his writings. His\nindividuality was too powerful to suffer loss through the variety of his\npursuits. He could be at once a courtier and a philosopher, a poet and a\nscientist, a critic of morals and a man of the world, and in all things\nremain himself.\n\nI sometimes wonder why we Americans are so apt to show, in our conduct\nand remarks, an undue preponderance of what the phrenologists term love\nof approbation. This is an amiable and useful trait in human nature,\nwhich may degenerate into a weak and cowardly vanity, or even into a\nmalignant selfishness. To desire the approbation which can enlighten us\nas to the merits of what we have done or attempted, is wise as well as\ngraceful. To make constant laudation a prominent object in any life is a\ncapital mistake in its ordering. To prefer the praise of men to the\njustification of conscience, is at once cowardly and criminal. I observe\nthese three phases in American life. I value the first, compassionate\nthe second, and reprobate the third. Surely, if there is any virtue\nwhich a republican people is bound to show, it is that self-respect\nwhich is the only true majesty, and which can afford to be as generous\nand gracious as majesty should be.\n\nIt is, perhaps, natural that many of us should, through a want of\nexperience, mistake the standpoint of people conspicuous in the older\nEuropean society as greatly superior to our own. We can learn much,\nindeed, from the observation of such a standpoint; but, in order to do\nso, we must hold fast our own plain, honest judgment, as we derive it\nfrom education, inheritance, and natural ability.\n\nIt must, I should think, be very tedious and very surprising to\nEuropeans to hear Americans complain of being so young, so crude, so\nimmature. This is not according to nature. Imagine a nursery full of\nbabies who should bewail the fact of their infancy. Any one who should\nhear such a complaint would cry out, \"Why, that's the best thing about\nyou. You have the newness, the promise, the unwasted vigor of\nchildhood,--gifts so great that Christ enjoined it upon holy men to\nrecover, if they had lost them.\"\n\nIf our society is young, its motto should be the saying of Saint Paul to\nTimothy, \"Let no man despise thy youth.\" The great men of our early\nhistory deserve to rank with the ripest products of civilization. Was\nWashington crude? Was Franklin raw? Were Jay, Jefferson, and Hamilton\nimmature? The authorities of the older world bowed down to them, and did\nthem homage. The Republicans of France laid the key of the Bastille at\nthe feet of Washington. Franklin was honored and admired in the court\ncircle of Louis XVI. There was a twofold reason for this. These men\nrepresented the power and vigor of our youth; but our youth itself\nrepresented the eternal principles of truth and justice, for whose\napplication the world had waited long. And thinking people saw in us the\ndignity of that right upon which we had founded our hope and belief as a\nnation.\n\nI will instance a single event of which I heard much during my last\nvisit in Rome. A German, naturalized in America, and who had made a\nlarge fortune by a railroad contract in South America, had purchased\nfrom some European government the title of \"Count.\" He was betrothed to\nthe sister-in-law of a well-known California millionnaire, whose wife\nhas been for some years a resident of Paris, where her silver, her\ndiamonds, and her costly entertainments are matters of general remark.\nAll of these parties are Roman Catholics. The wedding took place in\nRome, and was signalized by a festival, at which twelve horses, belong\nto the bridegroom, were ridden in a race, whose prizes were bestowed by\nthe hand of the bride. The invitations for this occasion were largely\ndistributed by a monsignor of the Romish Church, and the king of Italy\nhonored the newly married pair by his presence.\n\nNot long after this, I read in the Italian papers that this very count\nhad become a candidate for a seat in the Italian Parliament. I suppose\nthat money will assist an election as much in Italy as elsewhere. The\nmonsignor who interested himself so efficiently about the invitations\nfor the wedding party, was none other than the master of ceremonies of\nPope Leo XIII. He would, no doubt, have taken even greater interest in\nthe return of his friend to the Parliament. I do not know whether this\ngentleman has ever succeeded in usurping the place of a representative\nof the Italian people; but the chance of his being able to do so lay in\nthe American gold of which he had become possessed. Here is one instance\nof the direct relations between Rome and America which Americans so\nplacidly overlook.\n\nIn this day of the world hope is so strong, and the desire for an\nimproved condition so prevalent, that much may be looked for in Europe\nas the result of the legitimate action and influence of America. But if\nAmerican capital busies itself with upholding the shams of the old\nworld, if American taste and talent are led and pledged to work with the\nreactionary agents everywhere against the enfranchisement of the human\nrace, where shall the hope of the world find refuge?\n\nGoldsmith has a touching picture of the emigrants who, in his time, were\ncompelled to leave the country which would not feed them, for a distant\nbourne, which could, by no means, be to them a home. But let us assist\nat the embarkation of another group of exiles. These people have been\nliving abroad, and are about to return home. The rich, beautiful land\nwhose discovery has changed the fortunes of the human race, invites them\non the other side of the Atlantic. The flag which represents the noblest\nchapter of modern history waves over them.\n\nFrom dynastic, aristocratic Europe they go to inherit the work of an\nancestry heroic in thought and action. They go to the land which still\nboasts a Longfellow, a Whittier, an Emerson, a Harriet Beecher Stowe.\nAre they glad? Are they happy? No. They have learned the follies of the\nold world, not its wisdom. They are not going home,--they are going into\nexile.\n\nLet us look a little at their record in the Europe which they regret so\npassionately. They went abroad with money, and the education which it\ncommands, with leisure and health. What good deeds may they not have\ndone! What gratifying remembrance may they have left behind them! Shall\nwe not find them recorded as donors to many a noble charity, as students\nin many a lofty school? We shalt indeed, sometimes. But in many cases we\nshall hear only of their fine clothes and expensive entertainments, with\npossible mortifying anecdotes of their fast behavior.\n\nIf the mother leaves a daughter behind her, it is likely to be as the\nwife of some needy European nobleman, who despises all that she is bound\nto hold dear, and is proud not to know that which it should be her glory\nto understand.\n\nI said at Concord, and I say it to-day, that the press is much affected\nby the money debauch of the period. Let us examine the way in which this\nresult is likely to be brought about.\n\nA newspaper or periodical is almost always an investment in which the\nidea of gain is very prominent. This expectation may either regard what\nthe proposed paper shall earn as a medium of information, or the profit\nof certain enterprises which its statements may actively promote.\n\nSpecial organs are founded for special emergencies, as is a campaign\nsheet, or for the advocate of special reforms, like the antislavery\n\"Standard\" of old, and the \"Woman's Journal\" of to-day. These papers\nrarely repay either the money advanced for them, or the literary labor\nbestowed upon them.\n\nUnder the head of its earnings the newspaper depends upon two classes of\npersons, viz., its advertisers and its subscribers. Either or both of\nthese may be displeased by the emphatic mention of some certain fact,\nthe expression of some certain opinion. \"If we tell this unwelcome\ntruth,\" say the managers, \"we shall lose such and such subscribers. If\nwe take this stand, some of our wealthiest advertising firms will choose\nanother medium of communicating with the public.\" The other set of\nconsiderations just spoken of, the enterprises which are to be favored\nand promoted, may still more seriously affect the tone and action of the\npaper, which will thus be drawn in a twofold way to lend itself to the\npublication only of what it will pay to say.\n\nThe annals of journalism in this country will, no doubt, show a fair\naverage of courageous and conscientious men among its chiefs. I am\nwilling to believe all things and to hope all things in this direction.\nBut I must confess that I fear all things, too, in view of a great\npower, whose position makes it almost an irresponsible one. And I should\nregard with great favor the formation of an unofficial censorship of\npublic organs, in view not so much of what may be published, as of what\nis unfairly left out of the statements and counterstatements of\nconflicting interests.\n\nOf all the changes which I can chronicle as of my own time, the change\nin the position of women is perhaps the most marked and the least\nanticipated by the world at large. Whatever opinions heroic men and\nwomen may have held concerning this from Plato's time to our own, the\nmost enlightened periods of history have hardly given room to hope that\nthe sex in general would ever reach the enfranchisement which it enjoys\nto-day. I date the assurance of its freedom from the hour in which the\nfirst university received women graduates upon the terms accorded to\npupils of the opposite sex. For education keeps the key of life, and a\nliberal education insures the first conditions of freedom, viz.,\nadequate knowledge and accustomed thought. This first and greatest step\ngained, the gate of professional knowledge and experience quickly\nopened, and that of political enfranchisement stands already ajar. The\nbattle can have but one result, and it has been fought, with chivalrous\ntemper and determination, not by one sex against the other, but by the\nvery gospel of fairness and justice against the intrenched might of\nselfish passion, inertia, and prejudice. Equal conditions of life will\nlift the whole level of society, which is so entirely one body that the\nlifting or lowering of one half lifts or lowers the other half. This\nchange, which in the end appeared to come suddenly, has been prepared by\nsuch gradual tentatives, by such long and sound labor, that we need not\nfear to lose sight of it in any sudden collapse. There are women of my\nage, and women of earlier generations, who have borne it in their hearts\nall their lives through, who have prayed and worked for it, without rest\nand without discouragement. Horace Mann was its apostle, Theodore Parker\nwas its prophet, Margaret Fuller, Lucy Stone, and a host of wise and\ntrue-hearted women, whom the time would fail me to name, have been its\nfemale saints. It was in nature; they have brought it into life; even as\nChrist said, \"My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.\" The slender\nthread which crossed the dark abyss of difficulty was not the silken\nspinning of vanity, nor the cobweb fibre of madness. From the faith of\npure hearts the steadfast links were wrought, and the great chasm is\nspanned, and is ready to become the strong and sure highway of hope, for\nthis nation and for the nations of the earth.\n\nThe customs of society prescribe the mental garb and gait proper to\nthose who desire the favorable notice of their peers in their own time.\nAs these are partly matters of tradition and inheritance, we can learn\nsomething of the merits and demerits of a generation by studying the\nhabits of familiar judgment which it hands down to its successor. A\nnarrow, ill-educated generation leaves behind it corresponding garments\nof rule and prescription, to which the next generation must for a time\naccommodate itself, because a custom or a fashion is not made in a day.\nThe rulers of society seem often more occupied in dwarfing the mind to\nsuit the custom than in enlarging the custom so as to fit it to the\ngrowth of mind. The most dangerous rebellions, individual and social,\nare natural revolts against the small tyranny which perpetuates the\ninsufficiency of the past.\n\nThe copper shoes which so cramp the foot of a female infant in China as\nto destroy its power of growth, are not more cruel or deleterious than\nare the habits of unreflecting prejudice which compress the growth of\nhuman minds until they, too, lose their native power of expansion, and\nthe idol Prejudice is enthroned and worshipped by those on whom it has\nimposed its own deformity as the standard of truth and beauty.\n\nThe heavy tasks which nature imposes upon women leave them less at\nleisure than men to reform and readjust these inherited garments. The\nnecessity for prompt and early action obliges them to follow the\nintuitive faculties, as all must do who have not time to work out the\nproblems of the reasoning ones. The instinct of possession is a ruling\none in human nature, and a woman inheriting a superstition or a\nprejudice holds fast to it because it is something, and she has got it.\nIt seems to her a possession. It may be a mischievous and unfortunate\none, but it will take a good deal of time and thought to find that out.\nThose who have the training of women's minds often train them away from\nsuch a use of time and from such a labor of thought. Hence the fatal\npersistence of large classes of women in superstitions which the\nthinking world has outgrown, and the equally fatal zeal with which they\nimpose the same insufficient modes of judgment upon their children.\n\nI pray this generation of women, which has seen such enlargements of the\nold narrow order regarding the sex, I pray it to deserve its high post\nas guardian of the future. Let it bequeath to its posterity a noble\nstandard of womanhood, free, pure, and, above all, laborious.\n\nThe standard of manhood really derives from that of womanhood, and not\n_vice versa_, as many imagine. However we may receive from tradition the\norder of their material creation, in that of training and education,\nthe woman's influence comes before that of the man, and outlasts it.\n\nThe figure of the infant Christ dwells always in our mind, accompanied\nby that of the gracious mother who gave Him to the world. Let the fact\nof this great gift prefigure to us the august office of Woman. Hers be\nit also to preserve and transmit from age to age the Christian doctrine\nand the Christlike faith. And, in order that she may fully realize the\nglory and blessedness of giving, let her remember that what is worthily\ngiven to one time is given to all time.\n\n\n               *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\n                  UNIFORM WITH ARNOLD'S POEMS.\n\n\n         THE LIGHT OF ASIA; OR, The Great Renunciation.\n\n    Being the Life and Teaching of Gautama, Prince of India and Founder\n        of Buddhism (as told in verse by an Indian Buddhist).\n\n                     BY EDWIN ARNOLD, M.A.\n\n    \"It is a work of great beauty. It tells a story of\n    intense interest, which never flags for a moment; its\n    descriptions are drawn by the hand of a master with the\n    eye of a poet and the familiarity of an expert with the\n    objects described; its tone is so lofty that there is\n    nothing with which to compare it but the New Testament;\n    it is full of variety, now picturesque, now pathetic,\n    now rising into the noblest realms of thought and\n    aspiration; it finds language penetrating, fluent,\n    elevated, impassioned, musical always, to clothe its\n    varied thoughts and sentiments.\"--OLIVER WENDELL\n    HOLMES, _International Review_, October, 1879.\n\n    \"In Mr. Edwin Arnold, Indian poetry and Indian thought\n    have at length found a worthy English exponent. He\n    brings to his work the facility of a ready pen, a\n    thorough knowledge of his subject, a great sympathy for\n    the people of this country, and a command of public\n    attention at home.\"--_Calcutta Englishman._\n\n    \"'The Light of Asia' is a remarkable poem, and worthy of\n    a place amongst the great poems of our time. Mr. Arnold\n    is far more than 'a coiner of sweet words'--he is the\n    exponent of noble impressions. He is a scholar and a\n    philosopher; but he is also a true singer.\"--_London\n    Daily Telegraph._\n\n\n    LIBRARY EDITION. 16mo. Cloth. Price       $1.00\n    CHEAP EDITION. 16mo. Paper. Price           .25\n\n    ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, BOSTON.\n\n\n\n\n           _Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications._\n\n                   ON THE RIGHT USE OF BOOKS.\n\n    A LECTURE. By WILLIAM P. ATKINSON, Professor of English\n    and History in the Massachusetts Institute of\n    Technology. 16mo. Cloth. Price 50 cents.\n\n      \"Full of good sense, sound taste, and quiet\n      humor.... It is the easiest thing in the world to\n      waste time over books, which are merely tools of\n      knowledge like any other tools.... It is the\n      function of a good book not only to fructify, but\n      to inspire, not only to fill the memory with\n      evanescent treasures, but to enrich the imagination\n      with forms of beauty and goodness which leave a\n      lasting impression on the character.\"--_N. Y.\n      Tribune._\n\n      \"Contains so many wise suggestions concerning\n      methods in study and so excellent a summary of the\n      nature and principles of a really liberal education\n      that it well deserves publication for the benefit of\n      the reading public. Though it makes only a slight\n      volume, its quality in thought and style is so\n      admirable that all who are interested in the subject\n      of good education will give to it a prominent and\n      honorable position among the many books upon\n      education which have recently been published. For it\n      takes only a brief reading to perceive that in this\n      single lecture the results of wide experience in\n      teaching and of long study of the true principles of\n      education are generalized and presented in a few\n      pages, each one of which contains so much that it\n      might be easily expanded into an excellent\n      chapter.\"--_The Library Table._\n\n\n                     READING AS A FINE ART.\n\n    By ERNEST LEGOUVE, of the Academie Francaise.\n    Translated from the Ninth Edition by ABBY LANGDON\n    ALGER. 16mo. Cloth. 50 cents.\n\n\n                        (_Dedication._)\n         TO THE SCHOLARS OF THE HIGH AND NORMAL SCHOOL.\n\n      For you this sketch was written: permit me to\n      dedicate it to you, in fact, to intrust it to your\n      care. Pupils to-day, to-morrow you will be\n      teachers; to-morrow, generation after generation of\n      youth will pass through your guardian hands. An\n      idea received by you must of necessity reach\n      thousands of minds. Help me, then, to spread abroad\n      the work in which you have some share, and allow me\n      to add to the great pleasure of having numbered you\n      among my hearers the still greater happiness of\n      calling you my assistants. E. LEGOUVE.\n\n      We commend this valuable little book to the\n      attention of teachers and others interested in the\n      instruction of the pupils of our public schools. It\n      treats of the \"First Steps in Reading,\" \"Learning-to\n      Read,\" \"Should we read as we talk,\" \"The Use and\n      Management of the Voice,\" \"The Art of Breathing,\"\n      \"Pronunciation,\" \"Stuttering,\" \"Punctuation,\"\n      \"Readers and Speakers,\" \"Reading as a Means of\n      Criticism,\" \"On Reading Poetry,\" &c., and makes a\n      strong claim as to the value of reading aloud, as\n      being the most wholesome of gymnastics, for to\n      strengthen the voice is to strengthen the whole\n      system and develop vocal power.\n\n    _Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, by the\n    Publishers_,\n\n                   ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.\n\n\n\n\n                  THE NO NAME (SECOND) SERIES.\n                   SIGNOR MONALDINI'S NIECE.\n\n      _Extracts from some Opinions by well-known Authors._\n\n    \"We have read 'Signor Monaldini's Niece' with intensest\n    interest and delight. The style is finished and\n    elegant, the atmosphere of the book is enchanting. We\n    seem to have lived in Italy while we were reading it.\n    The author has delineated with a hand as steady as it\n    is powerful and skilful some phases of human life and\n    experience that authors rarely dare attempt, and with\n    marvellous success. We think this volume by far the\n    finest of the No Name Series.\"\n\n    \"It is a delicious story. I feel as if I had been to\n    Italy and knew all the people.... Miss Conroy is a\n    strong character, and her tragedy is a fine background\n    for the brightness of the other and higher natures. It\n    is all so dramatic and full of color it goes on like a\n    lovely play and leaves one out of breath when the\n    curtain falls.\"\n\n    \"I have re-read it with great interest, and think as\n    highly of it as ever.... The characterization in it is\n    capital, and the talk wonderfully well done from first\n    to last.\"\n\n    \"The new No Name is enchanting. It transcends the\n    ordinary novel just as much as a true poem by a true\n    poet transcends the thousand and one imitations.... It\n    is the episode, however, of Miss Conroy and Mrs. Brandon\n    that is really of most importance in this book.... I\n    hope every woman who reads this will be tempted to read\n    the book, and that she will in her turn bring it to the\n    reading of other women, especially if she can find any\n    Mrs. Brandon in her circle.\"\n\n    In one volume, 16mo, bound in green cloth, black and\n    gilt lettered. Price $1.00.\n\n    _Our publications are to be had of all Booksellers. When\n    not to be found, send directly to_\n\n                                   ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.\n\n\n\n\n                    The No Name (Second) Series.\n\n\n                     THE COLONEL'S OPERA CLOAK.\n\n    \"A jollier, brighter, breezier, more entertaining book\n    than 'The Colonel's Opera Cloak' has not been published\n    for many a day. We defy the coldest-blooded reader to\n    lay it down before it is finished, or to read it\n    through without feeling his time well spent. There is\n    plenty of satire in its pages, but it is good-natured\n    satire. The characters are sharply drawn--some of them\n    from nature, we fancy--and there is spice enough in the\n    way of incident to satisfy the most exacting palate. Of\n    course, everybody will read it, and, in that\n    presumption, we promise everybody two hours of thorough\n    enjoyment.\"--_Boston Transcript._\n\n    \"The No Name Series abounds in contrasts, and that\n    between 'Signor Monaldini's Niece' and the present story\n    is among the most decided it has offered. This we do not\n    mention by way of disparagement. On the contrary, we can\n    see a distinctive merit in a series which includes so\n    much variety of aim and interest as this does, without\n    any regard for the conventional demand that a succession\n    of stories in the same binding should all be of one\n    school and in something the same tone. We can see why an\n    admirer of the last novel may at first be taken aback by\n    the light tone of this, and in so far disappointed; but\n    we shall expend no sympathy on that person. 'The\n    Colonel's Opera Cloak' is a bright and thoroughly\n    alluring little book, with which it would be foolish to\n    find fault on any score. And, more than that, it is well\n    written and brimming over with wit. The notion of a\n    story in which there is avowedly no hero or heroine\n    excepting an old opera cloak, is clever, and, so far as\n    we know, quite new.... We can assure every one who\n    wishes the double pleasure of laughter and literary\n    enjoyment, that this is one of the books to carry to the\n    country.\"--_Boston Courier._\n\n    \"The author's touch is always that of the artist; it\n    always has the magic power of portraying individual men\n    and women, never giving us shadowy outlines, however few\n    or hurried the strokes of the pencil may be, and saying\n    this we say that the author of 'The Colonel's Opera\n    Cloak' has in large measure the best and most necessary\n    qualification for doing really fine work in fiction. If\n    he is still young, as certain things in his story\n    indicate that he is, his future efforts may well be\n    looked for hopefully.\"--_N.Y. Evening Post._\n\n\n    In one volume. 16mo. Green cloth. Price $1.00.\n\n    _Our publications are to be had of all Booksellers.\n              When not to be found, send directly to_\n                        ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, =BOSTON=.\n\n\n\n\n                     SARAH TYTLER'S ART BOOKS.\n\n\n                 THE OLD MASTERS AND THEIR PICTURES.\n\n\n                MODERN PAINTERS AND THEIR PAINTINGS.\n\n    By SARAH TYTLER, author of \"Papers for Thoughtful Girls.\"\n    16mo. Cloth, neat. Price of each, $1.50.\n\n      Designed for the use of Schools and Learners in Art,\n      and extensively used in Academies, Seminaries, &c.,\n      throughout the country.\n\n      \"An excellent introduction to the history of\n      art.\"--_Daily News._\n\n      \"These two books give in a simple and concise manner\n      the prominent facts that every one who desires to be\n      well informed should know about the great artists of\n      the world. For beginners in art and for school use\n      they are valuable.\"--_Courier-Journal._\n\n      \"Really supplies what has long been a want.\"--_British\n      Quarterly Review._\n\n      \"We are not aware of any work of the kind written with\n      so much intelligence which yet is so\n      untechnical.\"--_Nonconformist._\n\n      \"Too much praise cannot be given the conscientious\n      manner in which the author has worked. There is no\n      obtrusion of useless details or of unwelcome\n      criticism; but in very pleasant style, with clear and\n      well-defined purpose, the story of the growth and\n      progress of art is told through the lives and works of\n      artists. The volumes are most agreeable reading and\n      profitable study.\"--_Boston Post._\n\n\n                 MUSICAL COMPOSERS AND THEIR WORKS.\n\n    For the Use of Schools and Students in America. By\n    SARAH TYTLER. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50.\n\n      In this unostentatious but carefully written volume,\n      the author of \"Old Masters\" and \"Modern Painters\" has\n      given a simple account of the great musicians of the\n      world and of their works. The book is designed more\n      especially for the use of young people in the course\n      of their musical education, but the author\n      trusts--and with very good reason--that it will\n      commend itself also to older people, who are\n      interested in the subject, but who have not time or\n      opportunity to refer to original sources of\n      information. Not the least attractive portion of the\n      work is the sketch of Wagner with which it closes.\n\n\n\n\n                         [Illustration]\n\n                        \"NO NAME SERIES.\"\n\n                 _The First Series, completed_,\n                 COMPRISES TWELVE NOVELS, VIZ.,\n\n    MERCY PHILBRICK'S CHOICE.      HETTY'S STRANGE HISTORY.\n    IS THAT ALL?                   WILL DENBIGH, EMAN.\n    KISMET.                        THE WOLF AT THE DOOR.\n    THE GREAT MATCH.               MARMORNE.\n    A MODERN MEPHISTOPHELES.       MIRAGE.\n    AFTERGLOW.                     GEMINI.\n\n                   AND TWO POETICAL VOLUMES:\n\n    DEIRDRE. A Novel in Verse.\n\n    A MASQUE OF POETS. Original Poems, by Fifty Poets,\n    written specially for this book; including \"GUY VERNON,\"\n    an entire Novelette in verse.\n\n    Fourteen volumes in all, uniformly bound in black cloth,\n    red and gilt lettered. Price $1.00 each.\n\n\n    NO NAME [SECOND] SERIES.\n\n    The new series will retain all the peculiar features\n    which made the first so popular, differing from it only\n    in the style of binding. Now ready,\n\n                             SIGNOR MONALDINI'S NIECE,\n                                 THE COLONEL'S OPERA CLOAK,\n                                     HIS MAJESTY, MYSELF,\n                                         MRS. BEAUCHAMP BROWN,\n            Price $1.00 each.               SALVAGE.\n\n        _Our publications are to be had of all booksellers.\n              When not to be found send directly to_\n\n           ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, BOSTON.\n\n\n\n\n\n                     THE \"NO NAME SERIES.\"\n\n                     KISMET. A Nile Novel.\n\n\n    Opinions, generous tributes to genius, by well-known authors\n    whose names are withheld.\n\n      \"Well, I have read 'Kismet,' and it is certainly\n      very remarkable. The story is interesting,--any\n      well-told love story is, you know,--but the book\n      itself is a great deal more so. Descriptively and\n      sentimentally,--I use the word with entire\n      respect,--it is, in spots, fairly exquisite. It\n      seems to me all glowing and overflowing with what\n      the French call _beaute du diable_.... The\n      conversations are very clever, and the wit is often\n      astonishingly like the wit of an accomplished man\n      of the world. One thing which seems to me to show\n      promise--great promise, if you will--for the future\n      is that the author can not only reproduce the\n      conversation of one brilliant man, but can make two\n      men talk together as if they _were_ men,--not women\n      in manly clothes.\"\n\n      \"It is a charming book. I have read it twice, and\n      looked it over again, and I wish I had it all new to\n      sit up with to-night. It is so fresh and sweet and\n      innocent and joyous, the dialogue is so natural and\n      bright, the characters so keenly edged, and the\n      descriptions so poetic. I don't know when I have\n      enjoyed any thing more,--never since I went sailing\n      up the Nile with Harriet Martineau.... You must give\n      the author love and greeting from one of the\n      fraternity. The hand that gives us _this_ pleasure\n      will give us plenty more of an improving quality\n      every year, I think.\"\n\n      \"'Kismet' is indeed a delightful story, the best of\n      the series undoubtedly.\"\n\n      \"If 'Kismet' is the first work of a young lady, as\n      reported, it shows a great gift of language, and\n      powers of description and of insight into character\n      and life quite uncommon.... Of the whole series so\n      far, I think 'Mercy Philbrick's Choice' is the best,\n      because it has, beside literary merit, some moral\n      tone and vigor. Still there are capabilities in the\n      writer of 'Kismet' even higher than in that of the\n      writer of 'Mercy Philbrick's Choice.'\"\n\n      \"I liked it extremely. It is the best in the series\n      so far, except in construction, in which 'Is That\n      All?' slight as it is, seems to me superior.\n      'Kismet' is winning golden opinions everywhere. I\n      have nothing but praises for it, and have nothing\n      but praise to give it.\"\n\n      \"I have read 'Kismet' once, and mean to read it\n      again. It is thoroughly charming, and will be a\n      success.\"\n\n      One volume, bound in cardinal red and black. Price\n      $1.00.\n\n    Our publications are to be had of all booksellers. When\n    not to be found, send directly to\n\n                                      ROBERTS BROTHERS,\n                                      Publishers, Boston.\n\n\n\n\n                   PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT.\n              _From the Boston Daily Advertiser._\n\n\n                     THE \"NO NAME SERIES.\"\n\n    \"LEIGH HUNT, _in his 'Indicator,' has a pleasant\n    chapter on the difficulty he encountered in seeking a\n    suitable and fresh title for a collection of his\n    miscellaneous writings. Messrs. Roberts Brothers have\n    just overcome a similar difficulty in the simplest\n    manner. In selecting_ \"NO NAME,\" _they have selected\n    the very best title possible for a series of Original\n    American Novels and Tales, to be published Anonymously.\n    These novels are to be written by eminent authors, and\n    in each case the authorship of the work is to remain an\n    inviolable secret. \"No Name\" describes the Series\n    perfectly. No name will help the novel, or the story,\n    to success. Its success will depend solely on the\n    writer's ability to catch and retain the reader's\n    interest. Several of the most distinguished writers of\n    American fiction have agreed to contribute to the\n    Series, the initial volume of which is now in press.\n    Its appearance will certainly be awaited with\n    curiosity_.\"\n\n                         [Illustration]\n\n    The plan thus happily foreshadowed will be immediately\n    inaugurated by the publication of \"MERCY PHILBRICK'S\n    CHOICE,\" from the pen of a well-known and successful\n    writer of fiction.\n\n    It is intended to include in the Series a volume of\n    anonymous poems from famous hands, to be written\n    especially for it.\n\n    The \"No Name Series\" will be issued at convenient\n    intervals, in handsome library form, 16mo, cloth, price\n    $1.00 each.\n\n\n                  ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.\n                    BOSTON, Midsummer, 1876.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\n                      TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES\n\n\n    Punctuation has been normalized.\n\n    On page 52 \"immediatly\" changed to \"immediately\".\n      \"... the generation immediately preceding my own.\"\n\n    On page 54 \"self-dicipline\" changed to \"self-discipline\".\n      \"Without self-discipline and self-sacrifice....\"\n\n    On page 61 \"superflous\" changed to \"superfluous.\"\n      \"... with superfluous irrelevancies....\"\n\n    On page 72 \"religous\" changed to \"religious.\"\n      \"... will be the religious trainers....\"\n\n    On page 72 capitalization in \"Who\" retained as printed.\n\n    On page 86 \"aginst\" changed to \"against.\"\n      \"... revolts against the small tyranny....\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"Modern Society","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":20173}