{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_62756/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_62756","id":"gutenberg_62756","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62756","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Mythology, Classical, in art","Mythology, Greek"],"text":"MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS\n\n\n\n\nBY THE SAME AUTHOR.\n\n\nWHAT WE REALLY KNOW ABOUT SHAKESPEARE. 12mo, cloth. Price, $1.25.\n\nTHE LIFE OF DR. ANANDABAI JOSHEE, a Kinswoman of the Pundita Ramabai.\n12mo, cloth. Price, $1.00.\n\nLETTERS HOME FROM COLORADO, UTAH, AND CALIFORNIA. 12mo. Price, $1.50.\n\nBARBARA FRITCHIE. A Study. With Portrait. 12mo. Price, $1.00.\n\n    ROBERTS BROTHERS,\n    _Publishers_.\n\n\n\n\n                        MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS\n                                   OR\n                            Ten Conversations\n                                  WITH\n                             MARGARET FULLER\n                                  UPON\n                     THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS AND\n                          ITS EXPRESSION IN ART\n\n               HELD AT THE HOUSE OF THE REV. GEORGE RIPLEY\n\n                          BEDFORD PLACE, BOSTON\n\n                        _BEGINNING MARCH 1, 1841_\n\n                     REPORTED BY CAROLINE W. HEALEY\n\n                                 BOSTON\n                            ROBERTS BROTHERS\n                                  1895\n\n                           _Copyright, 1895_,\n                          BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.\n\n                         _All rights reserved._\n\n                            University Press:\n                 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.\n\n\n\n\nTABLE OF CONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                             PAGE\n\n          PREFACE                                               5\n\n          MEMBERS OF THE CLASS                                 17\n\n       I. GENERAL MYTHOLOGICAL STATEMENT                       25\n\n      II. GENERAL STATEMENT CONTINUED. R. W. E. PRESENT[1]     40\n\n     III. STORY FROM NOVALIS. APOLLO                           60\n\n      IV. MINERVA. THE SERPENT                                 77\n\n       V. VENUS AND PSYCHE. R. W. E. PRESENT                   95\n\n      VI. CUPID AND PSYCHE. MARGARET, AND ELISABETH HOAR      106\n\n     VII. PLUTO AND TARTARUS                                  123\n\n    VIII. MERCURY AND ORPHEUS. R. W. E. PRESENT               135\n\n      IX. HERMES AND ORPHEUS                                  147\n\n       X. BACCHUS AND THE DEMIGODS                            156\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nIn 1839, Margaret Fuller, delicate in health and much overtaxed,\nconsented to gratify many who loved her by opening in Boston a series of\n\u201cConversations for Women.\u201d In a Circular quoted by Emerson, she says to\nMrs. Sophia Ripley:\u2014\n\n    \u201cCould a circle be assembled in earnest, desirous to answer the\n    questions, \u2018What were we born to do?\u2019 and \u2018How shall we do it?\u2019\n    I should think the undertaking a noble one.\u201d\n\nThis was certainly the original intent of the famous \u201cFuller\nConversations,\u201d which, beginning then, were continued at intervals,\nuntil Margaret left Boston for New York in 1844.\n\nIt seems a little singular, therefore, to find her writing to Ralph Waldo\nEmerson of this series, Nov. 25, 1839, as follows:\u2014\n\n    \u201cThe first day\u2019s topic was the genealogy of Heaven and Earth;\n    then the Will or Jupiter; the Understanding, Mercury: the\n    second day\u2019s, The celestial inspiration of Genius, perception\n    and transmission of Divine Law; Apollo the terrene inspiration,\n    Bacchus the impassioned abandonment. Of the thunderbolt, the\n    caduceus, the ray and the grape, having disposed as well as\n    might be, we came to the wave and the sea-shell it moulds to\n    beauty....\n\n    \u201cI assure you, there is more Greek than Bostonian spoken at the\n    meetings!\u201d\n\nUnder the forms suggested by Mythology, Margaret proceeded to open all\nthe great questions of life. In a literary sense, she distinctly stated\nthat she knew little about the doings on Olympus, nor had she received\nany help from German critical works,\u2014of which at the present day she\nwould have found many.\n\nThese Conversations owed their attraction first to the absolute novelty\nof her theme to many of those she addressed, and still more to the\nvariety and freshness of her own treatment. The opening, at the Boston\nAthen\u00e6um, of the splendid collection of casts presented by Thomas\nHandasyd Perkins, and many private collections of pictures, engravings,\ngems, and miniature casts, had interested her intensely, and both mind\nand fancy were absorbed in the contemplation of their themes. In these\nConversations she depicted what she had gained from Art, rather than\nthe little that she had acquired through study. If I may judge from\na later experience, her Latin studies rather injured than developed\nher brilliant fancies. She never could remember what she had said,\nnever could repeat a brilliant saying, and, if obliged to read any\nillustration, read it, as all her friends admitted, very badly. From a\nstatement made to Emerson, I quote the following:\u2014\n\n    \u201cHer mood applied itself to the mood of her companion, point\n    to point, in the most limber, sinuous, vital way; ... and this\n    sympathy she had for all persons indifferently.\u201d\n\nThe communication of which the above is a sample I have always read with\namazement, for I never knew a person of whom it would seem less true.\nWhen conversing with one sympathetic person, it was undoubtedly true;\nwhen resting upon the affection and loyalty of her young women,\u2014a most\ngifted and extraordinary circle,\u2014it was doubtless equally so; but when\nthe class of March, 1841, was formed, a very different aspect of herself\nappeared.\n\nThe fame of her \u201ctalks\u201d had spread. She had great need of money, and some\nof the gentlemen who were accustomed to talk with her, and some of the\nladies of her day-class, suggested an evening class, to be composed of\nboth ladies and gentlemen, and to meet at the house of the Rev. George\nRipley in Bedford Place. Ten Conversations were to be held, and the\ntickets of admission cost twenty dollars each, a very high price for\nthat time. It was in the book-room of Elisabeth Peabody that I first\nheard them discussed. I was very young to join such a circle; and when\nshe invited me, Elisabeth had more regard, I think, to Margaret\u2019s purse,\nthan to my fitness for the company. But it was a great opportunity. The\nmembers were full of excitement over the projected opening of Brook\nFarm. All were in good spirits, and bright sayings ran back and forth.\nI had been carefully trained in the Art of Reporting, and at that time\nmade careful abstracts on the following day of any lecture that had\ninterested me. In these I trusted to my memory. It was not possible to\ndo this with the Conversations; so I invented a sort of short-hand, and\ncarried note-book and pencil with me. I sat a little out of sight that I\nmight not embarrass Margaret, but Elisabeth Peabody and Mrs. Farrar found\nme out. Elisabeth wrote what she called an abstract, every night; but an\nexamination of her abstracts quoted by Mr. Emerson shows that what she\nwrote was not what any one said, but the impression made upon her own\nmind by it. These abstracts she always read to me, the next morning. I\nwrote out my short-hand notes before breakfast and carried them down to\nher about noon. I greatly enjoyed listening to her papers, and she was so\nabsorbed in them that she often forgot to ask for mine, which was a great\nrelief to me.\n\nSo far as I know, these Reports of mine are the only attempt ever made\ndeliberately to represent these or any of Margaret\u2019s \u201cConversations\u201d\nword for word. Of course, much was omitted as not worth recording, nor\ndid I ever write down anything that I could not understand. Many of the\nmembers I knew intimately, and fell naturally into writing of them by\ninitials and first names, as they always spoke to and of each other. At\ntimes I fell back into the Mr., Mrs., or Miss, which was my own habit.\nIt is well to call those we love by any name they will permit, but the\nfamiliar habit of the Transcendental circle was full of social peril to\nthe younger members, who, conceiving it a proof of genius, followed it,\nwhen its origin was forgotten, and were much misunderstood in consequence\nin later years.\n\nI offer the Reports exactly as they were written. I should like to alter\nthem in several small ways if I could do it honestly. We met to discuss\nGrecian Mythology as interpreted to Margaret\u2019s mind by Art; but Latin and\nGreek names were used as if they were synonymous, and Latin poems were\nquoted, as well as Greek traditions. This confused my mind then, and does\nstill. Athene and Minerva, Zeus and Jupiter, are by no means the same\npersons to me, Art or no Art.\n\nIt may be thought by those who cannot remember the persons who enacted\nthis little drama, or by those who do remember and know well how very\ndistinguished a company this was, that I should have eliminated my own\nreflections, and dropped out of the story.\n\nThis would I think have been greatly unjust to Margaret, who never\nenjoyed this mixed class, and considered it a failure so far as her own\npower was concerned. She and Mr. Emerson met like Pyramus and Thisbe,\na blank wall between. With Mr. Alcott she had no patience, and no one\nof the class seemed to understand how sincere and deep was her interest\nin the theme. In no way was Margaret\u2019s supremacy so evident as in the\nimpulse she gave to the minds of younger women.\n\nIt was the wish of Margaret\u2019s mother and brothers, as it is also the\nwish of her surviving relatives, that I should print these pages. After\nArthur\u2019s death, Richard Fuller undertook to carry out a plan to which\nboth had agreed, and which Margaret\u2019s mother had greatly at heart.\nThey desired that I should write a simple, straightforward account of\nMargaret, including her residence in Italy, her marriage, the birth\nof her child, and her death. This they intended to print at their own\nexpense, and they thought it might be so written as to put an end to many\nabsurd and painful rumors which had followed the publication of the first\nMemoir. That I might prepare for this, all Margaret\u2019s manuscripts were in\nmy custody for more than a year. The completion of the work was prevented\nby Richard Fuller\u2019s unexpected death. No surviving member of the family\nwas able to carry out his intention.\n\nI still have in my possession the estimate of his sister\u2019s character\nwhich Richard made for my use.\n\nI should like to add, that the scholar will see that the stories from\nApuleius and Novalis do not exactly correspond to the originals. They\nwere reported exactly as they were told.\n\n                                                    CAROLINE HEALEY DALL.\n\n    Sept. 1, 1895, WASHINGTON, D. C.\n\n\n\n\nA LIST OF PERSONS ATTENDING THE CLASS NAMED IN THIS REPORT.\n\n_About thirty persons usually attended._\n\n\n    GEORGE RIPLEY. The well-known clergyman, settled over a\n    Unitarian church in Purchase St., Boston, afterward the\n    President of the Association at Brook Farm, and later literary\n    editor of the New York \u201cTribune.\u201d\n\n    SOPHIA DANA RIPLEY, his wife.\n\n    ELISABETH PALMER PEABODY. A woman of remarkable accumulations\n    of learning, and as remarkable a breadth of sympathy. She\n    was a teacher,\u2014an enthusiastic advocate of the Kindergarten,\n    and opened at No. 13 West St., Boston, a foreign Circulating\n    Library, which soon became a sort of Literary Exchange of the\n    greatest use to New England. Her own great powers did not\n    accomplish all they ought, because it was impossible for her to\n    apply them systematically.\n\n    FREDERICK HENRY HEDGE. The well-known German and ecclesiastical\n    scholar, whose remarkable scholarship and character have not\n    yet received the commemoration they deserve. He was at this\n    time settled over the church in Bangor, Maine.\n\n    JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. Already the pastor of the Church of the\n    Disciples, in Boston, and preaching at Amory Hall. The outline\n    of his lovely and useful life is preserved in a memoir by the\n    Rev. E. E. Hale, D.D.\n\n    RALPH WALDO EMERSON. The Concord philosopher.\n\n    MRS. FARRAR, born Rotch, the wife of the Harvard Professor of\n    Physical Science and Mathematics.\n\n    FRANCIS G. SHAW. The son of a well-known Boston merchant, to\n    be honored through all time as the father of Colonel Robert G.\n    Shaw, who was buried where he fell, with the negroes whom he\n    died to free.\n\n    MRS. SARAH B. SHAW, his wife.\n\n    ANN WILBY CLARKE, wife of a Boston bank-officer and the oldest\n    member of an English family of Wilbys, nearly every member of\n    which was at some time a teacher in Boston or its neighborhood.\n\n    MRS. JONATHAN RUSSELL of Milton, widow of the U. S. Minister\n    to Sweden (1814-1818), residing on the old Governor Hutchinson\n    place at Milton, and\n\n    MISS IDA RUSSELL, her daughter.\n\n    WILLIAM WHITE. The brother of the first wife of James Russell\n    Lowell, who was killed by a fall from the bluff at Milwaukee in\n    1856.\n\n    WILLIAM W. STORY. Sculptor, poet, and lawyer, and well known as\n    a contributor to Blackwood. Still living.\n\n    CAROLINE STURGIS, daughter of William Sturgis of\n    Boston,\u2014married later to Mr. Tappan,\u2014a most gifted and charming\n    creature.\n\n    MRS. ANNA BARKER WARD, wife of S. G. Ward, now living in\n    Washington.\n\n    JONES VERY of Salem. A Transcendental poet.\n\n    ELISABETH HOAR was the daughter of Samuel Hoar of Concord,\n    Mass., and of Sarah, the daughter of Roger Sherman of\n    Connecticut. Elisabeth was not the least gifted of her very\n    gifted family. One brother, recently deceased, was President\n    Grant\u2019s first Attorney-General; another is the well-known\n    Senator from Massachusetts to the Congress of the United\n    States; and a third, Edward Sherman Hoar, was distinguished\n    as a scholar and botanist. To great intellectual gifts,\n    Elisabeth added personal loveliness and a saintly serenity of\n    character. She was betrothed to Charles Emerson (a brother of\n    Ralph Waldo Emerson), who died of sudden illness just before\n    the time appointed for their marriage. He was also a rarely\n    gifted person, and after his death his family transferred their\n    tenderest affection to Elisabeth. The reader of the various\n    Lives of Emerson will see that she is often mentioned, and\n    several of Emerson\u2019s letters are addressed to her. Had she\n    chosen to devote herself to literature, she would have been\n    greatly distinguished. The Life of Mrs. Ripley of Waltham,\n    written for \u201cThe Women of Our First Century,\u201d and published\n    by a committee appointed at the Centennial Exhibition in\n    Philadelphia, was written by her. She died in 1878.\n\n    A. BRONSON ALCOTT of Concord. A memoir of him has been written\n    by the Hon. F. B. Sanborn of Concord, assisted by Wm. T. Harris.\n\n    W. MACK. A gentleman of great ability, who taught a school\n    in Belmont. His daughter was the first wife of Stillman, the\n    artist. The family is, I think, extinct, unless Mrs. Stillman\n    left a daughter.\n\n    SOPHIA PEABODY. A younger sister of E. P. P., afterwards Mrs.\n    Nathaniel Hawthorne.\n\n    MARIANNE JACKSON. A lovely, beloved, and accomplished woman,\n    who died early. She was the daughter of Judge Charles Jackson,\n    one of the soundest jurists who ever sat on a Massachusetts\n    bench,\u2014the sister of Mrs. Oliver Wendell Holmes, of Mrs.\n    Charles C. Paine, and the aunt, I believe, of Mr. John T. Morse.\n\nI have reserved for the last the name of the only sound Greek scholar\namong us: Charles Wheeler.\n\n    CHARLES STEARNS WHEELER. Born in Lincoln, near Concord, Dec.\n    19, 1816, of H. U. 1837, distinguished as a Greek scholar from\n    whom much was expected. To economize in order to pursue his\n    Greek studies he built a shanty at Walden, which is said to\n    have served as a suggestion to Thoreau. He went to Germany\n    directly after these Conversations, and died suddenly of fever\n    at Leipzig, in the summer of 1843. His death was a great\n    grief and a great shock. I have not forgotten the sensation\n    it produced. Beloved and honored by all who knew him, the\n    community of scholars was especially bereaved. To this day, I\n    am able to trust fearlessly to any information obtained from\n    him.\n\n\n\n\n\u201c_Only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness._\u201d\u2014LONGFELLOW.\n\n\n\n\nMARGARET AND HER FRIENDS.\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\n\n                                         _Monday Evening, March 1, 1841._\n\nMargaret opened the conversation by a beautiful sketch of the origin of\nMythology. The Greeks she thought borrowed their Gods from the Hindus and\nEgyptians, but they idealized their personifications to a far greater\nextent. The Hindus dwelt in the All, the Infinite, which the Greeks\nanalyzed and to some degree humanized. All things sprang from C\u0153lus and\nTerra.,\u2014that is, from Heaven and Earth, or spirit and matter. Rhea, or\nthe Productive Energy, and Saturn, or Time, were the children of C\u0153lus\nand Terra. The progress of any people is marked by its mythi. Mythology\nis only the history of the development of the Infinite in the Finite.\nSaturn devoured his own children until the disappointed Rhea put a\nstone (or obstacle) in his way, and she succeeded in raising Jupiter.\nThe development of human faculties was slow, therefore Time seemed to\nabsorb all that Productive Energy brought forth, until Energy itself\ncreated obstacles; and of these was born the Indomitable Will. Jupiter\nrepresented that Will, and usurped the rule of Time, fighting with the\nlow and sensual passions, represented by the Titans and the Giants,\nuntil he seated himself securely on the Olympian Throne, the Father of\nthe Gods. This Will was not in itself the highest development of either\nBeauty, Genius, Wisdom, or Thought; but such developments were subject to\nit, were its children.\n\nJuno is only the feminine form of this Indomitable Will. By herself\nshe is inferior to it, and whenever she opposes it, loses the game.\nVulcan, her child, is Mechanic Art, great in itself to be sure, but not\ncomparable to the Perfect Wisdom, or Minerva, which sprang ready armed\nfrom the masculine Will. _She_ was greater than her Father, but still his\nchild.\n\nNeptune, who raises always a \u201cplacid head above the waves,\u201d represents\nthe flow of thought,\u2014all-embracing, girdling in the world, Diana and\nApollo, or Purity and Genius.\n\nMercury is Genius in the extrinsic, of eloquence, human understanding,\nand expression. All were the embodiments of Absolute Ideas, of ideas\nthat had no origin,\u2014that were eternal. Love brooded over Chaos; and the\nperfect Beauty and Love, represented among the Greeks by Venus and her\nson, rose from the turbid elements. It is singular that even the ancients\nshould have maintained the pre-existence of Love. It was before Order,\nMen, or the Gods men worshipped. The fable suggests the truth,\u2014Infinite\nLove and Beauty always was. It is only with their development in finite\nbeings that History has to do.\n\nHere MARGARET recapitulated. The Indomitable Will had dethroned Time,\nand, acting with Productive Energy,\u2014variously represented at different\ntimes by Isis, Rhea, Ceres, Persephone, and so on,\u2014had driven back the\nsensual passions to the bowels of the earth, while it produced Perfect\nWisdom, Genius, Beauty, and Love, results which were more excellent if\nnot more powerful than their Cause.\n\nTo understand this Mythology, we must denationalize ourselves, and throw\nthe mind back to the consideration of Greek Art, Literature, and Poesy.\nIt is only scanty justice that my pen can render to Margaret\u2019s eloquent\ntalk.\n\nFRANK SHAW asked her how she imagined these personifications to have\nsuggested themselves in that barbarous age.\n\nMARGARET objected to the word _barbarous_. She believed that in the age\nof Plato the human intellect reached a point as elevated in some respects\nas any it had ever touched.\n\nBut the Gods were not the product of that age, but of another far\nmore remote, FRANK objected. Was not the infinity of Hindu conception\nimpaired, when the Greeks attributed to the Gods the duties, passions,\nand criminal indulgences of men?\n\nMRS. RIPLEY said that the virtue of the Hindu lay in contemplation. If a\nman had seen _God_, he was exempt from the ordinary obligations of life,\nand allowed to pass his life in quiet adoration.\n\nMARGARET added that the Greek knew better than that. _He_ felt the\nnecessity of developing the Infinite through action, and embodied this\nnecessity in his art and poesy as well as in his myths.\n\nFRANK seemed still to think that in losing the adoring contemplation of\nthe Hindu, and bringing their deities to the human level, the Greeks had\ntaken one step down.\n\nE. P. P. had always thought it had been a step _up_, and ANN CLARKE\nthought that the Greeks forgot themselves, merged all remembrance of the\nFinite, in realizing the individual forces of the Infinite.\n\nWILLIAM WHITE, who had not waded very far into the stream, thought the\nNorth American Indian\u2019s worship of the Manitou purer than the Greek\nworship, for the very reason that the Indian ascribed to his Manitou no\npassion that had degraded humanity.\n\nMARGARET said that the Indian propitiated his God by vile deeds, by\nignoble treacheries and revenge. So the Hindu throws her child into the\nGanges, and an ecstatic crowd falls before the car of Juggernaut.\n\nI thought a good deal, but did not speak. Did not William\u2019s question\ngrow out of the simple Unity of the Indian worship? But the Indian does\nnot worship the Manitou because he recognizes a single First Cause,\ncomprehending in itself all beauty, wisdom, purity, and truth, but\nbecause his heart is naturally lifted toward an unknown something,\nwhich he has hardly yet considered as a Cause. The Greek recognized the\nabstract forces of the Universe, but did not perceive their Unity, and\nso personified them separately.\n\nE. P. P. suggested that the Indian had no literature, and had left no\nrecord of his Olympus!\n\nMARGARET added that, if we compare the Indian Elysium with the Greek, the\ndifference in spirituality is perceived at once.\n\nHENRY HEDGE said that Frank Shaw talked about Greek mythi, but nobody\ncould show a purely Greek mythos.\n\nFRANK replied that he only meant that when the Greek mind had acted on a\nmyth, it had not refined it.\n\nMARGARET added that it was a vulgar notion that the Poets of Greece\ncreated her Gods; that the Poets were objective, and could give only\nhumanized representations of them.\n\nHENRY HEDGE thought that there was a point to which philosophy aided and\nprompted the creative power, but, that point passed, rather checked its\naction. Analysis took the place of the objective tendency.\n\nWell! said WILLIAM WHITE, would not the human mind, aided only by\nculture, be incapable of any better idea than Frank Shaw suggested? Must\nnot revelation complete the work?\n\nMARGARET said that the answer to his question would be determined by\nhis understanding of the word \u201crevelation.\u201d _She_ could not believe in\na God who had ever left himself without a witness in the world. As soon\nas the human mind and will were ready, there was always some great Truth\nwaiting to be submitted to their united action, until it was worn out.\nThe beautiful Greek era had been succeeded by a period of inaction; the\nRoman era by another, and so on. She was sorry we had wandered from our\nsubject so far as to doubt her very premises!\n\nFRANK said, everything rested on those premises; so he thought that the\nideals of beauty, love, justice, and truth should be referred to the\nInfinite Mind, and not to the Greek.\n\nI wonder where he was when Margaret told about the Love which \u201cwas\u201d\nbefore Order!\n\nHENRY HEDGE said that Culture was the Mediator between the Finite and the\nInfinite.\n\nJAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, alluding to Mr. Hedge\u2019s previous remark upon the\ngrowth of philosophy, and the loss of the creative power, said that if\nthat were a fact, it greatly diminished the probability of the birth\nof pure Genius into the world. Plato wrote when philosophy was at the\nturning point.\n\nMARGARET said that there were many proofs in Plato that the philosophers\nunderstood the personifications of the mythi. She thought that the gods,\nthe demigods, and the heroes of mythology represented distinct classes,\nand that this was not sufficiently remembered. She referred to the story\nof the burning of Hercules in Ovid, where Jupiter calls Juno to see how\nwell his son endures!\n\nWILLIAM WHITE said that he thought the idea of Deity was degraded when\nthe Greeks changed a hero into a god; but if Culture be a Mediator, would\nnot Plato have been greater had he been born into the nineteenth century?\n\nJAMES F. CLARKE said Platos were impossible now.\n\nMARGARET agreed, and said that the pride of knowledge which he would\nfind in the world should he appear, would be a greater obstacle than\nsuperstition once was.\n\nDid somebody say a little while ago that Will indomitable was born of\nobstacle?\n\nMARGARET told William White that Coleridge had once said that he could\nneither measure nor understand Plato\u2019s ignorance! His mind had not\nreached that altitude!\n\nHENRY HEDGE, not willing to forego the possible birth of Genius, asked if\nall the experience and discovery with which the world had been enriched\nsince Plato\u2019s time would not furnish enough for the new-comer to act upon?\n\nMARGARET replied that the mind could not receive unless excited. She must\ngo through all the intellectual experience of a Plato, to be as great\nas he; but she might stand upon the general or even her own intuitive\nrecognition of the truths he had advanced, and go forward to greater\nresults,\u2014but still that would not be to make herself greater.\n\nBut, said MRS. RIPLEY, in the first case you would be nothing _but_ Plato.\n\nMARGARET acceded, but begged not to be understood as doubting that the\nfuture would be capable of finer things than the past.\n\nThe ideal significance of the Mythology was further dwelt upon, and\nmuch was said of the contrast between the thought of the priest and the\nworship of the people. It was acknowledged as a matter of course, that\nonly a few preserved any consciousness of the original significance of\nthe Mythology.\n\nHENRY HEDGE thought that this was the true key to the purpose of the\nEleusinian mysteries, whether in Egypt where they originated, or in\nGreece where they were introduced. Through them, all who chose became\ninitiated into the interior meaning of the Mythology.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER added, that in the flourishing times of the Athenian\nRepublic every citizen was compelled to initiate himself.\n\nMARGARET closed our talk with a gentle reproof to our wandering wits. To\nprevent such desultory prattling, she desired that a subject should be\nproposed for the next evening. The story of Ceres or Rhea, in fact the\nProductive Energy however manifested, carried general favor, and Margaret\nsaid archly that she had thought the presence of gentlemen (who had never\nuntil now attended one of her talks) would prevent the wandering and keep\nus free from prejudice!\n\nI thought she was rightly disappointed.\n\nI cannot recall the words, but at some time this evening Margaret\ndistinguished three mythological dynasties. The first was the reign of\nthe Natural Powers. The second, represented by Jupiter, Pluto, and\nNeptune, stood for the height, the depth, and the surface or flow of\nthings, the first manifestations of human consciousness. The third was\nthe Bacchic, Bacchus not being yet, in her estimation, the vulgar God of\nthe wine-vat and the festival, but the inspired Genius,\u2014being to Apollo,\nas she said, what the nectar is to the grape.\n\n                                                      CAROLINE W. HEALEY.\n\n    March 2, 1841.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\n                                                         _March 8, 1841._\n\nMargaret recapitulated the statements she made last week. By thus giving\nto each fabled Deity its place in the scheme of Mythology, she did not\nmean to ignore the enfolding ideas, the one thought developed in all\u2014as\nin Rhea, Bacchus, Pan. She would only imply that each personification\nwas individual, served a particular purpose, and was worshipped in a\nparticular way.\n\nBefore proceeding to talk about Ceres, she wished to remind us of the\nmischief of wandering from our subject. She hoped the ground she offered\nwould be accepted _at least to talk about_! Certainly no one could deny\nthat a mythos was the last and best growth of a national mind, and that\nin this case the characteristics of the Greek mind were best gathered\nfrom this creation.\n\nCeres, Persephone, and Isis, as well as Rhea, Diana, and so on, seem\nto be only modifications of one enfolding idea,\u2014a goddess accepted by\nall nations, and not peculiar to Greece. The pilgrimages of the more\nprominent of these goddesses, Ceres and Isis, seem to indicate the life\nwhich loses what is dear in childhood, to seek in weary pain for what\nafter all can be but half regained. Ceres regained her daughter, but only\nfor half the year. Isis found her husband, but dismembered. This era in\nMythology seems to mark the progress of a people from an unconscious to\na conscious state. Persephone\u2019s periodical exile shows the impossibility\nof resuming an unconsciousness from which we have been once aroused, the\nneed thought has, having once felt the influence of the Seasons, to\nretire into itself.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER reminded Margaret that she had said that the predominant\ngoddesses, without reference to Greece, enfolded only one idea, that of\nthe female _Will_ or _Genius_,\u2014_the bounteous giver_. He had asked her\nif she could sustain herself by etymological facts, and she replied that\nher knowledge of the Greek was not critical enough. Since then he had\ninquired into the origin of the proper names of the Greek deities, and\nfound that it confirmed her impression. The names of Rhea, Tellus, Isis,\nand Diana were resolvable into one, and the difference in their etymology\nwas only a common and permissible change in the position of the letters\nof which they are composed, or a mere provincial dialectic change. Diana\nis the same as Dione, also one of the names of Juno.\n\nE. P. P. asked if Homer ever confounded the last two? MARGARET thought\nnot. Homer was purely objective. He knew little and cared less about the\nprimitive creation of the myths.\n\nR. W. EMERSON thought it would be very difficult to detect this secret.\nJupiter, for instance, might have been a man who was the exponent of Will\nto his race.\n\nMARGARET said, \u201cNo; they could have deduced him just as easily from\nNature herself, or from a single exhibition of will power.\u201d\n\nR. W. EMERSON said that a man like Napoleon would easily have suggested\nit.\n\n\u201cWhat a God-send is a Napoleon!\u201d exclaimed CHARLES WHEELER; \u201clet us pray\nfor scores of such, that a new and superior mythos may arise for us!\u201d Is\nit malicious to suspect a subtle irony turned against the sacred person\nof R. W. E. in this speech?\n\nMARGARET retorted indignantly that if they came, _we_ should do nothing\nbetter than write memoirs of their hats, coats, and swords, as we had\ndone already, without thinking of any lesson they might teach. She could\nnot see why we were not content to take the beautiful Greek mythi as they\nwere, without troubling ourselves about those which might arise for us!\n\nR. W. E. acknowledged that the Greeks had a quicker perception of the\nbeautiful than we. Their genius lay in the material expression of it. If\nwe knew the real meaning of the names of their Deities, the story would\ntake to flight. We should have only the working of abstract ideas as we\nmight adjust them for ourselves.\n\nMARGARET said that a fable was more than a mere word. It was a word of\nthe purest kind rather, the passing of thought into form. R. W. E. had\nmade no allowance for time or space or climate, and there was a want of\ntruth in that. The age of the Greeks was the age of Poetry; ours was the\nage of Analysis. _We_ could not create a Mythology.\n\nEMERSON asked, \u201cWhy not? We had still better material.\u201d\n\nMARGARET said, irrelevantly as it seemed to me, that Carlyle had\nattempted to deduce new principles from present history, and that was the\nreason he did not _respect_ the _respectable_.\n\nEMERSON said Carlyle was unfortunate in his figures, but we might have\nmythology as beautiful as the Greek.\n\nMARGARET thought each age of the world had its own work to do. The\ntransition of thought into form marked the Greek period. It was most\neasily done through fable, on account of their intense perception of\nbeauty.\n\nEMERSON pursued his own train of thought. He seemed to forget that we\nhad come together to pursue Margaret\u2019s. He said it was impossible that\nmen or events should _stand out_ in a population of twenty millions as\nthey could from a population of a single million, to which the whole\npopulation of the ancient world could hardly have amounted. As Hercules\nstood to Greece, no modern man could ever stand in relation to his own\nworld.\n\nMARGARET thought Hercules and Jupiter quite different creations. The\nfirst _might_ have been a deified life. The second could not.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER said that R. W. E.\u2019s view carried no historical\nobligation of belief with it. We could not deny the heroic origin of the\nGreek demigods, but the highest dynasty was the exponent of translated\nthought.\n\nSOPHIA RIPLEY asked if the life of an individual fitly interwoven\nwith her experience was not as fine a Poem as the story of Ceres, her\nwanderings and her tears? Did not Margaret know such lives?\n\nR. W. E. thought every man had probably met his Jupiter, Juno, Minerva,\nVenus, or Ceres in society!\n\nMARGARET was sure she never had!\n\nR. W. E. explained: \u201cNot in the world, but each on his own platform.\u201d\n\nWILLIAM STORY objected. The life of an individual was not universal. (!)\n\nSOPHIA RIPLEY repeated, \u201cThe inner life.\u201d\n\nWILLIAM STORY claimed to be an individual, and did not think individual\nexperience could ever meet all minds,\u2014like the story of Ceres, for\nexample.\n\nSOPHIA said all experience was universal.\n\nI said nothing, but held this colloquy with myself. Thought is the best\nof human nature; its fulness urges expression: its need of being met, not\nonly by _one_ other but by every other, _craves_ it. This craving is the\nacknowledgment of the universal experience. What is _purely_ individual\nis perishable. _Identity_ is to be separated from individuality for this\ncause.\n\nMARGARET said the element of beauty would be wanting to our creations. A\nfine emotion glowed through features which seem to fall like a soft veil\nover the soul, while it could scarce do more than animate those that were\nobtuse and coarse in every outline. (!)\n\n\u201cThen,\u201d said WILLIAM STORY, and my heart thanked the _preux\nchevalier_,\u2014\u201cthen something is wanting in the emotion itself.\u201d\n\nWILLIAM WHITE said, stupidly, that sunlight could not fall with equal\ncharm on rocks and the green grass. (!)\n\nI asked if the rock could not give what it did not receive? Flung back by\nrugged points and relieved by dark shadows, was not the sunlight itself\ntransfigured?\n\nSTORY said every face had its own beauty. No act that was natural could\nbe ungraceful.\n\nEMERSON said that we all did sundry graceful acts, in our caps and\ntunics, which we never could do again, which we never wanted to do again.\n\nMARGARET said, at last we had touched the point. We could not restore\nthe childhood of the world, but could we not admire this simple plastic\nperiod, and gather from it some notion of the Greek genius?\n\nR. W. E. thought this legitimate. He would have it that we could not\ndetermine the origin of a mythos, but we might fulfil Miss Fuller\u2019s\nintention.\n\nMARGARET said history reconciled us to life, by showing that man had\nredeemed himself. Genius needed that encouragement.\n\nNot _Genius_, SOPHIA RIPLEY thought; common natures needed it, but Genius\nwas self-supported.\n\nMARGARET said it might be the consolation of Genius.\n\nMRS. RUSSELL asked why Miss Fuller found so much fault with the present.\n\nMARGARET _had_ no fault to find with it. She took facts as they were.\nEvery age did something toward fulfilling the cycle of mind. The work of\nthe Greeks was not ours.\n\nSOPHIA RIPLEY asked if the mythology had been a prophecy of the Greek\nmind to itself, or if the nation had experienced life in any wide or deep\nsense.\n\nMARGARET seemed a little out of patience, and no wonder! She said it did\nnot matter which. The question was, what could _we find_ in the mythi,\nand what did the Greeks mean that we should find there. Coleridge once\nsaid that certain people were continually saying of Shakespeare, that he\ndid not mean to impart certain spiritual meanings to some of his sketches\nof life and character; but if Shakespeare did not mean it his Genius did:\nso if the Greeks meant not this or that, the Greek genius meant it.\n\nIn relation to the progress of the ages, JAMES F. CLARKE said that the\nstory of Persephone concealed in the bowels of the earth for half the\nyear seemed to him to indicate something of their comparative states.\nPersephone was the seed which must return to earth before it could\nfructify. Thought must retire into itself before it can be regenerate.\n\nMARGARET was pleased with this, more especially as in the story of\nthe Goddess it is eating the pomegranate, whose seed is longest in\ngerminating, which dooms her to the realm of Pluto.\n\nGEORGE RIPLEY remarked that we saw this need of withdrawal in the\nslothful ages when mind seemed to be imbibing energy for future action.\nThe world sometimes forsook a quest and returned to it. We had forsaken\nBeauty, but we might return to it.\n\nCertainly, MARGARET assented. A perfect mind would detect all beauty\nin the hearth-rug at her feet: the meanest part of creation contained\nthe whole; but the labor we were now at to appreciate the Greek proved\nconclusively that _we_ were not Greek. A simple plastic nature would\ntake it all in with delight, without doubt or question.\n\nOr rather, amended EMERSON, would take it up and go forward with it.\n\nIt makes no difference, said MARGARET, for we live in a circle.\n\nI did not think it pleasant to track and retrack the same arc, and\npreferred to go forward with R. W. E., so I asked if there was to be no\n_higher_ poetry.\n\nMARGARET acknowledged that there was something beyond the aspiration of\nthe Egyptian or the poetry of the Greek.\n\nGEORGE RIPLEY thought we had not lost all reverence for these abstract\nforces. The Eleusinian mysteries might be forgotten, but not Ceres. We\ndid not worship in ignorance. The mysteries led back to the Infinite. The\nprocesses of vegetation were actually heart-rending! Here, _I_ thought,\nwas a basis for my higher poetry.\n\nGEORGE RIPLEY acknowledged that it was so. He seemed to be more conscious\nof the movement of the world than any of our party. He said we must not\nmeasure creation by Boston and Washington, as we were too apt to do.\nThere was still France, Germany, and Prussia,\u2014perhaps Russia! The work of\nthis generation was not religious nor poetic; still, there was a tendency\nto go back to both. There were to be ultraisms, but also, he hoped,\nconsistent development.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER then related the story of Isis, of her hovering in the\nform of a swallow round the tree in which the sarcophagus of Osiris had\nbeen enclosed by Typhon; of her being allowed to fell the tree; of the\nodor emitted by the royal maidens whom she touched, which revealed her\nDivinity to the Queen; of the second loss of the body, as she returned\nhome, and its final dismemberment.\n\nThere was little success in spiritualizing more of this story than the\npilgrimage, and R. W. E. seemed to feel this; for when MARGARET had\nremarked that even a divine force must become as the birds of the air\nto compass its ends, and that it was in the carelessness of conscious\nsuccess that the second loss occurred, he said that it was impossible to\ndetect an inner sense in all these stories.\n\nMARGARET replied, that she had not attempted that, but she could see it\nin all the prominent points.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER said that the varieties of anecdote proved that the\nstories were not all authentic. It was an ancient custom to strike off\nmedals in honor of certain acts of the Gods. To these graven pictures the\ncommon people gave their own vulgar interpretations, as they did also to\nthe bas-reliefs on their temples and monuments.\n\nE. P. P. said this accounted for many of the stories transmitted by\nHomer. When sculpture and architecture had lost their meaning, his\ninventive genius was only the more stimulated to find one.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER asked what Margaret would make of the story that the\ntears of Isis frightened children to death?\n\nThere was a general laugh, but MARGARET said coolly, that children always\nshrank from a baffled hope.\n\nSome one contrasted Persephone with her mother.\n\nMARGARET assented to whatever was said, and added that she had been\nparticularly struck with it in an engraving she had recently seen, in\nwhich Ceres stood with lifted eyes, full-eyed, matronly, bounteous,\nready to give all to all, while Persephone, dejected and thoughtful,\nsat meditating; and the idea was strengthened by her discovering that\nPersephone was the same as Ariadne the deserted. I could only guess at\nthe remark by Margaret\u2019s comment. It seemed to imply baffled hope for\nPersephone.\n\nThe Eleusinian mysteries were now alluded to. Although it has been said\nthat only moral precepts were inculcated through these, WHEELER urged\nthat a whole school of Continental authors now acknowledged that the\nhigher doctrines of philosophy were taught.\n\nR. W. E. added, that as initiation became more easy such instruction\nmust have degenerated into a mere matter of form, and many of the\n_un_initiated surpass the initiated in wisdom.\n\nMARGARET admitted this. Socrates was one of the uninitiated. The crowd\nseldom felt the full force of beauty in Art or Literature. To prove it,\nit was only necessary to walk once through the Hall of Sculpture at the\nAthen\u00e6um, and catch the remarks of any half-dozen on Michael Angelo\u2019s\n\u201cDay and Night.\u201d He would be fortunate who heard a single observer\ncomment on its power.\n\nMRS. RUSSELL asked why the images of the sun and moon were introduced\ninto these mysterious celebrations.\n\nMARGARET asked impatiently why they had always been invoked by every\nchild who could string two rhymes together.\n\nI said that if Ceres was the simple _agricultural_ productive energy,\nof course the sun was her first minister, its genial influence being as\nmanifest as the energy itself.\n\nIn regard to the etymology of the proper names, it seemed reasonable to\nme that this energy should have gained attributes as it did names. Any\nnation devoted to the chase would learn to call the lunar deity Diana;\nany devoted to the cultivation of grain would project her as Ceres. The\nreproductive powers of flocks and herds would suggest Rhea or Juno, and\nphilosophy or art would invoke Persephone.\n\nWhen we were talking about beauty, J. F. C. quoted Goethe, and said that\nthe spirit sometimes made a mistake and clothed itself in the wrong\ngarment.\n\n                                                            C. W. HEALEY.\n\n    March 9, 1841.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\nThe third conversation was delayed by Margaret\u2019s illness, and finally\ntook place\u2014\n\n                                                        _March 19, 1841._\n\nMARGARET again complained that we wandered from the subject, and told the\nfollowing story from Novalis.\n\nImagine a room, on one side of it Eros and Fable at play. On the other,\nbefore a marble slab on which rests a vase of pure water, sits a fair\nwoman named Sophia. Her head rests upon her hand. Between her and the\nchildren sits a man of reverend age, before a table at which he writes\nwhatever has been or is. This is History; and as he finishes each sheet\nhe hands it to Sophia, who dips it in the vase of pure water, from which\nit often emerges a perfect blank. Sometimes a few lines, at others a few\nwords, sometimes only a punctuation mark, survive the test. This troubles\nthe old man. At last he rises and leaves the room. Fable springs to his\nvacant seat, and scribbles as if in play till his return, when History\nreproves her for wasting the paper, and passes the sheet to Sophia, when,\nlo! it comes out from her vase unchanged. Fable has borne the test of\nTruth. History is enraged at this, and succeeds in driving both Sophia\nand Fable from their home, unfairly. Sophia is driven away, but the child\nescapes by a back door, and, becoming bewildered in the central caverns\nof the Earth, falls into the power of the Fates.\n\nThese respectable old ladies find the little Fable very troublesome, and,\nafter some scolding, send her away to spin, when, lo! from the recesses\nof the cavern all sorts of wonders and strange shapes are spun out. The\nFates are frightened, and they seek History to learn in what manner\nthey may best rid themselves of the intruder. However much they may\ndislike her, she is under their protection, and History can do no more\nthan advise them to send her out to catch Tarantulas! Fable departs and\nmeets Eros, who gives her a lyre, upon which she plays, and the venomous\ninsects swarm about her. The Fates behold her return unharmed! They had\nhoped she would be stung to death, and in despair Ate throws her scissors\nat the child, who gracefully avoids them. Hereupon the Tarantulas sting\nthe Fates in the feet, at which they begin to dance. As their clothes are\nthick and heavy, this is rather inconvenient exercise, and when Fable\nlaughs at their distress they send her away to spin them some thin\ndresses. Fable is tired of wandering. She plays upon her lyre to the\nTarantulas, bidding them spin, and she will give them three large flies.\nWhen the dresses are done, she carries them immediately to the Fates, who\nbegin again to dance. The ends of the threads are still in the bodies of\nthe Tarantulas, who do not like to be jerked about. \u201cBehold the flies\nwhich I promised you,\u201d said Fable.\n\nThereupon the Tarantulas fall upon the dancing Fates, and a new dynasty\ncommences, in which Eros reigns, with Fable for prime minister.\n\nMARGARET said that in the story she had told she had set us the example\nof wandering from the subject, but she hoped to some purpose. She\nhoped no one would have need to call upon little Fable\u2019s body-guard of\nTarantulas.\n\nThe subject of the evening was Apollo in contrast with Ceres, or Genius\nopposed to Productive Energy. The history of Apollo stood for the\nhistory of thought, its progressive development and its unhappiness.\nAll the loves of Apollo are miserable. He never labors for himself. He\nuses the instruments which others have shaped. He is so delighted with\nthe lyre, which Mercury, that is Sagacity, has made, that he gives him\nthe divining-rod, and would give him more, but he cannot. The earnest\nsimplicity with which Apollo begs Mercury to swear by the sacred Styx not\nto steal his quiver or his darts is beautiful! The common understanding,\nmere human sagacity, may indeed lay hands on the weapons of the Inspired\nOne, but it cannot possess them. The ray, the dart, the quiver, of Apollo\nall stand for the instantaneous power of thought.\n\nDelphi did not originally belong to Apollo. With the aid of Bacchus, he\nwrested it from Terra, Neptune, and Themis; hence the name \u201cDelphi,\u201d or\n\u201cThe brothers.\u201d This is only another instance of his independence. All\nthings are made to his hand. The great contrast between Ceres and Apollo\nlies in the success of each. Ceres is always full, always prepared to\nmeet the call of humanity. Apollo is always unsatisfied. He transmutes\nwhatever he touches, as he did one of his many loves, changed to a\nbay-tree. His changes are always beautiful.\n\nJAMES F. CLARKE asked how Margaret would explain the fraternal relation\nbetween Bacchus and Apollo.\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t you remember?\u201d she retorted. \u201cI don\u2019t like to repeat it, it is so\nsmart and ingenious!\u201d Apollo and Bacchus seemed to her the question and\nthe response. Bacchus was what the earth yielded to the touch of Genius.\nThe grape was genial. It typified the excess of the earth\u2019s fruitfulness.\nBacchus avenges the wrongs of Apollo, who is said never to have seen a\nshadow! He never perceives an obstacle, but instantly destroys an alien\nnature. Whatever opposed Apollo met with terrible retribution,\u2014if not\nfrom himself, then from others. Genius cannot endure the presence of\nanything that mocks at it.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER said something about the flaying of Marsyas.\n\nMARGARET said that this once seemed to her the most shocking of\ncruelties, but she had lately seen a picture which reconciled her to the\ndeed! After looking at the self-complacent face of Marsyas, she did not\nwonder that Apollo destroyed him. She longed to _see him do it_! Apollo\nwas never indignant at any sublime treachery. He forgave Mercury his\ntheft because it was god-like, because he did it so well.\n\nMRS. RUSSELL said ironically that the destruction of the children of\nNiobe must have been a gratifying sight.\n\nMARGARET laughed, and said, \u201cThat is like being reminded of the \u2018poor\nmariner,\u2019 when I say that I like to hear the wind blow.\u201d The indignation\nof Apollo seemed to her one of his noblest attributes. His perfect purity\nseparated him from all the Gods. Ceres seemed to be included in the idea\nof many other Gods, as in Pan, Bacchus, Juno, and Isis; but Apollo, the\ndivine Genius, stands alone. There is none like him.\n\nHENRY HEDGE asked whether holiness appertained to Apollo.\n\nMARGARET thought not. Holiness supposed a voluntary consecration of one\u2019s\nself, but there was no need of this in Apollo. He was pure thought,\nconsecrated, but not consciously.\n\nHENRY HEDGE said he had asked, because, considering Jesus to have, as\nhe certainly had, a mythological character, he thought there was a\nresemblance between him and Apollo. His own words justified the idea,\u2014\u201cI\nam the light of the world,\u201d and so on.\n\nMRS. RUSSELL asked suddenly why Apollo\u2019s lyre had seven strings.\n\nMARGARET said seven was a consecrated number.\n\nMRS. RUSSELL asked if it did not have to do with the seven planets?\n\nGEORGE RIPLEY said there were not so many in that day.\n\nMARGARET liked the reason, and wished she had thought of it herself!\n\nSome one asked about the connection between Diana and Apollo.\n\nMARGARET said that Genius needed a sister to console him.\n\nEMERSON asked what bearing the inscription over the Delphic temple had\nupon the story of Apollo,\u2014the Divine pun EI, which means equally \u201cThou\nart\u201d and \u201cIf,\u201d\u2014as grand a pun as that of him who, dying, said he was\ngoing to see the great \u201cPerhaps\u201d!\u2014\u201cle grand peut-\u00eatre.\u201d\n\nBetter translated, I thought, as the great \u201cMay-be.\u201d\n\nGEORGE RIPLEY asked if it were not generally accepted positively as \u201cThou\nart\u201d?\n\n\u201cProbably,\u201d MR. EMERSON said.\n\nHENRY HEDGE found another type of the Apollo in the Egyptian Horus.\n\nMRS. RUSSELL asked if the two Greek vowels had not once stood for Isis\nand Osiris. If so, they would have a natural connection with the oracle.\n\nI remembered the inscription on the statue of Isis, \u201cI am all that has\nbeen and that shall be, and none among mortals has taken off my veil.\u201d\nThe \u201cI am\u201d of the Jews, and the \u201cThou art\u201d of the Delphic temple are\nepigrammatic, but the same.\n\nEMERSON, replying somewhat curtly to Mrs. Russell, said there were\nvarious explanations.\n\nThe story of Phaeton came next.\n\nHENRY HEDGE asked how Presumption should be the child of Genius.\n\n\u201cGenius must be self-confident,\u201d Margaret said, \u201cand that might\npredominate.\u201d\n\nI asked if real Genius did not know its own resources and husband them.\n\nMARGARET thought Genius often attempted more than it could do.\n\nI said a man might have genius and presume, but that if _he were a\ngenius_ I should expect him to be modest. Still, as it must have a crowd\nof imitators, it might become the father of presumption. The substance\ncreates the shadow.\n\nWILLIAM STORY said no product could be as great as the producing power;\nbut that did not seem to me to touch the point, for the question was not\nwhether Apollo could not give birth to something less than himself, but\nwhether the possession of power could create an unfounded claim to it.\n\nThe story of Latona followed.\n\nHENRY HEDGE said that the word meant concealment.\n\nMARGARET thought this very expressive, and said that the isolation which\nGoethe and other geniuses had been craving since the world began Apollo\nhad no need to seek. His mother was concealment. The oracle was then\ndiscussed,\u2014how it was possible to consult it many times and receive each\ntime a different answer,\u2014how it could be bribed, as by Alexander, or\nwould give two answers in one; but nothing very new was said.\n\nI remembered the double answer of the Pythoness to Cr\u0153sus when he\nmeditated crossing the Halys. \u201cThou shalt destroy a great empire,\u201d she\nsaid. He thought it was the enemy\u2019s: fate decided it should be his own.\n\nSOPHIA RIPLEY thought the oracle belonged to Wisdom rather than Genius.\n\nMARGARET said Minerva dwelt in men\u2019s houses. It was necessary a voice\nfrom Heaven should speak.\n\nSome one wondered that Jupiter had not possessed himself of the oracle,\nwhich led MARGARET back to her exponents, and she confessed that she was\nnot quite satisfied with her own definition of Jupiter as Will.\n\nEMERSON suggested that experience was a prominent feature in the\nJupiter, and named him Character.\n\nCharacter is educated Will, said MARGARET, hesitating, and paused, for\nthe term did not suit her.\n\nJuno was then spoken of as passive Will, and her traits were dwelt upon.\nIt is amusing to see how weak the Queen of Olympus can be in opposition\nto its King. The peacock was probably made sacred to her on account of\nthe beauty of its plumage, while the eagle was consecrated to Jupiter on\naccount of its strength.\n\nI said that the peacock, strutting with conceit, glancing at its\nill-shaped feet and vexed enough to bawl in consequence, easily suggested\nthe scolding Juno.\n\nSome one asked a question about \u00c6sculapius. MARGARET said he was genius\nmade practical.\n\nHENRY HEDGE thought that Apollo by his own connection with the healing\nart became the symbol of physical life and beauty.\n\nWILLIAM STORY thought no statue could bear comparison with the Apollo\nBelvedere.\n\nMARGARET preferred the Antinous.\n\nJAMES CLARKE asked why Art should present a so much more inspiring view\nof Greek Mythology than Poetry.\n\nMARGARET said that all her ideas of it were deduced from Art. She did\nnot profess to know much of the Greek authors, and depended chiefly upon\nHomer, but wished that some of the gentlemen who ought to know more would\nspeak.\n\nWILLIAM STORY thought it was because the poets wrote for popular\napplause, for recitation and its immediate effect. Sculptors labored more\npurely for their Art.\n\nI thought too that the dramatists often had a political aim, and\nman\u0153uvred Olympus to suit it!\n\nJAMES CLARKE said that if in our time every public speaker must bend to\nhis audience to a degree, it was still more necessary in Greece.\n\nWe were told to consider Minerva for the next conversation, and to write\ndown our thoughts about her. For my part I don\u2019t like using Latin names\nfor Greek deities. It greatly confuses my ideas. Jupiter and Zeus seem\nvery different to me.\n\nIn regard to the story that Apollo never saw a shadow, CAROLINE STURGIS\nasked how Apollo could destroy an alien nature if he never met it.\n\nThere was quite an unsatisfactory talk about this, which would have ended\nhad anybody remembered how the sun solves the enigma every day. The\nsun never sees the shadow it destroys. When its rays fall, light is. It\nannihilates the alien by merely being. So Truth annihilates Falsehood,\nyet cannot meet it. The two are never in one presence.\n\n                                                   CAROLINE WELLS HEALEY.\n\n    March 20, 1841.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\n\n                                                        _March 26, 1841._\n\nMARGARET opened our talk by saying that the subject of Wisdom presented\nmore conversable points than that of Genius. We could all think and talk\nabout Wisdom, and any man who had ever scratched his finger was to a\ndegree wise.\n\nMinerva was the child of Counsel and Intelligent Will. She had no\ninfancy, but sprang full-armed into being. Ready, agile, she was in\nherself the history of thought. She did not need that her life should be\none of incident. Her attendant emblems are expressive: the Sphinx, the\nowl, the serpent, the cock, and the javelin suggest her whole story.\n\nWILLIAM WHITE asked why Genius was masculine and Wisdom feminine.\n\nMARGARET thought no one could find any difficulty in the fact that Genius\nwas masculine. It presented itself to the mind in the full glow of power.\nThe very outlines of the feminine form were yielding, and we could not\nassociate them with a prominent, self-conscious state of the faculties.\nWisdom was like woman, always ready for the fight if necessary, yet never\ngoing to it; taking reality as a basis, and classifying and arranging\nupon it all that Genius creates,\u2014seeing the relations and proper values\nof things.\n\nGEORGE RIPLEY objected to this definition. He might have imbibed a Hebrew\nidea, but the office of Wisdom was surely something more than this,\u2014a\npurely mechanical and orderly tact.\n\nMARGARET said she had not meant to give _our_ view of it, only the Greek\nidea as manifest in the story of Minerva. To William White she said,\nsmiling, that she supposed he had not wondered so much that Genius should\nbe masculine as that Wisdom should be feminine! But the Greeks were wise,\nand she revered their keen perception.\n\nELISABETH HOAR said it seemed to her that Wisdom provided _means_. A hero\nmight be inspired by Genius, but Wisdom provided his armor, taught him to\ndistinguish the goal, and to perceive clearly the relation to it of any\nonward step.\n\nMARGARET agreed to this, and\n\nWILLIAM STORY said that Genius was indebted to Wisdom for _means of\ncommunication_. Genius thinks words impertinent, but Wisdom apprehends\nits intuitions, and gives them shape.\n\nMARGARET said further, that Wisdom must adopt instinctively the finest\nmedium.\n\nIt seemed to me that Wisdom not only gave power of communication, but\npower of attainment. Walter Scott was a good instance of the union of\nintuitive perception and human sagacity, but all these words about it\ncleared up nothing.\n\nMARGARET then proposed that we should take up the attributes of Minerva,\nand so get at the facts.\n\nMR. RIPLEY did not think it noble enough when she based Wisdom upon\nrealities.\n\nWILLIAM STORY said Wisdom must have something to work upon. He thought\nWisdom compared the intuitions of Genius with realities.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER thought the word _actual_ would help them out of their\ndifficulty.\n\nI wanted to quote Emerson to the effect that the Ideal is more Real than\nthe Actual.\n\nMARGARET agreed with Mr. Wheeler, and said that by reality she understood\nanything incarnated,\u2014whatever was tangible. She then went on to speak of\nthe Sphinx. What was it?\n\nELISABETH HOAR seemed surprised at the question. Was it not one thing to\neverybody?\n\nMARGARET called for her idea, but she would not give it.\n\nMARGARET said that to herself it represented the development of a\nthought, founding itself upon the animal, until it grew upward into calm,\nplacid power. She revered these good ancients, who did not throw away any\nof the gifts of God; who were neither materialists nor immaterialists,\nbut who made matter always subservient to the highest ends of the Spirit.\n\nWILLIAM WHITE asked if the festivals of the Gods, the highest source\nof their influence over the people, did not show how little they had\npenetrated to the spirit of things?\n\nMARGARET thought ambrosia and nectar were proper emblems of Divine Joy.\nThey were not to be taken literally.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d persisted WHITE, \u201cthe great body of the people thought them so.\u201d\n\nWILLIAM STORY said, with happy grace, that the great _body_ of the people\nmight be excused for such a thought.\n\nMARGARET enjoyed the pun, and said that the great Greek body was sensuous\nand ate, but that the Greek soul knew better than to suspect the Gods of\nopening their mouths.\n\nE. P. P. waked up at this moment, and asked what Margaret would say to\nBerkeley\u2019s theory.\n\nMARGARET said she did not know what it was!\n\nE. P. P. said, the evolution of all things from the soul, the\nnon-existence of matter.\n\nJAMES P. CLARKE thought it very difficult to decide how far spirit and\nmatter were one. A man\u2019s identity was not in the particles which came\nand went every seven years, but in the spirit. Yet these particles\nconstituted the wall of separation between himself and others. His\nidentity was in his spirit.\n\nGEORGE RIPLEY begged leave to disagree. He thought we knew as much about\nmatter as about spirit, and that Berkeley\u2019s theory was as good as any.\n\nMARGARET said that if God created matter, of course it was evolved from\nspirit; that matter could not be antagonistic to that from which it was\nevolved. To express a complete idea, we had only to say, \u201cJehovah, I am.\u201d\n\n\u201cOr,\u201d CHARLES WHEELER added, \u201cto be silent.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d said MARGARET, \u201cand in that lies the merit of Mythology. Every\nfaculty was, according to that, an incomplete statement. Therefore Mr.\nRipley did wrong to confound Minerva with the Logos.\u201d\n\nE. P. P. did not see that Berkeley\u2019s statement was answered.\n\nWILLIAM STORY came in with another pun. \u201cIf Berkeley thought so, it was\n_no matter_!\u201d\n\nSome stupid person spoiled the wit by trying to explain it, and the\nquestion remained to us just as much matter as ever.\n\nThey talked about the Sphinx again, yet said little. It holds more\nmeaning in its passive womb than talk will ever play the midwife to.\nIt was the child of the Destructive Element and Feeling,\u2014Typhon and\nEchidna,\u2014the human heart experienced in misfortune touched by death.\nThought rooted in the actual and developed by tenderness was rooted in\nthis figure.\n\n\u201cEverybody knows that Wisdom stings,\u201d said MARGARET, and so we went on to\nthe serpent.\n\nSomebody spoke of the Greek Tartarus.\n\nIDA RUSSELL thought its torment was not acute, but consisted of the\ndeprivation of comforts.\n\nThe wandering idleness of it would be intolerable to an active Greek,\nELISABETH HOAR thought, but more endurable than any device of a\npriesthood. As for our serpent, no one seemed to know much about it.\n\nMARGARET said that we owed it so much, that _she_ felt in duty bound to\nknow something of it.\n\nJAMES F. CLARKE said that the Christian serpent was quite another thing.\n\nEverybody laughed at the idea of a _Christian_ serpent.\n\nWILLIAM WHITE professed great admiration for the reptile. We should have\nhad no Christianity but for its beguiling.\n\nMARGARET agreed!\u2014and said she supposed everybody felt that.\n\nMRS. RUSSELL thought the casting of the skin very expressive.\n\nJAMES F. CLARKE gave Coleridge\u2019s exposition, to the effect that the\nserpent was the common understanding! It would touch and handle all\nthings, and even sought to be as the Gods, knowing good from evil. Its\nundulating motion\u2014its belly now on the ground, now off\u2014expressed both\nthe aspiration and the subserviency of the creature.\n\nMARGARET asked if serpents ever swallowed their own tails?\n\nCHARLES WHEELER said that must be an arbitrary form.\n\nMARGARET replied, that she had been struck by the difference between the\nMexican and the Greek serpent. The Mexican was folded back upon itself.\n\nNot always, I said. Its tail is sometimes in its mouth, and the\nvariations seem to be occasioned by the architectural necessity.\n\nJAMES F. CLARKE spoke of a Virginia snake that moves in a circle, and\nasked if when Mr. Emerson talked about \u201ccoming full circle\u201d he was not\nthinking of that?\n\nMARGARET laughed, and declared that serpent must be of Yankee invention.\n\u00c6sculapius bore two on his staff, Mercury two on his divining-rod, and\nthe cock was also sacred to \u00c6sculapius.\n\nI asked if this did not indicate a certain subjection of these Gods to\nWisdom?\n\nSome questions written on paper were here read. One asked why Minerva was\nborn of the stroke of Vulcan, and why she was the patroness of weavers,\nand what that had to do with the story of Arachne.\n\nMARGARET replied with ill temper to the first, that it was because Vulcan\nheld the hammer,\u2014to the second, that she did not know.\n\nBut was there really so little meaning in the fact that Mechanic Art so\nministered to Intelligent Will that she could afford to miss the point?\n\nShe said we could see that Minerva was told to marry Vulcan, but\ndeclined; would have nothing to do with the sooty cripple.\n\nSOPHIA RIPLEY said, aptly enough, that Minerva had been changing her mind\never since!\n\nIDA RUSSELL thought that when Mechanic Art was married to Beauty, it\nmight charm even Wisdom.\n\nGEORGE RIPLEY said she might well have despised the brute force, but as\nit grew into something more noble, have learned to love it. Dr. Dana[2]\nwas the servant of the Lowell corporation. In these days no corporation\ncould exist without its man of science. His salary was a mere pittance,\nand when he made a discovery with which all Europe rang, he asked for a\npart of the profits. \u201cWe will consider,\u201d said the soulless corporation,\nand they decided that they had a legitimate right to all that could be\nmade out of their servant!\n\n\u201cThus,\u201d I said, \u201cWisdom sows for the Mechanic Art to reap?\u201d\n\n\u201cExactly so,\u201d was the reply; \u201cand this contains the essence of the Yankee\nphilosophy.\u201d\n\nThe life of Wisdom was one long struggle for something beyond a merely\nserviceable knowledge. Bending alike to art and artisan, she still\nrefused to love the latter till he had wooed Beauty to their common\nservice. But Wisdom has of late married Vulcan. He no longer limps, and\nhas washed his face in the springs of love and thought, and sits in\nholiday robes beside his bride.\n\nSomebody said that the story of Arachne was an instance of the Goddess\u2019s\nvindictiveness.\n\nMARGARET hoped that the vindictiveness was a popular interpolation. If\nso, the story of Marsyas shows that she was malicious. She brought his\nmisfortunes upon him. If her own voice was discordant, there was no\nreason why his voice should please!\n\n\u201cDivinities have a right to be indignant,\u201d said somebody. Did Margaret\nblush?\n\nIn speaking of the artistic representations of Minerva, MARGARET said\nsome beautiful things. Minerva was as tall and large as she could be,\nwithout being masculine. Her face was thoughtful and serene, without\nbeing sweet. Her eye was so full and clear that it had no need to be deep.\n\nThe talk was closed by Margaret\u2019s reading the Essay that E. P. P. had\nsent in, and the criticisms upon it.\n\nE. P. P. began by speaking of the _conservatism_ which disinclined\nJupiter to the birth of Minerva.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d MARGARET said, \u201cthe good was always opposed to the better.\u201d\n\nE. P. P. then spoke of the Parthenon, upon which, according to the\nHomeric Hymn, the story of Minerva\u2019s birth was sculptured.\n\nMARGARET said it had been difficult to believe that the Greeks would put\nso ugly a thing upon their temple, but the ruins showed a Vulcan with his\nhammer in his hand, and the form of the Goddess hovering over the cloven\nskull.\n\nWhy, asked E. P. P., did Ulysses represent Wisdom in the Odyssey?\n\nMARGARET thought he represented the history of a thought in life, when\nhe tired us all out with his long story, and so pushed us to decision.\n\nE. P. P. alluded to the different conceptions of Minerva in the Iliad and\nthe Odyssey, and this led to the question of priority of composition.\n\nMARGARET thought the Odyssey was written when Homer was young and\nromantic; but E. P. P. and myself stood out stoutly for the precedence of\nthe Iliad. I said, without the least bit of real knowledge, that I should\nnot wonder if there were two centuries between the poems, they seemed to\nindicate such entirely different states of society; but certainly the\nOdyssey was latest.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER said that the best scholars seemed all of one mind. The\nIliad was written first by Homer,\u2014the Odyssey long after by another hand.\n\nE. P. P. said that there was a gem which represented Minerva as married\nto a mortal, but she could tell nothing more about it.\n\nJONES VERY said that when Wisdom falls into decay we call it Genius!\n\nDoes that mean that prophetic power fallen back from the moral nature to\nthe intellect is dwarfed accordingly?\n\n                                                      CAROLINE W. HEALEY.\n\n    March 27, 1841.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\n\n                                                         _April 2, 1841._\n\nThe story of Venus and Cupid and Psyche was discussed.\n\nMARGARET said that of Venus she had less to say than of either of the\npreceding Deities! She was not the expression of a thought, but of\na fact. She was the Greek idea of a lovely woman,\u2014the best physical\ndevelopment of woman. When we have said, \u201cIt is,\u201d we have said all. The\nbirth of Beauty was the only ideal thing about her. She sprang from the\nwave, from the flux and reflux of things, from the undulating line. On\nthis Venus, transitoriness had set its seal. As we look at her, we feel\nthat she must change. Her loveliness is too fair to last. Her beauty\nwould pass next moment. She could not live a year, we think, without\nlosing something of her full grace. It was peculiarly Greek to create a\nbeautiful symbol, and to pause in the symbol. The Greeks were very apt to\ndo this. They did it effectually in the Goddess of Love. She was sportive\nin all her amours. They had no idea of an Everlasting Love. They enjoyed\nthemselves too much to abstract themselves. Venus seemed to Margaret a\nmerely human creature. She was not the type of Universal Beauty: the\nGreek eye was closed to that. Still, their own embodiment did not satisfy\ntheir own need. They filled out their ideal with Venus Urania, Hebe, and\nall the attendant Hours and Graces, yet were not satisfied. Then came the\nfable of Psyche and her three Cupids. Venus was only a pretty girl! Her\ncestus, her doves, her pets, her jealousies, all betray it. The Venus\nUrania was more. _She_ was the child of Celestial Light. Hebe was born of\nimmortal bloom. To fill out the gaps in their conception, Eros, or Love\nin Sadness, Cupid a frolicsome boy, and the more noble, more creative\nLove which brooded over Chaos were evolved from their consciousness.\nPsyche, who did not appear until the age of Augustus, who was too modern\nto be mythological, yet glowing with mythic beauty, was only another\nevidence of their imperfect idea. Her story expresses more than that of\nVenus. It tells not only the story of human love, but represents the\npilgrimage of a soul. The jealousy of Venus was that which the good must\nalways feel toward the better which is to supersede it, and as soon as\nPsyche looked upon her sleeping lover she became immortal. The soul in\nthe fulness of Love became conscious of Destiny.\n\nJAMES CLARKE asked what was the difference between the girl-mother\u2014the\nMadonna\u2014and the Greek Venus.\n\nMARGARET replied, with more patience than I was capable of, that the\nMadonna represented more than passing womanly beauty. She was prophetic,\nand lived again in her child.\n\nThen, persisted JAMES F., why was Vulcan the _husband_ of Beauty, to\nwhich Margaret gave no satisfactory answer. He then gave his own thought,\nto which I can do no justice, although it was what I tried in vain to\nsay at the last conversation. It amounted to this,\u2014that in seeking for\nbeauty we lose it, but in aiming at utility through hard labor we find\nperfect proportion\u2014and consequently perfect beauty. He said that he and\nhis sister Sarah had often spoken to each other about this, and he felt\nthat the time would come when essays would be written about our ships,\nas we now write essays about the Pyramids and the Greek Art. Posterity\nmight find the proof of our search after beauty in the graceful prow\nand swelling hold and tall, tapering mast or shrouds of shredded jet;\nin the bellying canvas and the patron saint which watches the wake from\nthe stern. But we know that the ship, the most beautiful object in our\nmodern world, was the product of labor, gradually evoked, according to\nthe law of fitness, compass, and general proportion. To bring its form\ninto a natural relation to wind and wave, was to find perfect harmony\nand beauty. At first the prow was too sharp, and the water had rushed\nover it; the hold was too shallow, and she sat ungracefully where she now\nrides as mistress.\n\nEMERSON quoted some German author to the same effect.\n\nMR. CLARKE said there was something in one of R. W. E.\u2019s own Essays which\nexpressed the same thing.\n\nEMERSON laughed and said, \u201cVery important authority,\u201d and would have\nchanged the subject, when\u2014\n\nWILLIAM WHITE said that it did not tally well with James Clarke\u2019s theory\nthat the ugly steamer had succeeded the beautiful clipper.\n\nMR. CLARKE said the theory failed only because there was no noble end in\nview. The steamer was not intended to be in harmony with Nature.\n\nEMERSON asked if the Greeks had no symbol for natural beauty. Several\nwere suggested that he would not accept, but he finally took Diana on\nCharles Wheeler\u2019s suggestion.\n\nWHEELER then spoke of the birth of Venus. He said many writers thought\nthe story as late as that of Psyche, and the line of Hesiod relating to\nit an interpolation.\n\nMARGARET thought she should have suspected this if she had never heard\nit. The thought it expressed was too comprehensive to be in keeping with\nthe remainder of her story.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER would not accept the criticism, but went on to talk about\nthe marriage of Venus with Mars, which had amazed Olympus.\n\nMARGARET said the Olympian Deities were like modern men, who talk to\nwomen forever about their softness and delicacy, until women imagine\nthat the only good thing in man is a strong arm. The girl elopes with\na red coat, and the indignant lords of creation wonder why she did not\nappreciate their modest merit and unobtrusive virtues. Poor Beauty _weeps\nout_ the crimson stain upon her escutcheon in a long age of suffering.\n\nA laugh followed this bright sally, and then somebody said that Venus\nonce married Mercury.\n\nMARGARET declared that must be an interpolation, for there were no points\nof sympathy between the Goddess of beauty and the God of craft.\n\nJAMES CLARKE did not know about that; he thought that the finish and\ncompleteness of the late robbery of Davis, Palmer, & Co. constituted a\n_kind of beauty_!\n\nMARGARET said that affair was altogether grand; she had never heard of\nanything so Greek as Williamson\u2019s exclaiming, \u201cGentlemen! you will not\ndeprive me of the implements of my trade?\u201d She could not help respecting\nhis impudence! The Greeks ought to be respected for developing every\nhuman faculty into deity. She thought lying, stealing, and so forth\nonly excesses of a good faculty; and so did the Greeks, for in their\nmistaken way they had deified Mercury. The Spartans taught their children\nto steal, and the Greeks universally acknowledged that to cheat was\nhonorable if it could be concealed.\n\nI remembered the passage in the \u201cRepublic\u201d where Polemarchus confesses\nthat he had learned from Homer to admire Autolycus, grand sire of\nUlysses, distinguished above all men for his thefts and oaths!\nThrasymachus said that the unjust were both prudent and good, if they\nwere able to commit injustice to _perfection_! Is the immortality of\nAutolycus the destiny of Williamson?\n\nWHEELER said there certainly was a well authenticated marriage between\nVenus and Mercury.\n\nI could not help thinking it might be an astral connection that was\nindicated. On that remarkable day of his birth, Mercury was not content\nwith stealing the divining-rod from Apollo; he took also the cestus from\nVenus, the voice from Neptune, the sword from Mars, the will from Zeus,\nand his tools from Vulcan! Sagacity compassed all the deeps of divinity\nto reach its end.\n\nIDA RUSSELL asked if Venus and Astarte were not the same.\n\nMARGARET said Astarte belonged to the stars.\n\nDid not Venus, I wonder? But of course they are creations far asunder as\nthe poles.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER thought Astarte and Venus Urania were the same.\n\nIDA said that could not be. The first statues of Astarte were rough\nblocks of wood, with veiled heads.\n\nSo, I said, were all first statues of Deities; so that was no argument.\n\nWhen JAMES CLARKE asked Margaret to compare Venus with the Madonna, a\ncurious talk arose between Alcott, Margaret, Charles Wheeler, and Emerson.\n\nALCOTT wanted to know why Christ was not as much an impersonation of a\nhuman faculty as either of the Greek Deities!\n\nMARGARET said Jesus was not a thought. He was born on the earth, and\nlived out a thought. He was no abstraction to her, but a brother.\n\nALCOTT wanted to know whether a purer mythology, suited to the wants\nof coming time, might not arise from the mixed mythology of Persians,\nGreeks, and Christians!\n\nA very confusing and tiresome talk arose thereupon, which Charles Wheeler\nsmiled at, but did not join in, and which profited nobody.\n\n                                                   CAROLINE WELLS HEALEY.\n\n    April 3, 1841.\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\nCUPID AND PSYCHE.\n\n\n                                                         _April 9, 1841._\n\nMARGARET thought it would be very impertinent to begin by telling what\neverybody knew,\u2014the old story of Cupid and Psyche.\n\nE. P. P. declared that Margaret never told it twice alike, and at last\nshe yielded and said:\u2014\n\nThe beautiful young princess Psyche was envied by Venus, who sent Eros\nto destroy her; but the God, finding Psyche wholly lovely, wedded her.\nThey lived happily until Psyche began to doubt. Eros had told her that\nshe must not seek to know him; but curiosity prevailed over faith, and\nin looking at him as he slept she wounded and waked him. He left her in\ndismay; and as a punishment the three trials which are the lot of mortals\nwere awarded to her. She must sort grain, she must bring three drops\nfrom the river Styx, and must get the box of beauty from Proserpine. The\nbirds helped her with the grain; but when she reached the banks of the\nStyx and stooped to fulfil the second task, she found the water too dark,\ntoo cold, and the eagle came to her aid. At the prospect of the third\ntrial her soul sank; she refused to undertake it; but, winning from one\nof the Gods the secret of self-dependence, she set off for Tartarus,\ngave the usual sop to Cerberus, and returned with her prize. But she was\n\u201cpossessed\u201d with the idea that the treasures the box contained might\nrestore to her her husband\u2019s love, and she opened the box as she came.\nThe noxious vapors which issued from it deprived her of consciousness,\nand she fell. Eros, who had flown to seek her as soon as his wound was\nhealed, brought her the gift of Immortality which he had begged of\nJupiter.\n\nELISABETH HOAR asked what had become of Psyche\u2019s sisters, whose\ninterference was a striking point in the story.\n\nMARGARET said she knew nothing of them, and wished Miss Hoar would tell\nus. Her own knowledge of the story was gained entirely from Raphael\u2019s\noriginal studies, and his frescos on the walls of a Roman palace.\n\nELISABETH HOAR recapitulated. The parents of Psyche were ordered by the\nangry Venus to expose her upon a high mountain, when Zephyr carried her\nto the embraces of Love, who dwelt in the depths of a quiet valley hard\nby. Her sisters came to bewail her death, and Psyche begged Love to let\nZephyr bring them to rejoice in her happiness. For some time he refused,\ntelling her that it was not for her good, and that she could be happy\nwithout them. This our foolish Psyche would not believe, and at last they\nwere permitted to come, only she must not tell them the little she knew\nabout her husband.\n\nThe first time Psyche had sent them away loaded with gifts. They had\nquestioned her about her husband, and Psyche replied that he was only\na lovely child. The year went round, and again the lovely bride longed\nfor her sisters\u2019 presence. Again the God entreated her to be patient,\nassuring her that if they came it would only be to make her miserable.\nPsyche could not be quieted. Again they came, again they questioned. She\nforgot the story she had previously told, and replied that he was an old\nman, bent with years, but very kind to her. Then the envious women saw\nthat Psyche was herself ignorant of his true nature. They told her that\nhe was a dragon, and meant to devour her; that they had themselves seen\nhim as he passed through the fields. They begged her to take a knife and\nlamp and kill him as he slept. The frightened Psyche consented.\n\nThe God was sleeping in radiant beauty at her side, and as she gazed\nupon him she drew an arrow from his quiver and carelessly scratched\nher finger. Impassioned by the wound, she bent over him, and a drop of\nscalding oil fell from her lamp. Angry and confused, the God awoke, and,\nirritated by the pain, flew away. Psyche clung to him; but she could\nnot support herself, and he was too angry to hold her. She fell to the\nground, and he, perched upon a neighboring tree, reproached her.\n\nMARGARET did not know this, but said she remembered that Psyche tried to\ndrown herself.\n\nELISABETH said that was later. She despaired, and threw herself into\nthe river; but the river pitied her, and bore her to the shore. Venus,\ngrowing tired of her guest, sent Mercury to advertise her. Psyche yielded\nto the terms of the Goddess, rendered herself up, and was busy sorting\nthe gifts in the temple of Beauty when Custom was sent to berate her.\n\nThis, I suppose, is a condensation of the lovely allegory of Apuleius in\nthe second century of our era, but it seems to me Elisabeth made some\nadditions.\n\nMARGARET said that everybody had to contend with the meddlesome sisters.\nThey were at the bottom of every fairy story, from that of Psyche to\nBeauty and the Beast.\n\nELISABETH HOAR said it was always with the young soul as it was with\nPsyche. It could give no account of the love which made it so happy.\n\nSo, I said, every human heart shrivels under a curious touch. Love\nis angry that we wound him, and if he ever does return it is with\nImmortality in his hand. When custom berates, God accepts.\n\nJAMES CLARKE asked if there was not a celebrated statue of Cupid and\nPsyche.\n\nMARGARET had only heard of Canova\u2019s, but James said he was sure there was\none older.\n\nWILLIAM STORY asked if it were older than Apuleius, but James did not\nknow.\n\nIDA RUSSELL said it was wrong for Psyche to look.\n\nYes, MARGARET said, but her temptations were strong; and if they had\nnot come through her sisters, they must have come through her own soul.\nEverything was produced by antagonism. This morning she had taken up\nKreitzer, meaning to open the Greek volume, but took up the Indian. In\nthat Mythology which William Story called deep and all-embracing there\nwere the antagonist principles of Vishnu, or unclouded innocence, and\nBrahm, who could only become pure by wading through all wickedness. There\nseemed to be a need of sin, to work out salvation for human beings.\n\nEMERSON said faith should work out that salvation. It was man\u2019s privilege\nto resist the evil, to strive triumphantly; to recognise it\u2014never! Good\nwas always present to the soul,\u2014was all the true soul took note of. It\nwas a duty not to look!\n\nMARGARET thought it the climax of sin to despair. She believed evil to\nbe a good in the grand scheme of things. She would not recognize it as a\nblunder. She must consider its scope a noble one. In one word, she would\nnot accept the world\u2014for she felt within herself the power to reject\nit\u2014did she not believe evil working in it for good! Man had gained more\nthan he lost by his fall. The ninety-nine sheep in the parable were of\nless value than the \u201clost found,\u201d over which there was joy in heaven.\n\nE. P. P. spoke of the Tree of Life,\u2014which would have made immortal those\nwho ate of the Tree of Knowledge.\n\nCAROLINE STURGIS said that this probation was what she could not\ncomprehend. We began at the circumference, and if we fulfilled our\ndestiny must end by being near the centre. How much better to have begun\nthere! Why could not God have made it so?\n\nWILLIAM STORY began to say that God must seek the best good of all\nhis creatures; but Caroline interrupted him by saying that there was\ncertainly more good at the centre than at the circumference.\n\nWILLIAM WHITE thought all this good, better, and best very puzzling.\n\nMARGARET asked Caroline if she could not see probation to be a good, as\nshe had herself defined it?\n\nAre we better then, than God? asked CAROLINE.\n\nNot better, replied MARGARET, for we cannot compare dissimilar things.\n\nWILLIAM WHITE asked if any one could be more than good, more than pure.\n\nWILLIAM STORY said perfection had its degrees!\n\nWHITE said, How can you progress after you have reached your goal?\n\nAs if any live man ever _did_ reach his goal! said I.\n\nIs there any progress for God? retorted he.\n\nNot any, for that is a contradiction in terms, I said; but surely you\nconceive of it for souls in heaven?\n\nMARGARET said something about the Gospel injunction to be perfect even\nas our Father in Heaven is perfect. Does not \u201ceven as\u201d mean \u201cafter the\npattern of\u201d? Does it involve the _nature_, as well as the _degree_?\n\nEMERSON interrupted quickly, \u201cWe are not finite.\u201d\n\nEverybody smiled; but the best answer to this is found in the fact, that\nwe never conceive of ourselves as infinite and at rest,\u2014only as reaching\nafter the Infinite in our motion.\n\nWHITE said to Caroline Sturgis, \u201cIf evil brings knowledge of good, is it\nnot a gain?\u201d\n\nWILLIAM STORY talked nobly, something to this effect: That good and evil\nwere related terms. If both did not exist, neither could, antagonism\nbeing the spring of most things in the universe.\n\nMARGARET went back to Cupid, and said that in Raphael\u2019s original studies\nCupid was always a boy,\u2014in his frescos, a youth, almost a man. She spoke\nof the difference of expression which he gave to his Venus and his\nPsyche, especially in the eye. That of Psyche was deep and thoughtful.\nThe distinction extended to their attendant Cupids, and was most marked\nin the Psyche when she takes the cup of Immortality from her husband.\n\nMARGARET wanted to pass on to Diana, but there were too many clergymen\nin the company. Everybody was interested in somebody nearer at hand, and\nviews of the unchanging Providence were next presented.\n\nMARGARET said God was the background against which all creation was\nthrown.\n\nWILLIAM STORY asked if she did not think He was greater than his\ncreatures?\n\n\u201cAlways beyond,\u201d was MARGARET\u2019S reply.\n\nCreation, STORY said, was rather the exponent of a _Love_ which _must\nbless_, than of an activity which must act. It was a Paternal power that\n_ruled_, not an autocratic power which _fathered_ us.\n\nMARGARET said that the story of Cupid and Psyche was the story of\nredemption. It contained the seeds of the doctrine of election,\u2014saving by\ngrace, and so on!\n\nA good many queer things were said on various points touched by this.\n\nEMERSON said, that to imagine it possible to fall was to _begin_ to fall.\n\nE. P. P. got into a little maze trying to introduce Margaret and R. W.\nE. to each other,\u2014a consummation which, however devoutly to be wished,\nwill never happen!\n\nJAMES CLARKE told her that she was just where Paul was when he said,\n\u201cWhat then? Shall I sin, that Grace may the more abound?\u201d\n\nEMERSON said the woodlands could tell us most about Diana, about whom we\ncontrived to say very little. The omission of orgies in her worship was\ndwelt upon. Her pure and sacred character with the Athenians was compared\nto that of the Diana of Ephesus, whose orgies were not unusual, and who\nwas considered as a bountiful mother rather than as a virgin huntress.\n\nIDA RUSSELL said that _her_ Mythology accused Diana of being the mother\nof fifty sons and fifty daughters!\n\nMARGARET laughed, and said that certainly was Diana of Ephesus!\n\nThe maddening influence of moonlight was commented upon, as if it were a\nfable; but WILLIAM STORY said it was a fact. In tropical regions very sad\nconsequences resulted from long gazing on the moonlight or sleeping in\nit. In one town he had known sixteen persons bewildered in this way.\n\nWILLIAM WHITE said that in a late book of Nichols it was contended that\nthe moon had some light of her own, because she shows a brazen color even\nunder eclipse, when the dark side of the earth is toward her. But why may\nshe not gather stellar light from the whole universe, as the earth seems\nto?\n\nSALLIE GARDINER said something to William Story in a low voice. He\nlaughed, and said he had been thinking of the consequences of his theory.\n\nMARGARET asked what he was talking about.\n\nSTORY said it was an application of eclipses to his theory that love\nwas the motive to creation. If the sun is beneficent truth shorn of its\nbeams, it would be like the moon, no better than brass!\n\nCAROLINE STURGIS asked why the Mahomedans bore the crescent.\n\nWILLIAM WHITE said because of some change in the moon which occurred at\nthe time of the Hegira.\n\nWILLIAM STORY said that the worshippers at Mecca carried the crescent\nbefore Mahomet\u2019s time. There is a crescent on the black stone.\n\nBoth stories may be true. There is certainly a crescent on the old\nByzantine coin, or besant.\n\nIDA RUSSELL said something about Diana being wedded.\n\nThis reminded E. P. P. of Minerva\u2019s marriage, discussed last week. She\nsaid that Charles Wheeler had seen the gem of which she then spoke, and\nthat Neptune was the favored suitor.\n\nWILLIAM STORY said the Greeks could not wed Neptune to Diana, for the\ntides were too low in the Mediterranean!\n\n                                                            C. W. HEALEY.\n\n    April 10, 1841.\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\nPLUTO AND TARTARUS.\n\n\n                                                        _April 15, 1841._\n\nMARGARET said very little about Pluto. On the first evening she had\ncalled him the depth of things, and JAMES CLARKE now had a good deal\nto say upon the three ideas which she thought pervaded the Greek\nmythology,\u2014the source, the depth, and the extent or flow of thought. He\nsaid that this distinction had struck him very forcibly when Margaret\nfirst mentioned it. We speak of widely diffused thought, of aspiring and\nprofound thought; of sympathetic, exalted, or deep feeling,\u2014and this\nseemed to exhaust language. It was through the depths of feeling and\nexperience that we came to the profound of thought.\n\nE. P. P. said, \u201cThere is no genius in happiness.\u201d Not a very intelligible\nstatement.\n\nMARGARET said, \u201cThere is nothing worth knowing that has not some penalty\nattached to it. We pay it the more willingly in proportion as we grow\nwise. Depth, altitude, diffusion, are the three births of Time. It is\nthis which makes the German cover the operations of the miner with a\nmystic veil. Bostonians laugh at the Germans because they think.\u201d\n\nWHEELER liked what Mr. Clarke said, and added that there was meaning in\nthe Irish phrase, \u201c_Lower me up_.\u201d\n\nMARGARET said that all the punishments of Tartarus expressed baffled\neffort, the penalty least endurable to the active Greek.\n\nMR. MACK thought it singular that in every nation where the belief in\nTartarus had prevailed, an exact locality had always been assigned to it.\n\nWILLIAM WHITE said that, so long as anybody could point out the locality\nof the garden of Eden, we had no need to smile at the locality of a\nTartarus or an Elysium.\n\nI do not think these \u201cmyths\u201d belong to the same class.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER quoted Champollion to the effect that the Styx was only\na small river flowing between the Temple at Thebes and a neighboring\n\u201cplace of tombs.\u201d The ferryman was named Charon, and the Egyptian habit\nof judging the dead probably gave rise to the rest of the fable.\n\nMARGARET said, \u201cThis was very natural.\u201d She asked Mr. Wheeler the meaning\nof certain names.\n\nPhlegethon, he answered, meant burning fire; Acheron, anguish.\n\nWhy did not somebody say that the lifeless current of the Styx first\ntempted Homer to give it to the Infernals? It is in reality a river of\nEpeiros.\n\nThe Styx, WHEELER said, was a cold unhealthy stream, like that which\ncaused the death of Alexander. It flowed slowly through Acadia, but was\nsupposed to take its rise in Hades. Lethe is a river near the Syrtus in\nAfrica. It disappears in the sand, but rises again. Hence its name.\n\nMR. WHEELER had some difficulty in explaining certain inconsistencies in\nthe poets.\n\nMR. CLARKE quoted the remark of Achilles (?) concerning Elysium,\u2014that a\nday of hard labor on earth was preferable to an eternity of pleasure in\nElysian fields!\n\nMARGARET said that in Elysium, as in Tartarus, souls waited. These\nrestless Greeks could do nothing. They were cut off from action, which\nwas their delight. All their punishments seem to consist of frustrated\neffort,\u2014the consequence of some presumption. Tantalus was ever thirsty\nand ever famished because he had aspired to nectar and ambrosia. Ixion,\nwho would have scaled the heavens, was condemned to incessant revolution\nupon a wheel, which never paused yet never accomplished anything. The\nDanaides, who murdered the love which wooed them, were doomed to fill a\nbroken vessel with water which as constantly escaped. Sisyphus, who had\nnever labored except for a selfish end, was to roll a stone up hill,\nwhich as constantly rolled down,\u2014fit emblem of all selfish labor. As for\nTityrus, who sought to violate the secrets of Nature, the vulture fed\nalways upon his entrails.\n\nWHEELER said this did not represent frustrated effort.\n\nMARGARET said, No: this was remorse; but there was an admirable instance\nof the former given by Goethe, of a man who wove rope from the sedges\nwhich grew upon the banks of Lethe, for an ass who continually devoured\nit. The moral seemed to be that the ass could just as well have eaten\nthem unwoven. Goethe goes on to say that the Greeks only thought that the\npoor man had a prodigal wife, but that the moderns would look deeper and\nsee more in the fable.\n\nWe all weave sedges for asses to eat, thought I.\n\nMARGARET seemed to think that every heart might have an experience which\nwould correspond to Tartarus. Every hero must visit it at least once.\n\nI suggested Pluto, Persephone, the Fates, the Gorgons, the Furies, and\nCerberus. Pluto was equal to Neptune and Jupiter.\n\nMARGARET continued: Hades was not given to Pluto to mark defective\ncharacter, but simply as his kingdom. His wants were all supplied. The\nbride Olympus refused him he was permitted to steal from earth while\nshe gathered flowers. Persephone, seed of all things, must dwell in the\ndark; but another legend tells us that if she had been willing to leave\nher veil, she might have stolen away. There was a meaning in her being\nforbidden to eat in the infernal regions. Fate said, \u201cDo not touch what\nyou don\u2019t want.\u201d Psyche was forbidden to partake of the regal banquet\nPersephone spread. Seeking for Immortality, this soul, like every other,\nmust be content to eat bitter bread.\n\nThere was then a talk about Cerberus and the Gorgons.\n\nMR. CLARKE said that in the New Testament the dog seemed to stand for\npopular prejudice. The swine stood for what _could_ not, the dog for what\n_would_ not, be convinced.\n\nYes, MARGARET said, the wolf is a misanthropic dog. He has little dignity.\n\nIDA RUSSELL said Cerberus stood for the temperaments.\n\nWell, MARGARET said, that being so, she liked the Greeks for making no\nallowance for the lymphatic. To what, she continued, do we offer the\nfirst sop, as we pass through life? As for the Gorgons, every one, she\nthought, would find his own interpretation of them. To her there was no\nGorgon but _apathy_; there is nothing in creation that will so soon turn\na live man into stone. These Gorgons were three women, who used one eye\nand one tooth between them,\u2014except Medusa, who was beautiful and perfect.\nHer hair had provoked the envy of Minerva, and was changed into serpents.\nMargaret had a copy of a gem, which Marion Dwight had made for her, which\nshowed this.\n\nE. P. P. asked if Perseus did not endeavor to show Medusa her own head.\n\nMARGARET said that might well rouse her!\n\nCHARLES WHEELER explained. Perseus only used a mirror given him by\nMinerva to avoid looking at the Gorgon.\n\nCAROLINE STURGIS said that the old woman who keeps house for Helen in the\nsecond part of \u201cFaust\u201d was a Gorgon to her.\n\nThis dragged a critical analysis of the \u201cFaust\u201d forward.\n\nMARGARET said the Seeker represents the Spirit of the Age. He never\nsinned save by yielding, and yet he was emphatically _saved by grace_.\nIt was difficult to see what Goethe meant until he got to the Tower of\nthe Middle Ages. That made all clear.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER said, the reader would a great deal rather that Faust\nwent to the Devil than not!\n\nMARGARET defended Goethe\u2019s way of exhibiting character, of which Wilhelm\nMeister was an instance. Goethe said to himself, What should I do with a\nhero in such rascally society? Meister preferred the Brahmal experience.\n\nE. P. P. asked if this moral indifference was well?\n\nMARGARET replied, that it was just as frightful as any other Gorgon. If\nwe are to have a purely intellectual development, it was well for a man\nlike Goethe to represent it. To choose fairly between evil and good, the\nintellect must regard both with indifference.\n\nSomebody asked how the Gorgon\u2019s head came to be on the \u00c6gis of Minerva?\n\nIf Apathy is the Gorgon, surely Wisdom needs it!\n\nThen we began to talk about Theseus in connection with Tartarus. Why\nshould he sit forever on a stone?\n\nMARGARET thought he represented reform!\n\nMR. MACK said reform checked itself by its own fanaticism.\n\nWHEELER, in this connection, asked after the Greek notion of\naccountability.\n\nMARGARET did not think the Greeks had any.\n\nWHEELER assured her to the contrary, and told anecdotes to prove it. He\nspoke of the fatal transmission of guilt in one family, generation after\ngeneration.\n\nMARGARET said the Greeks never rejected facts.\n\nIDA RUSSELL spoke of the last King of Athens, Codrus, supposed to have\nbeen punished for the crimes of his ancestors.\n\nWHEELER said that when the Greeks killed some ambassadors, they felt so\nsure that Heaven would avenge the sin that they sent two citizens to\nexpiate it; but Darius, to whom they were sent, refused to release the\nGreeks from their impending doom.\n\nMARGARET said the moment such a supposition was started, there were\nplenty of facts to sustain it. Orestes is the purified victim of his\nfamily. The old Greeks had made no complete statement of their destiny or\ntheir accountability.\n\nE. P. P. said they had made it in art.\n\n                                                            C. W. HEALEY.\n\n    April 16, 1841.\n\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\nMERCURY AND ORPHEUS.\n\n\n                                                        _April 22, 1841._\n\nMARGARET said it surprised her that young men did not seek to be\nMercuries. She said that one of the ugliest young men that she knew had\nbecome so enraptured with one of Raphael\u2019s Mercuries, that he confessed\nto her that he was never alone without trying to assume its attitude\nbefore the glass. She said she could not help laughing at the image he\nsuggested, an ugly figure in high-heeled boots and a strait-coat in the\nact of flying, commissioned with every grace from Heaven to men! but she\nrespected the feeling, and thought every sensitive soul must share it.\n\nEMERSON had sent Sophia Peabody several fine engravings. One of these, a\nCorreggio, represented a woman of Parma as a Madonna. It might give any\nwoman a similar desire.\n\nWilliam Story, Frank Shaw, Mr. Mack and his friends, Mrs. Ripley, Ida\nRussell, and Mrs. S. G. Ward were all missing to-night.\n\nMARGARET said that she was sorry she had allowed our subject to embrace\nso much. The Grecian Mercury seemed to mean so little that she had not\nthought of the depth and difficulty connected with the Egyptian Hermes.\nAmong the Greeks, Ceres, Persephone, and Juno represent the productive\nfaculties, Jupiter and Apollo the divine, and Mercury simply the human\nunderstanding, the God of eloquence and of thieves.\n\nMARIANNE JACKSON thought it strange that he should be at once the God of\npersuasion and the Deity of theft!\n\nMARGARET said eloquence was a kind of thieving!\n\nDid the Greeks so consider it? asked MARIANNE.\n\nMARGARET said, Yes, more than any nation in the world, and taught their\nchildren so to do; and in fact such mental recognitions were what\ndistinguished the nation from all other peoples.\n\nThe Egyptian Hermes represented the whole intellectual progress of\nman. If one made a discovery it was signed Hermes, and under that name\ntransmitted to posterity. Hence the forty volumes of Hermetic theology,\nphilosophy, and so on. Individuals were merged in the God. Hermes was\nalways the mediator, the peacemaker, and it was in this relation that the\nbeautiful story was told of the caduceus. Mercury has originally only\nthe divining-rod which Apollo had given him, but, finding two serpents\nfighting one day, he pacified them, and had ever after the right to bear\nthem embracing on his rod. There was another story, Margaret said, which\nshe could not understand,\u2014the story of his obtaining the head of the\nIbis from Osiris. Hermes kept the _first_ or outside gates of Heaven, a\nsignificant fact typically considered.\n\nI am sure there is something in Heeren\u2019s researches about the Ibis story,\nbut Caroline Sturgis said, No.\n\nWILLIAM WHITE asked if the God gave the name to the planet?\n\nMARGARET said, Yes; and it was given because it stood nearest the sun.\n\nE. P. P. said Plutarch had written something about Hermes in his \u201cMorals.\u201d\n\nMARGARET said, Perhaps so, but she didn\u2019t know, as she never _could_ read\nthem. Plutarch went round and round a story; presented all the corners\nof it, told all the pretty bits of gossip he could find, instead of\npenetrating to its secret. So she preferred his anecdotes of Heroes to\nhis Parallels or Essays.\n\nI said, in surprise, how much I liked the \u201cMorals.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d MARGARET said, \u201ceven Emerson paid the book the high compliment of\ncalling it his tuning-key, when he was about to write.\u201d\n\nE. P. P. said Coleridge was _her own_ tuning-key, and asked Margaret if\nshe had no such friendly instigator.\n\nMARGARET said she could keep up no intimacy with books. She loved a\nbook dearly for a while; but as soon as she began to look out a nice\nMorocco cover for her favorite, she was sure to take a disgust to it,\nto outgrow it. She did not mean that she outgrew the author, but that,\nhaving received all from him that he could give her, he tired her. That\nhad even been the case with Shakespeare! For several years he was her\nvery life; then she gave him up. About two years ago she had occasion\nto look into \u201cHamlet,\u201d and then wished to refresh her love, but found\nit impossible. It was the same with Ovid, whose luxuriant fancy had\ndelighted her girlhood. She took him up, and read a little with all her\nyouthful glow; but it would not last. Friends must part, but why need\nwe part from our books? She regretted her oddity, for she lost a great\nsolace by it.\n\nShe proceeded to contrast the Apollo with Mercury. In Egypt, Hermes was\nthe experimental Deity, the Brahma.\n\nCAROLINE STURGIS asked what the Hermes on the door-posts of the Athenian\nhouses meant.\n\nMARGARET thought that he posed there as a messenger, an opener of the\ngates merely, and then spoke of several Mercuries by Raphael. One she\nknew, so full of beauty and grace that it seemed a single trumpet-tone.\nAnother all loveliness was handing the cup of life to Psyche. She\nwondered that such symbols as Apollo and Mercury did not inspire all\nyoung men with ardor, and make them something better than young men\nusually are.\n\nWILLIAM WHITE said Apollo was too far beyond the average man to do this;\nbut that Mercury, graceful and vivacious, would naturally attract the\nattention.\n\nMARGARET asked if he would be an easier model to imitate, and then\nrepeated her anecdote about the ugly youth who longed to be a Mercury.\n\nWILLIAM said that if his faith had been strong enough, the transformation\nmight have taken place.\n\nQuery\u2014what is meant by strong _enough_?\n\nMARGARET spoke of the Egyptian Osiris in his relation to Hermes, and said\nthat she did not like _him_ to be confounded with the Apollo. He was in\nreality the Egyptian Jove.\n\nThis led me to speak of the Orphic Hymn in which Apollo is addressed as\n\u201cimmortal Jove.\u201d\n\nMARGARET said she had discovered very little about Orpheus. In relation\nto the five points of Orphic theology, she had lately read a posthumous\nleaf from Goethe\u2019s Journal. The existence of a D\u00e6mon seemed to be a\nfavorite idea of his. He did not believe with Emerson that all things\nwere in our own souls, but that they existed in _the original souls_,\n(does anybody know what that means?) and we must go out to seek them.\nThis notion Goethe thought verified by his own experience. Goethe\u2019s\nworks, Margaret thought, had more variety than anybody\u2019s except\nShakespeare\u2019s. His powers of observation seemed to condense his genius.\n\nWILLIAM WHITE wondered why Goethe showed such tenderness for Byron.\n\nMARGARET said that in every important sense Byron was his very opposite;\nbut Goethe hardly looked upon him as a responsible being. He was rather\nthe instrument of a _higher_ power. He was the exponent of his period.\n\nSOPHIA PEABODY had been making a drawing of Crawford\u2019s Orpheus at the\nAthen\u00e6um. It was here brought down for me to see.\n\nAt Sophia\u2019s request, MARGARET repeated a sonnet she had written on it.\nShe recited it wretchedly, but the sonnet was pleasant.\n\nI spoke of Bode\u2019s Essay on the Orphic Poetry, and sympathized in his view\nof the spuriousness of the Hymns. They might have been signed Orpheus,\nhowever, as other things were signed Hermes, simply because they were\nexponents of Orphic thought.\n\nMARGARET dilated on this Orphic thought.\n\nI quoted Proclus in his Commentary on Plato\u2019s \u201cRepublic\u201d as follows:\u2014\n\n    \u201cMars perpetually discerns and nourishes, and constantly\n    excites the contrarieties of the Universe, that the world may\n    exist perfect and entire in all its parts; but requires the\n    assistance of Venus, that he may bring order and harmony into\n    things contrary and discordant.\n\n    \u201cVulcan adorns by his art the sensible universe, which he\n    fills with certain natural impulses, powers, and proportions;\n    but _he_ requires the assistance of Venus, that he may invest\n    material effects with beauty, and by this means secure the\n    comeliness of the world. Venus is the source of all the\n    harmony and analogy in the Universe, and of the union of form\n    with matter, connecting and comprehending the powers of the\n    elements. Although this Goddess ranks among the supermundane\n    divinities, yet her principal employment consists in\n    beautifully illuminating the order, harmony, and communion of\n    all mundane concerns.\u201d\n\nI asked MARGARET if this was not something like her own thought,\u2014this\nVenus, for example, was it not better than that we got from Greek art?\n\nShe said it was the primal idea, but she did not attach much importance\nto chronology. Philosophy must decide the age of a thought.\n\nI gave her as good an abstract of Bode\u2019s theory as I could.\n\nWILLIAM WHITE took the drawing of Orpheus from me, and, while speaking of\nits beauty, said it always made him angry to think of the deterioration\nof the human figure. He thought it ought to have been prevented, and\nthat his ancestors had deprived him of his rights.\n\nUpon this, MARGARET entered into a lively disquisition upon masculine\nbeauty. She said the best specimens of it she had ever seen were a\nSouthern oddity named Hutchinson and some Cambridge students who came\nfrom Virginia.\n\nWe lost a finer talk to-night through the inclemency of the weather.\nWHEELER was to have come with a great stock of information. Had he done\nso, I need not have quoted Bode or Proclus.\n\n                                                      CAROLINE W. HEALEY.\n\n    April 23, 1841.\n\n\n\n\nIX.\n\nHERMES AND ORPHEUS.\n\n\n                                                        _April 29, 1841._\n\nWe did not have a very bright talk. There were few present, and we had\nonly the subject of last week. MARGARET did not speak at length. WHEELER\nhad been ill, and his physician prescribed light diet of both body and\nmind.\n\nSomebody spoke of Mercury sweeping the courts of the Gods, but that\nsuggested nothing to Margaret.\n\nSARAH SHAW had a pin, with a Mercury on it, represented as holding the\nhead of a goat.\n\nMARGARET had never seen anything that would explain it, and there was\nsome dispute about it.\n\nE. P. P. said that, according to the Orphic Hymn, Mercury sought the love\nof Dryope under the form of a goat. Pan was the fruit of that amour. In\nthis form also he wooed Diana.\n\nWe wandered from our subject a little, to hear MR. MACK talk about the\nGorgons. He thought they stood for the three sides of human nature.\nMedusa, the chief care-taker, the body, was the only one not immortal,\nand the only one beautiful. Stheno and Euryale, wide-extended force\nand wide-extended scope, represented spirit and intellect, essentially\nimmortal. The changing of Medusa\u2019s curls (or elements of strength) into\nserpents represented the fall. It was not the Gorgons who had but one eye\nand one tooth between them, but three sister guardians, whom Perseus was\ncompelled to destroy before he could reach Medusa.\n\nMR. MACK did not tell us why human nature so divided had a certain\npetrifying power!\n\nE. P. P. thought the intellect, not the body, was the care-taker.\nMr. Mack tried in vain to explain, owing, I think, to his German\nmisconception of words. Certainly the five senses are the _providers_,\nwhich was what he must have meant.\n\nMARGARET liked his theory, because there was a place in it for sin! She\ndisliked failure. Perhaps we all had perceived her attachment to evil!\nNot that she wished men to fall into it, but it must be accepted as one\nmeans of final good.\n\nThe only copies of Bode belong to Edward Everett and Theodore Parker.\nNeither is at this moment to be had. The talk turned on the age of the\nOrphic idea.\n\nThe Orphic Hymns, WHEELER said, were merely hymns of initiation into\nthe Orphic mysteries. They were altered by every successive priesthood,\nand finally by the Christian Platonists. Those now remaining were\nundoubtedly their work. Perhaps the ancient formulas were still hidden\nin them. We know the beautiful story of Orpheus. If he indeed represents\nmany, yet all that has been said of him is also true of one.\n\nMR. MACK declared that Eurydice represented the true faith! She was\nkilled by an envenomed serpent, which might possibly stand for an enraged\npriesthood!\n\nI got a little impatient here, and said I did not care to know about the\nHymns; but the Orphic idea, which made Scaliger speak of the Hymns as the\n\u201cLiturgy of Satan,\u201d\u2014how old was that?\n\nMARGARET could not guess why he called them so.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER said that, since they made a heathen worship attractive,\nperhaps he fancied them a device of the Evil One!\n\nToo great a compliment to Scaliger, I thought.\n\nMARGARET had no objection to Orpheus as crowning an age; she liked that\nmultitudes should produce one.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER said that Carlyle had spoken of Orpheus as standing in\nsuch a relation to the Greeks as Odin bore to the Scandinavians.\n\nMARGARET said at this point (I don\u2019t see with what pertinency) that\nCarlyle displeased her by making so much of mere men.\n\nJAMES CLARKE quoted Milton, speaking of himself among the revellers of\nthe Stuart Court, as like Orpheus among the Bacchanals.\n\nI said that Bode placed Homer in the tenth century before Christ, and\nOrpheus in the age just preceding, say the thirteenth century before.\n\nMR. MACK thought all that mere conjecture.\n\nI told him it made a good deal of difference to me whether the Orphic\nMythology came before or after that of Homer. Had man grown out of the\nnoble and into the base idea? Was all our knowledge only memory? Had the\nOrphic fancies no beauty till the Platonic Christians shaped them?\n\nMARGARET responded to what I said, that she did not like a mind always\nlooking back.\n\nE. P. P. said there was a great deal of consolation in it. Memory was\nprophecy. She didn\u2019t like such a mind, but since she happened to have it\nshe wanted support for it.\n\nMR. MACK said all history offered such support.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER didn\u2019t like to believe it, but felt that he must. He\nspoke of the Golden Age.\n\nMARGARET said every nation looked back to this; but, after all, it was\nonly the ideal. The past was a curtain on which they embroidered their\npictures of the present.\n\nWILLIAM WHITE said that all great men looked to the appreciation of the\nfuture. We are too near to the present.\n\nMARGARET agreed.\n\nE. P. P. said, all the science of Europe could not offer anything like\nthe old Egyptian lore.\n\nMARGARET said the moderns needed the assistance of a despotic government.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER spoke of the monuments in Central America; but before he\ncould utter what was in his mind, MARGARET interrupted, saying that all\nthe greatness of the Mexicans only sufficed to show their littleness. We\nmight have lost in grandeur and piety, but we had gained in a thousand\ntag-rag ways.\n\nMRS. FARRAR whispered to me, \u201cWrite that down!\u201d and I have done it.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER said that late discoveries proved that there was a\ncomplete knowledge of electricity among the ancients. There were\nlightning-rods on the temple at Jerusalem, and they are described by\nJosephus, who however does not know what they are.\n\nMARGARET and I clung to the \u201ctag-rag\u201d gain.\n\nCHARLES WHEELER agreed with me in thinking the Orphic Hymns of very late\norigin.\n\nMARGARET could not see the use of creating a race of giants to prepare\nthe earth for pygmies! If these must exist, why not in some other sphere?\nShe referred to the beautiful Persian fable. The _first_ was God, of\ncourse; since man may always revert to Him, what matter about the giants?\n\nI said that primitive ages were supposed to be innocent rather than great.\n\nMARGARET said the Persian fable bore to the same point as the Vishnu\nand Brahma. It was antagonism that produced all things. The universe at\nfirst was one Conscious Being,\u2014\u201cI am;\u201d no word, no darkness, no light.\nThis Conscious Being needed to know itself, and it passed into darkness\nand light and a third being,\u2014the Mediator between the two. This Trinity\nproduced ideals,\u2014men, animals, things; and after a period of twelve\nthousand years all return again into the One, who has gained by the\nphenomena only a multiplied consciousness.\n\n\u201cWere they _merged_?\u201d asked CHARLES WHEELER.\n\nMARGARET said, \u201cNo! once created, they could not lose identity.\u201d\n\n                                                            C. W. HEALEY.\n\n    April 30, 1841.\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\nBACCHUS AND THE DEMIGODS.\n\n\n                                                           _May 6, 1841._\n\nFew present. Our last talk, and we were all dull. For my part, Bacchus\ndoes not inspire me, and I was sad because it was the last time that I\nshould see Margaret. She does not love me; I could not venture to follow\nher into her own home, and I love her so much! Her life hangs on a\nthread. Her face is full of the marks of pain. Young as I am, I feel old\nwhen I look at her.\n\nMARGARET spoke of Hercules as representing the course of the solar year.\nThe three apples were the three seasons of four months each into which\nthe ancients divided it. The twelve labors were the twelve signs.\n\nE. P. P. accepted this, and spoke of Bryant\u2019s book, which Margaret did\nnot like.\n\nMARGARET said Bryant forced every fact to be a point in a case. Bending\neach to his theory, he falsified it. She wished English people would\nbe content, like the wiser Germans, to amass classified facts on which\noriginal minds could act. She liked to see the Germans so content to\nthrow their gifts upon the pile to go down to posterity, though the pile\nmight carry no record of the collectors. She spoke of Kreitzer, whose\nbook she was now reading, who coolly told his readers that he should not\nclassify a second edition afresh, for his French translator had done it\nwell enough, and if readers were not satisfied with his own work, they\nmust have recourse to the translation. This she thought was as it ought\nto be.\n\nJAMES CLARKE said it always vexed him to hear ignorant people speak of\nHercules as if he were a God, and of Apollo and Jupiter as if they might\nat some time have been men.\n\nMARGARET said, Yes, the distinction between Gods and Demigods was that\nthe former were the creations of pure spontaneity, and the latter\nactually existent personages, about whose heroic characters and lives all\ncongenial stories clustered.\n\nJ. F. C. did not like the statues of Hercules; the brawny figure was not\nto his taste.\n\nMARGARET thought it majestic. She said he belonged properly to Thessaly,\nand was identified with its scenery. She told several little stories\nabout him. That of his sailing round the rock of Prometheus, in a golden\ncup borrowed of Jupiter, was the least known. She told the story from\nOvid, the glowing account of his death, of the recognition by delighted\nJove. She said Wordsworth\u2019s \u201cTour in Greece\u201d gave her great materials for\nthought.\n\nThen she turned to Bacchus.\n\nTo show in what manner she supposed Bacchus to be the _answer_ or\ncomplement to Apollo, she mentioned the statement of some late critic\nupon the relation of Ceres and Persephone to each other.\n\nPersephone was the hidden energy, the vestal fire, vivifying the\nuniverse. Ceres was the productive faculty, external, bounteous. They\nwere two phases of one thing. It was the same with Apollo and Bacchus.\nApollo was the vivifying power of the sun; its genial glow stirred the\nearth, and its noblest product, the grape, responded.\n\nShe spoke of the Bacchanalian festivals, of the spiritual character\nattributed to them by Euripides, showing that originally they were\nsomething more than gross orgies.\n\nMRS. CLARKE (ANN WILBY) said that they licensed the wildest drunkenness\nin Athens.\n\nI said that was at a later time than Euripides undertook to picture. Were\nthey identical with the Orphic? Did Orpheus really bring them from Egypt?\n\nMARGARET would accept that for a _beginning_.\n\nE. P. P. thought that next winter we might have a talk about Roman\nMythology.\n\nMARGARET liked the idea, and JAMES CLARKE seemed to accept it for the\nwhole party. He said that he had never felt any interest in the Greek\nstories, until Margaret had made them the subject of conversation.\n\nE. P. P. said she had felt excessively ashamed all through that she knew\nso little.\n\nMARGARET said no one need to feel so. It was a subject that might exhaust\nany preparation. Still, she wished we _would_ study! She had herself\nenjoyed great advantages. Nobody\u2019s explanations had ever perplexed her\nbrain. She had been placed in a garden, with a great pile of books before\nher. She began to read Latin before she read English. For a time these\ndeities were real to her, and she prayed: \u201cO God! if thou art Jupiter!\u201d\netc.\n\nJAMES CLARKE said he remembered her once telling him that she prayed to\nBacchus for a bunch of grapes!\n\nMARGARET smiled, and said that when she was first old enough to think\nabout Christianity, she cried out for her dear old Greek gods. Its\nspirituality seemed nakedness. She could not and would not receive it. It\nwas a long while before she saw its deeper meaning.\n\n                                                      CAROLINE W. HEALEY.\n\n    May 7, 1841.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n[1] Emerson\u2019s presence at Conversations II. V. and VIII. is noted above,\nbecause in his contribution to Margaret\u2019s \u201cMemoirs\u201d he shows that his\nattendance made absolutely no impression on him. He states that there\nwere but _five_ Conversations, and that he was present only at the second.\n\n[2] Dr. Dana, a celebrated chemist, received a salary from the Merrimac\nManufacturing Co. as consulting chemist. Through his experiments and\npractical skill, a radical change was made in the methods of dyeing and\nprinting calicoes. This was in connection with the use of madder, and\nthe Company claimed his discovery and allowed him no extra recompense.\nIt will be perceived that Mr. Ripley got his supposed facts from the\nnewspapers.","title":"Margaret and Her Friends: or, Ten conversations with Margaret Fuller upon the mythology of the Greeks and its expression in art, held at the house of the Rev. George Ripley, Bedford Place, Boston, beginning March 1, 1841","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":20290}