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.A
MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
What we Really Know

speare.
i2mo, cloth.
about Shake-
Price, $1.25.
The Life
Kinswoman
of Dr. Anandabai Joshee, a of the Pundita Ramabai.

Price, $1.00.
i2mo, cloth.
Letters Home from Colorado, Utah,
and California. i2mo. Price, $1.50. Barbara Fritchie. A Study. With Portrait.
i2mo.
Price, $1.00.
ROBERTS BROTHERS,
Publishers.
MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS

OR
&txi Conbersattons;
WITH
MARGARET FULLER
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,
184-1
REPORTED BY CAROLINE W. HEALEY
BOSTON
ROBERTS BROTHERS
1895
3V
Copyright, 1895,
By Roberts Brothers.
All rights reserved.
JHttibetsttB
Press:
S.
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.
A.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Page
Preface
Members of the Class General Mythological Statement I. Statement Continued. General II. R. W. E. Present 1 Story from Novalis. Apollo III. IV. Minerva. The Serpent and Psyche. R. W. E. V. Venus
.
.
17 25
40
60
77
Present
VI.
95
Cupid and Psyche.
Margaret, and
106 123
Elisabeth Hoar
VII.
VIII.
Pluto and Tartarus
Mercury and Orpheus.

Present
R.
W.
E.
135
IX.
X.
Hermes and Orpheus Bacchus and the Demigods
147
.
156
1 Emerson's presence at Conversations II. V. and VIII. noted above, because in his contribution to Margaret's " Memoirs " he shows that his attendance made absolutely He states that there were but Jive no impression on him. Conversations, and that he was present only at the second.
is
PREFACE.
TN
1839, Margaret Fuller, delicate in

health
and much
overtaxed,
con-
sented to gratify
many who
loved her
by opening
in
Boston a series of " Con-
versations for
Women."
In a Circular
quoted by Emerson, she says to Mrs.

Sophia Ripley
:
" Could a circle be assembled in earnest,
desirous to answer the questions,
What were
it ?
'
we born
to
do
?
'
and
'
How
shall
we do
should think the undertaking a noble one.'
This was certainly the original intent

of
the famous " Fuller Conversations,"
which, beginning then, were continued at
6
intervals, until
PREFACE.
Margaret
left
Boston
for
New York
It
in 1844.
little
seems a
singular, therefore, to
find her writing to
Ralph Waldo EmerNov.

25,
son
of this
:
series,
follows
"
of
first
1839,
as
The
day's topic was the genealogy

;
Heaven and Earth

;
then
the
Will or
:
Jupiter
the
day's,
Understanding, Mercury
the
of
second
The
celestial
inspiration
Genius, perception and transmission of Divine
Law
Apollo the terrene inspiration, Bacchus
the impassioned abandonment.

derbolt, the caduceus, the ray
Of the thun-
and the grape,
having disposed as well as might be, we came

to the
wave and the

. . .
sea-shell
it
moulds
to
beauty.
"I assure you, there
is
more Greek than

!
Bostonian spoken at the meetings "
Under the forms suggested by Mythology, Margaret proceeded to open

all
the great questions of
life.
In a literary
sense, she distinctly stated that she
knew
PREFACE.
little
about the doings on Olympus, nor
had she received any help from German

critical
works,
of which at
the present
day she would have found many.

These Conversations owed their
attrac-
tion first to the absolute novelty of her
theme
and
to
many
own
of those she addressed,
still
more
to the variety
and fresh-
ness of her
ing,
treatment.
The openof
at
the Boston
Athenaeum,
the
splendid collection of casts presented
by
Thomas Handasyd
private
ings,
Perkins, and
of
many
in-
collections
pictures,
casts,
engrav-
gems, and miniature
had
terested her intensely, and both
mind and
fancy were absorbed in the contemplation of their themes.
In these Conver-
sations she depicted
what she had gained

little
from Art, rather than the
that she
had acquired through study.
If I
may
judge from a later experience, her Latin

studies rather injured than developed her
PREFACE.
She never could
re-
brilliant fancies.
member what
to read
she had said, never could

if
repeat a brilliant saying, and,
obliged
any
illustration,
read
it,
as all her
friends
admitted, very badly.
From a
quote the
statement
following
"
:
made
to
Emerson,
applied itself to the
Her mood
mood
of her
companion, point to point, in the most limber,

sinuous, vital
way
and
this
sympathy
she had for
all
persons indifferently."
The communication of which the above

is
a sample
have always read with

never knew a person
less true.
amazement,
of
for I
whom
it
would seem
When
resting
conversing with one sympathetic person,

it
was undoubtedly true

affection
when
upon the
and loyalty of her
young women,
traordinary
most gifted and ex-
circle,
it
was
doubtless
equally so
but when the class of March,
PREFACE.
1841, was formed, a very different aspect

of herself appeared.
The fame
of the
of her " talks "
had spread.
She had great need of money, and some

gentlemen who were accustomed
to talk with her,
and some
of the ladies
of her day-class, suggested an evening

class, to
be composed of both ladies and
gentlemen, and to meet at the house of

the Rev. George Ripley in Bedford Place.
Ten Conversations were

the
tickets
dollars each, a
to be held,
and
of admission
cost
twenty
very high price for that
time.
It
was
in the
book-room of
first
Elisadis-
beth Peabody that I

cussed.
I
;
heard them
was very young
to join such
Elisa-
a circle
and when she invited me,
beth had more regard, I think, to Margaret's purse, than to
my
fitness for the
company.
nity.
But
the
it
was a great opportufull of excite-
The members were

over
ment
projected
opening of
10
PREFACE.
All were in good spirits,
forth.
Brook Farm.
and bright sayings ran back and

I
had been carefully trained in the Art

and
at
of Reporting,
that
time
made
In
careful abstracts
on the following day of
any lecture that had interested me.

these I trusted to
my
this
memory.
It
was
not possible to do
with the Convera sort of short-
sations; so I invented
hand, and carried note-book and pencil with
me.
sat a
little
out of sight
that I might not embarrass Margaret, but
Elisabeth Peabody and Mrs. Farrar found
me
out.
Elisabeth wrote what she called

;
an abstract, every night
but an examina-
tion of her abstracts quoted
by Mr. Emer-
son shows that what she wrote was not
what any one
said,
but the impression

it.
made upon her own mind by

morning.
I wrote out
These
abstracts she always read to me, the next
my
short-hand
notes before breakfast and carried
them
PREFACE.
11
I greatly en-
down
was
to her about noon.
joyed listening to her papers, and she

so absorbed in
them that she often
forgot to ask for mine, which was a great

relief to
me.
I
So far as
know, these Reports
of
mine are the only attempt ever made

deliberately to represent
these or any
of Margaret's " Conversations " word for
word.
Of course, much was omitted
as
not worth recording, nor did I ever write
down anything
stand.
that I could not underof the
Many
members
and
knew
intimately, and fell naturally into writ-
ing of them by
as they
initials
first
names,
always spoke to and of each
other.
At times
fell
back into the
Mr., Mrs., or Miss, which was

habit.
It is well to call those
my own
we
love
by any name they

familiar
circle
will permit,
but the
habit
full
of
of
the
Transcendental
peril
was
social
to
the
12
PREFACE.
it
younger members, who, conceiving

proof
origin
of
a
its
genius, followed
it,
when
was forgotten, and were much
misunderstood in consequence in later

years.
I offer the
Reports exactly as they

I
were written.
should like to alter
them
it
in several small
ways
if
I could
do
honestly.
We
;
met
to discuss Grecian
Mythology
were used
as interpreted to Margaret's
mind by Art
but Latin and Greek names
as if they
were synonymous,
as well as
and Latin poems were quoted,
Greek
traditions.
This
still.
confused
my
mind
then,
and does
Athene and
me, Art or
Minerva, Zeus and Jupiter, are by no
means the same persons

no Art.
to
who cannot remember the persons who enacted this little drama, or by those who do remember and know well how very disIt
may
be thought by those
PREFACE.
tinguished a
13
was, that I
reflec-
company
this
should have eliminated

tions,
my own
and dropped out of the
story.
This would I think have been greatly

unjust to Margaret,
this
who never enjoyed

it
mixed
class,
and considered
fail-
ure so far as her

cerned.
own power was
conlike
She and Mr. Emerson met
Pyramus and
tween.
patience, and
to understand
Thisbe, a blank wall be-
With Mr. Alcott she had no

no one of the
class
seemed
how
sincere
and deep was

In no
so
her interest in the theme.
way
was Margaret's supremacy

as in the impulse she
evident
gave
to the
minds
of younger
It
women.
also the wish of
was the wish of Margaret's mother

as
it is
and brothers,
her
surviving relatives, that I should print

these
pages.
After
Arthur's
death,
Richard Fuller undertook to carry out a

plan
to
which both had agreed, and
14
PREFACE.
at
which Margaret's mother had greatly

heart.
They
desired that I should write
a simple, straightforward account of Margaret, including her residence in Italy,
her marriage, the birth of her child, and her death.

at their
it
This they intended to print
own expense, and they thought

as to
might be so written
put an end to
many
absurd and painful rumors which

first
had followed the publication of the

Memoir.
all
That
might prepare for
this,
Margaret's manuscripts were in
my
The
custody for more than a year.
completion of the work was prevented
by Richard
Fuller's
unexpected death.
of the family was
No
surviving
member
in
able to carry out his intention.

I still
have
his
my
possession the esti-
mate
of
sister's
character
use.
which
Richard made
for
my
I should like to add, that the scholar

will see that the stories
from Apuleius
PREFACE.
15
and Novalis do not exactly correspond

to
the originals.
They were reported
exactly as they were told.
CAROLINE HEALEY DALL.

Sept.
1,
1895,
C.
Washington, D.
A LIST OF PEESONS
ATTENDING
THE CLASS NAMED IN THIS REPORT.

About thirty persons usually attended.
George Ripley. The well-known clergyman, settled over a Unitarian church in

Purchase
St.,
Boston, afterward the Presi-
dent of the Association at Brook Farm,
and later
literary editor of the
New York
" Tribune."
Sophia Dana Ripley, his
wife.
Elisabeth Palmer Peabody.

remarkable
accumulations
teacher, an
A woman
of
of
of
learning,
and as remarkable a breadth She was a
sympathy.
enthusiastic ad-
vocate of the Kindergarten, and opened at
No. 13 West
St.,
Boston, a foreign Circu-
lating Library, which soon

of Literary
became a
sort
Exchange
of the greatest use
18
to
MEMBERS OF THE
New
England.
all
CLASS.
great powers
Her own
did not accomplish

it
they ought, because
was impossible
for her to apply
them
systematically.
Frederick Henry Hedge.
The well-known
whose
German and
ecclesiastical scholar,
remarkable scholarship and character have

not yet received the commemoration they
deserve.
He was
at this time settled over
the church in Bangor, Maine.
James Freeman Clarke. Already the pastor of the Church of the Disciples, in Boston,
and preaching
of his lovely
at
Amory
Hall.
life is
The
outline
and useful
preserved in
memoir by the Rev.
E. E. Hale, D.D.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.

losopher.
The Concord
phi-
Mrs. Farrar, born Rotch, the wife of the
Harvard Professor
Mathematics.
of Physical Science
and
Francis G. Shaw.
The son
of a
well-known
Boston merchant, to be honored through

all
time as the father of Colonel Robert
G. Shaw,
who was
buried where he
fell,
with the negroes
whom
he died to
free.
MEMBERS OF THE
Ann Wilby Clarke,
officer
CLASS.
19
Mrs. Sarah B. Shaw, his wife.

wife of a Boston bankof
and the oldest member

of
an English
family
of
Wilby s, nearly every member

its
which was at some time a teacher in

neighborhood.
Boston or
Mrs. Jonathan Russell of Milton, widow of

the U. S. Minister to
Sweden (1814-1818),
residing on the old Governor Hutchinson
place at Milton, and
Miss Ida Russell, her daughter.
William White. The brother of the first wife of James Russell Lowell, who was
killed by a fall
from the
bluff at
Milwaukee
in 1856.
William W. Story. Sculptor, poet, and lawyer, and well known as a contributor
to
Blackwood.
Still living.
Caroline
Tappan,
creature.
Sturgis,
daughter
of
William
Sturgis of
Boston, married
later to Mr.
most
gifted
and charming
Mrs.
Anna Barker Ward,

living in
of Salem.
wife of
S.
G.
Ward, now
Jones Very
Washington.
A Transcendental poet.
20
MEMBERS OF THE
Hoar was
Hoar
of Concord, Mass.,
CLASS.
Elisabeth
uel
the daughter of Sam-
and of Sarah,
of
the daughter of Roger

necticut.
of
Sherman
Con-
Elisabeth was not the least gifted
her very gifted family.
One
is
brother,
recently deceased,
first
was President Grant's

;
Attorney-General
another
the wellto the

third,
known Senator from Massachusetts

Congress of the United States
;
and a
Edward Sherman Hoar, was distinguished To great intelas a scholar and botanist.
lectual gifts, Elisabeth
liness
added personal love-
and a
saintly serenity of character.
She was betrothed to Charles Emerson (a

brother of Ralph
Waldo Emerson), who
died of sudden illness just before the time
appointed for their marriage.
He was
also
a rarely gifted person, and after his death

his family transferred their tenderest affec-
tion to Elisabeth.
The reader
of the variis
ous Lives of Emerson will see that she
often mentioned, and several of Emerson's

letters
are
addressed to her.
Had
she
chosen to devote herself to literature, she
would have been
greatly
distinguished.
The Life of Mrs. Ripley of Waltham, written
MEMBERS OF THE
for "
CLASS.
21
The
Women
of
Our
First Century,''
and published by a committee appointed

at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadel-
phia,
was written by
her.
She died in
1878.
A. Bronson Alcott of Concord.

of
A memoir him has been written by the Hon. F. B.

of
Sanborn
Harris.
Concord, assisted by
Wm.
T.
W. Mack. A gentleman of great ability, His who taught a school in Belmont.

daughter was the
artist.
first
wife of Stillman, the

think, extinct, un-
The family
is, I
less Mrs. Stillman
left
a daughter.
Sophia Peabody.
A younger sister of E. P. P.,
afterwards Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Marianne Jackson. A lovely, beloved, and accomplished woman, who died early. She was the daughter of Judge Charles Jackson, one of the soundest jurists
sat
of
who
ever
sister
on a Massachusetts bench,
Mrs.
the
Oliver Wendell Holmes, of Mrs.
Charles C. Paine, and the aunt, I believe,

of Mr.
John T. Morse.
22
I
MEMBERS OF THE
have reserved for the
CLASS.
last the
the only sound
Greek scholar
name of among us
Charles Wheeler.
Charles Stearns Wheeler.

1837,
distinguished
as
Born
Greek
in Lin-
coln, near Concord, Dec. 19, 1816, of
H. U.
econ-
scholar
from
whom much was

to
expected.
To
is
omize in order
pursue his Greek studies

said
he built a shanty at Walden, which
to have served as a suggestion to Thoreau.
He went
to
Germany
directly after these
Conversations, and died suddenly of fever

at Leipzig, in the
summer
of 1843.
His
death was a great grief and a great shock.

I
have not forgotten the sensation

Beloved and honored by
the
it
pro-
duced.
all
who
was
knew him,
community
of scholars
this
especially bereaved.
To
day, I
am
able to trust fearlessly to any information
obtained from him.
" Only a signal shown,
and a distant
voice in
the darkness." Longfellow.
MAEGAEET AND HEE FEIENDS.
I.
Monday
Evening,
March
1,
1841.
Maegaret opened
thology.
the conversation by
a beautiful sketch of the origin of
My-
The Greeks
she thought bor-
rowed
their
Gods from the Hindus and
Egyptians, but they idealized their personifications

to
far
greater
extent.
Infi-
The Hindus dwelt

nite,
in the All, the
which the Greeks analyzed and to

degree
some
humanized.
All
things
is,
sprang from Coelus and Terra.,
that
spirit
from Heaven and Earth, or

matter.
and
Rhea, or the Productive En-
ergy, and Saturn, or Time, were the chil-
dren of Coelus and Terra.
The
progress
26
of
MARGARET AND HER

any people
is
FRIENDS.
its
is
marked by
mythi.
Mythology
only the history of the deInfinite in the Finite.
velopment of the
Saturn devoured his

the disappointed
obstacle) in his
own
children until
(or
Rhea put a stone
way, and she succeeded
in raising Jupiter.
The development
that
of
human
seemed
faculties
was slow, therefore Time

all
to
absorb
Productive
itself
Energy brought
created obstacles
forth, until
;
Energy
and of these was born

Jupiter repre-
the
Indomitable Will.
sented that Will, and usurped the rule of
Time, fighting with the low and sensual

passions, represented
by the Titans and

he
seated
the
Giants,
until
himself
securely on the
Olympian Throne, the

This Will was not in
Father of the Gods.

itself
the highest development of either
Beauty,
Genius,
Wisdom,
or
Thought;
but such developments were subject to

it,
were
its
children.
MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS.

Juno
is
27
only the feminine form of this
Indomitable Will.
inferior to
it,
it,
By
herself
she
is
and whenever she opposes

Vulcan, her child,
is
loses the
game.
Mechanic Art, great
in itself to be sure,
but not comparable to the Perfect Wis-
dom, or Minerva, which sprang ready
armed from the masculine
Will.
still
SJie
was greater than her Father, but

child.
his
Neptune, who raises always a " placid
head above the waves," represents the

flow of thought,
in the world,
all-embracing, girdling
in the extrinsic, of
Diana and Apollo, or Purity
and Genius.
Mercury
eloquence,
expression.
is
Genius
human
understanding,
and
All were the
embodiments
of Absolute Ideas, of ideas that had
no
origin,
that
were
;
eternal.
Love
brooded
over Chaos
and the perfect
Beauty and Love, represented among the
28
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
son,
Greeks by Venus
and her
rose
from the turbid elements.
It is singular
that even the ancients should have maintained the

pre-existence
of Love.
or
fable
It
was before
Order, Men,
the
Gods
men
worshipped.
The
suggests
the truth,
Infinite
It is
Love and Beauty
always was.
only with their devel-
opment
to do.
in finite beings that History has
Here Margaret
recapitulated.
The
Indomitable Will had
dethroned Time,
and, acting with Productive Energy,

variously represented at different times
Isis,
by
Rhea, Ceres, Persephone, and so on,

driven back the sensual passions
it
had
to the bowels of the earth, while
pro-
duced Perfect Wisdom, Genius, Beauty,
and Love,
lent
if
results
which were more excelMythology, we
not more powerful than their Cause.

this
To understand
must denationalize
ourselves,
and throw

the
29
mind back
to the
consideration of
It
Greek Art, Literature, and Poesy.

is
only scanty justice that
my
pen can
talk.
render to Margaret's eloquent
Frank Shaw asked her how

agined
these
personifications
she imto
have
suggested themselves in that barbarous

age.
Margaret
barous.
objected to the word barin the age of
She believed that

the
Plato
human
intellect
reached a
as
point as elevated
in
some respects
any
it
had ever touched.

of
But the Gods were not the product

that age, but of another far
more remote,
Frank
objected.
Was
not the infinity of
Hindu conception impaired, when the

Greeks attributed
passions,
to the
Gods the
duties,
and criminal
indulgences
of
men?
Mrs. Ripley
said that the virtue of the
If a
Hindu lay
in contemplation.
man
30
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
had seen God, he was exempt from the

ordinary obligations of
to pass his
life
life,
and allowed
in quiet adoration.
Makgaret added
better than that.
that the
Greek knew
He
felt
the necessity
of developing the Infinite
through action,
in
and embodied
and poesy
this necessity
his
art
as well as in his
still
myths.
Frank seemed
to
think that in
losing the adoring contemplation of the
Hindu, and bringing their deities to the
human
level, the
Greeks had taken one
step down.
E. P. P.
had always thought

up,
it
had
been a step
that
and
Ann Clarke
forgot
thought
the
all
Greeks
themselves,
merged
remembrance
of the Finite,
in realizing the individual forces of the

Infinite.
William White, who had not waded

very
far into
the stream, thought the
North American Indian's worship of the
31
Manitou purer than the Greek worship,

for
the
very reason
that
the
Indian
ascribed to his Manitou no passion that
had degraded humanity.
Margaret said that tiated his God by vile
the Indian propideeds,
by ignoble
treacheries and revenge.
So the Hindu
throws her child into the Ganges, and
an ecstatic crowd
of Juggernaut.
I
falls
before the car
thought a good
deal,
but did not
speak.
Did not William's question grow
out of the simple Unity of the Indian
worship
But the Indian
does
not
worship the Manitou because he recognizes a single First Cause,
comprehend-
ing in
itself all
beauty, wisdom, purity,
and
truth,
but
because
his
heart
is
naturally
lifted
toward
an
unknown
hardly yet
rec-
something, which
he
has
considered as a Cause.
The Greek
ognized the abstract forces of the Uni-
32
verse, but did not perceive their Unity,
and
so personified
them
separately.
E. P. P. suggested that the Indian had
no
his
literature,
and had
left
no record
of
Olympus!
that, if
Margaret added
we compare
the Indian Elysium with the Greek, the

difference in spirituality once.
is
perceived at
Henry Hedge
said that
Frank Shaw
talked about Greek mythi, but nobody
could show a purely Greek mythos.
Frank that when

a myth,
replied
that
he only meant
the Greek
mind had acted on

it.
it
had not refined

that
it
Margaret added
her Gods
was a vulgar
notion that the Poets of Greece created

;
that the Poets were objective,
and could give only humanized representations of them.
Henry Hedge thought
that there was
a point to which philosophy aided
and

prompted the creative power,
point passed, rather checked
33
but, that
its action.
Analysis took the place of the objective
tendency.
Well
not the
ture,
said
William White, would

aided only by cul-
human mind,
be incapable of any better idea than
Frank Shaw suggested ?

lation complete the
Must not reveanswer
work ?
to his
Margaket
said that the
question would be
determined by his
understanding of the word " revelation."

She could not believe in a
God who
had ever
in
left
himself without a witness
the world.
will
As soon
as
the
human
mind and
were ready, there was
always some great Truth waiting to be

submitted to their united
it
action,
until
was worn
out.
The
era
beautiful
Greek
of
era had been succeeded

inaction
so on.
;
by a period
the
Roman
by another, and
She was sorry we had wandered
34
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
to
from our subject so far as

very premises
doubt her
Frank
premises
;
said,
everything rested on those
so he thought that the ideals
of beauty, love, justice, and truth should
be referred to the Infinite Mind, and not

to the Greek.
I
wonder where he was when Margaret

about the Love which " was " before
told
Order
Henry Hedge
the the Infinite.
said that Culture
was
Mediator between the Finite and
James Freeman Clarke, alluding

growth of philosophy, and the
the creative power, said that
if
to
Mr. Hedge's previous remark upon the

loss
of
that
were
fact, it
greatly diminished the proba-
bility of the birth of
pure Genius into
the world.
Plato wrote
when philosophy
were many
was
at the turning point.

said that there
Margaret

proofs
in
35
Plato
that
the
philosophers
understood the personifications of the

mythi.
She thought that the gods, the
demigods, and the heroes of mythology

represented distinct classes, and that this
was not
sufficiently
remembered.
She
referred to the story of the burning of
Hercules in Ovid, where Jupiter
calls
Juno
how well his son endures William White said that he thought the idea of Deity was degraded when the
to see
Greeks changed a hero into a god
but
if
Culture be a Mediator, would not Plato
have been greater had he been born into

the nineteenth century
?
James
possible
F.
Clarke
said Platos
were im-
now.
agreed, and said that the
Margaret
in the
pride of knowledge which he would find
world should he appear, would be
a greater obstacle than superstition once was.
36

Did somebody say a little while ago that
Will indomitable was born of obstacle
Margaret
told
William White that
Coleridge had once said that he could

neither measure nor understand Plato's
ignorance
His mind had not reached
that altitude
Henry Hedge,
the
all
not willing to forego

of Genius, asked
if
possible birth
the
experience and discovery with
which the world had been enriched since

Plato's time
for the
would not furnish enough

to act
new-comer
upon?
Margaret
go through
replied that the
mind could
She must
not receive unless excited.

all
the intellectual experi;
ence of a Plato, to be as great as he

she
but
might stand upon the general or
even her own intuitive recognition of

the truths he had advanced, and go for-
ward
to greater results,
to
but
still
that
would not be
make
herself greater.

But, said Mrs. Ripley,
case
in the
37
first
you would be nothing
but Plato.
Margaret
to
acceded, but begged
not
be understood as doubting that the
future would be capable of finer things
than the
past.
The
ideal
significance
of
the
My-
thology was further
dwelt
upon, and
much was
ship of
said of the contrast
between
the thought of the priest and the wor-
the
people.
It
was acknowl-
edged as a matter
of course, that only a
few preserved any consciousness of the

original significance of the Mythology.
Henry Hedge
the
true
thought that
the
this
was
the
key
to
purpose of
Eleusinian mysteries, whether in Egypt
where they originated, or where they were introduced.

them,
all
in
Greece
Through
who
chose became initiated into
the interior meaning of the Mythology.
Charles Wheeler
added,
that
in
38

of the
the flourishing times
Athenian
Republic every citizen was compelled

to initiate himself.
Margaret
gentle
closed
our
talk
with a
reproof to our wandering wits.

desultory prattling, she
subject should
To prevent such
desired that
be prostory
posed for the next evening.

of Ceres or
The
Rhea, in fact the Productive

carried gen-
Energy however manifested,

eral favor,
and Margaret
said archly that
she had thought the presence of gentle-
men (who had never

one
of her
talks)
until
now attended
would prevent the
wandering and keep us free from prejudice

I
!
thought she was rightly disappointed.

cannot recall the words, but at some
time this evening Margaret distinguished

three mythological dynasties.
The
first
was the reign of the Natural Powers.
The
second,
represented
by
Jupiter,
39
Pluto, and Neptune, stood for the height,
the depth, and the surface or flow of

things, the first manifestations of
human
esti-
consciousness.
chic,
The
third
was the Bac-
Bacchus not being yet, in her
mation, the vulgar
God
of the wine-vat
and the
festival,
but the inspired Genius,
being
nectar
is
to Apollo, as she said, to the grape.
what the
CAROLINE W. HEALEY.
March
2,
1841.
II
March
8,
1841.
Margaret recapitulated ments she made last week.

giving to each fabled Deity
the
state-
By
thus
its
place in
the scheme of Mythology, she did not
mean
to ignore the enfolding ideas, the

in
all
one thought developed

Rhea, Bacchus, Pan.
as
in
She would only

indi-
imply that each personification was

vidual, served a particular purpose,
and
was worshipped
in a particular
way.
Before proceeding to talk about Ceres,

she wished to remind us of the mischief
of
wandering from our subject.
She
hoped the ground she offered would be

accepted at
least to talk about
!
Certainly
no one could deny that a mythos was

the last and best growth of a national
MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS,

mind, and that in
teristics
41
this case
the charac-
of the
Greek mind were best
gathered from this creation.

Ceres, Persephone, and
Isis,
as well as
Rhea, Diana, and so on, seem to be only

modifications of one enfolding idea,
a
of
goddess accepted by
peculiar to Greece.
all
nations,
and not
The pilgrimages
to
is
the more prominent of these goddesses,
Ceres and
life
Isis,
seem
indicate
the
which
loses
what
dear in child-
hood, to seek in weary pain for what

after all can
be but half regained.
Ceres
regained her daughter, but only for half

the year.
Isis
found her husband, but

This era in
dismembered.
Mythology
seems to mark the progress of a people

from an unconscious to a conscious
state.
Persephone's periodical exile shows the

impossibility of resuming an unconscious-
ness from
which we have been once
aroused, the need thought has, having
42
once

felt the influence of the Seasons, to
retire into itself.
Charles
Wheeler reminded Marwithout

reference
to
garet that she had said that the predominant goddesses,
Greece, enfolded only one idea, that of

the female Will or Genius,
giver.
the bounteous
He
had asked her
if
she could
facts,
sustain
herself
by etymological
and she replied that her knowledge of

the
Greek
was
not
critical
enough.
Since
then he
had inquired into the
origin of the proper

deities,
names
it
of the
Greek
and found that
confirmed her
Tellus,
impression.
Isis,
The names of Rhea,
and Diana were resolvable into one,
and the difference in their etymology was

only a
common and
permissible change
in the position of the letters of
which
they are composed, or a mere provincial

dialectic change.
Diana
is
the same as
Dione, also one of the names of Juno.
'

E. P. P. asked
if
43
Homer
two?
ever con-
founded
the
last
Margaret
purely objecless
thought not.
tive.
Homer was
little
He knew
the
and cared
creation
about
primitive
of
the
myths.
R.
W. Emerson thought
difficult to
it
would be
Ju-
very
detect this secret.
piter, for instance,
might have been a
man who was

his race.
the exponent of Will to
Margaret deduced him

herself,
said,
"
No they
;
could have
just as easily
from Nature
exhibition
or from a single
of
will power.'
R.
like
W. Emerson
Napoleon would
it.
said
that
man
easily
have sug"
!
gested
"
What
a God-send
is
a Napoleon
;
exclaimed Charles
Wheeler
u let us
pray for scores of such, that a

superior
new and
!
mythos may
arise for us
"
Is
44
it

malicious
to
suspect a subtle irony

the sacred
turned
R.
against
this
person of
W. E. in Margaret
speech?
if
retorted indignantly that
they came,
ive
should do nothing better
than write memoirs of their hats, coats,
and swords,
without
as
we had done
any
already,
thinking of
lesson
they
might teach.
She could not see why

to take the beauti-
we were not content

ful
Greek mythi
as they were, without
troubling ourselves
about those which
might
R.
arise for us!
W.
E.
acknowledged
that
the
Greeks had a quicker perception

beautiful than we.
of the
Their genius lay in

of
it.
the material expression
If
we
to
knew
flight.
the real
meaning
of the
names of
their Deities, the story
would take
We
should have only the work-
ing of abstract ideas as
we might
adjust
them
for ourselves.
MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS. 45

Margaret
said that a fable
It
was more
than a mere word.
was a word of
the purest kind rather, the passing of
thought into form.
R.
W.
E.
had made
no allowance
for
time or space or climate,

that.
and there was a want of truth in
The age
Poetry
;
of the
Greeks was the age of
ours was the age of Analysis.
We
still
could not create a Mythology.

asked, "
Emerson
Why not ? We
irrelevantly
had
better material."
said,
Margaret
seemed
to
as
it
to
me, that Carlyle had attempted
deduce new principles from present
history,
and that was the reason he did

respectable.
not respect the
Emerson
ogy
said Carlyle
was unfortunate
in his figures, but
we might have mythol-
as beautiful as the Greek.
Margaret thought each age of the world had its own work to do. The
transition of thought into
form marked
46

It
the Greek period.
was most
easily
done through
fable,
on account of their
intense perception of beauty.
Emerson pursued
thought.
his
own
train of
He seemed
it
to forget that
we
had come together
to pursue Margaret's.
He
said
was impossible that men or
events should stand out in a population

of twenty millions as they could from a
population of a single million, to which

the
whole
population
of
the
ancient
world could hardly have amounted.
As
Hercules stood to Greece, no modern
man could ever stand in relation to his own world. Margaret thought Hercules and Jupiter quite different creations.
The
life.
first
might
have been a
deified
The
second could not.
Charles Wheeler
of belief with
said
that R.
W.
E/s view carried no historical obligation

it.
We
could not deny

the heroic origin of the
47
Greek demiwas the
gods, but the highest dynasty
exponent
of translated thought.
if
Sophia Ripley asked

individual
fitly
the
life of
an
interwoven
with
her
as
experience was not as fine a
Poem
the story of Ceres, her wanderings and
her tears
lives ?
Did not Margaret know such
R.
W.
E.
thought every
man had
probably met his Jupiter, Juno, Minerva,
Yenus, or Ceres in society
Margaret was
R.
sure she never had
W.
E.
explained:
world, but each on his
"Not in the own platform."

The
life
William Story
of
objected.
an
individual
was
not
univer-
sal. (!)
Sophia Ripley repeated, " The inner

life."
William Story claimed

dividual,
to be an in-
and did not think individual
48

all
experience could ever meet
minds,
like the story of Ceres, for example.
Sophia
versal.
said
all
experience was uni-
I said nothing,
but held this colloquy

is
with myself.
Thought
;
the
best of
human
sion
:
nature
its
fulness urges expres-
its
need of being met, not only by
one other but
by every
is
other, craves
it.
This craving
the acknowledgment of
the universal experience.

individual
is
What
is
jmrely
is
perishable.
Identify
to
be separated from individuality for this

cause.
Margaret
fine
said the
element of beauty
would be wanting
which seem
to our creations.
emotion glowed
through features
to fall like a soft veil over

it
the soul, while
could scarce do more
than animate those that were obtuse and

coarse in every outline.
(!)
"Then,"
said
William Story, and
MARGARET AND EER FRIENDS. 49
my
heart thanked the preux
chevalier,
" then
something
itself."
is
wanting
in
the
emotion
William White
sunlight could not
said,
stupidly, that
fall
with equal charm

grass. (!)
on rocks and the green

I
asked
it
if
the rock could not give

?
what
did not receive
Flung back by
rugged
shadows,
points
and
relieved
by dark
itself
was not
?
the
sunlight
transfigured
Story
beauty.
said
every face had

act that
its
own
No
was natural could
be ungraceful.
Emerson
graceful
said that
we
all
did sundry
acts,
in
our caps and tunics,
which we never could do again, which
we never wanted Margaret said,

the point
to do again.
at last
we had touched
We
could not restore the
childhood of the world, but could
we not
admire
this
simple plastic period, and
50

it
gather from
genius
R.
?
some notion of the Greek
W.
E. thought this legitimate.

it
He
we
would have
that
we
could not deter-
mine the
might
origin of
a mythos, but
fulfil
Miss Fuller's intention.

said history reconciled us
re-
Margaret
to
life,
by showing that man had

himself.
deemed
Not
was
Genius needed that
encouragement.
Genius,
Sophia Ripley thought;

it,
common
natures needed
but Genius
self -sup ported.
Margaret
said
it
might be the con-
solation of Genius.
Mrs. Russell asked

found so
why
Miss Fuller
present.
find with
much fault with the Margaret had no fault to

She took
facts as
it.
they were.
Every
the
age did something toward

cycle of mind.
fulfilling
The work
of the Greeks
was not
ours.
MARGARET AND HER

Sophia Ripley asked
if
FRIENDS.
51
the mythology
had been a prophecy of the Greek mind

to itself, or if the nation
life in
had experienced
sense.
any wide or deep
Margaret seemed
patience, and no
little
out
of
it
wonder!
She said
did not matter which.
The question
was, what could we find in the mythi,
and what did the Greeks mean that we

should find there.
Coleridge once said
that certain people were continually say-
ing of Shakespeare, that he did not

to
mean
impart certain spiritual meanings to

his sketches of life
if
some of
acter
his
;
and charit
but
Shakespeare did not mean

:
Genius did
so if the
Greeks meant not

it.
this or that, the
Greek genius meant
In relation to the progress of the ages,
James
F.
Clarke
said that the story of
Persephone concealed in the bowels of

the earth for half the year seemed to
him
to indicate
something of their com-
52
MARGARET AND HER

states.
FRIENDS.
parative
Persephone was the
seed which must return to earth before

it
could fructify.
Thought must
it
retire
into itself before
can be regenerate.
this,
Margaret was
it is
pleased with
more
especially as in the story of the
Goddess
eating the pomegranate, whose seed
is
longest in germinating, which
dooms
her to the realm of Pluto.
George Ripley remarked

saw
ful
that
we
this
need of withdrawal
in the slothto be imbib-
ages
when mind seemed
ing energy for future action.
The world
sometimes forsook a quest and returned

to
it.
We
had forsaken Beauty, but we

to
it.
might return
Certainly,
perfect
Margaret
assented.
all
mind would detect
beauty in
the hearth-rug at her feet: the meanest part of creation contained the
whole
but the labor

ciate the
we were now
at to appre-
Greek proved conclusively that

we were not Greek.
53
A
in
simple plastic
nature would take
it all
with delight,
without doubt or question.
Or
take
It
rather,
it
amended Emerson, would

it.
up and go forward with

difference, said
makes no
Margaret,
for
I
we
live in a circle.
it
did not think
pleasant to track
arc,
and retrack the same

to
if
and preferred
E., so I
go forward with R. W.
asked
there was to be no higher poetry.
Margaret acknowledged
was something beyond the
that
there
aspiration
of the Egyptian or the poetry of the
Greek.
George Ripley thought we had not

lost
all
reverence
for
these
abstract
forces.
The Eleusinian mysteries might
be forgotten, but not Ceres. worship in ignorance.
We did
not
led
The mysteries
back to the
Infinite.
The
processes of
vegetation were actually heart-rending
54

Here,
thought, was a basis for
my
it
higher poetry.
George Ripley acknowledged

was
so.
that
He seemed
movement
to be
more
con-
scious of the
of the world than

said
any
of our party.
He
we must not
There
measure creation by Boston and Washington, as
we were
too apt to do.
was
still
France, Germany, and Prussia,

!
perhaps Russia
eration
The work of
this genstill,
was not
religious nor poetic;
there was a tendency to go back to both.
There were
to be ultraisms, but also,
he
hoped, consistent development
Charles Wheeler then

story of
Isis,
related the
of
her hovering in the form
of a swallow
round the tree in which
the sarcophagus of Osiris had been enclosed
by Typhon
;
of her
being allowed
to fell the tree
of the odor emitted
by
the
the royal maidens
whom
she touched,
to
which
revealed
her
Divinity

Queen
;
55
of the second loss of the body,
as she returned
home, and
its final dis-
memberment.
There was
little
success in spiritualiz-
ing more of this story than the pilgrim-
W. E. seemed to feel this for when Margaret had remarked that even
age, and K.
;
a divine force must become as the birds

of the air to compass
it
its
ends, and that
was
in the
carelessness of
conscious
success that the second loss occurred, he

said that
it
was impossible
all
to detect
an
inner sense in
these stories.
Margaret
attempted
in all the
replied, that she
had not
it
that,
but she
could see
prominent points.
said that the vari-
Charles Wheeler
eties of
anecdote proved that the stories

all
were not
cient
authentic.
It
was an anmedals
in
custom to strike
off
honor of certain acts of the Gods.

these graven pictures the
To
common
people
56
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS,
gave their own vulgar interpretations,

as
they did also to the bas-reliefs on
their temples
and monuments.
E. P. P. said this accounted for

of the
stories
many
transmitted by Homer.
When
sculpture
and architecture had

his inventive genius
lost their
meaning,
was only the more stimulated

one.
to find
Charles Wheeler asked what Margaret would

tears
of
?
make
of the story that the
Isis
frightened
children
to
death
There was a general laugh, but Mar-
garet
said coolly, that children always
shrank from a baffled hope.
Some one
her mother.
contrasted Persephone with
Margaret
said,
assented to whatever was
and added that she had been parit
ticularly struck with
in
an engraving
she had recently seen, in which Ceres

stood with lifted
eyes,
full-eyed,
57
maand
tronly, bounteous, ready to give all to

all,
while
Persephone,
dejected
;
thoughtful, sat meditating
and the idea
was strengthened by her discovering

that Persephone was the same as Ariadne
the deserted.
I could
only guess at the
remark
by
to
Margaret's
comment.
hope
It
seemed
imply
baffled
for
Persephone.
The Eleusinian mysteries were now

alluded
to.
Although
it
has been said
that only moral precepts were inculcated
through these,
Wheeler urged
that a
whole school of Continental authors now
acknowledged that the higher doctrines

of philosophy
were taught.
R.
W.
E. added, that as initiation beinstruction
came more easy such

form, and
must
have degenerated into a mere matter of
many
of the uninitiated sur-
pass the initiated in wisdom.
58

Margaret admitted
this.
Socrates
was one of the

seldom
felt
uninitiated.
full force of
The crowd
beauty in
it, it
the
Art or Literature.
To prove
was
only necessary to walk once through the

Hall of Sculpture at the Athenaeum, and
catch the remarks of any half-dozen on
Michael
Angelo's
"Day and Night"

its
He would
be fortunate who heard a
single observer
comment on
power.
Mrs. Russell asked

of the sun and
why
the images
moon were introduced

impatiently
into these mysterious celebrations.
Margaret
child
asked
why
they had always been invoked by every
who
could
string
two
rhymes
together.
I said that if Ceres
was the simple
agricultural productive energy, of course
the sun was her
first
minister, its genial
influence being as manifest as the energy

itself.
59
In regard to the etymology of the
proper names,
it
seemed reasonable
to
me
that this energy should have gained

it
attributes as
did names.
Any
nation
call
devoted to the chase would learn to

the lunar deity Diana
;
any devoted
to
the cultivation of grain would
project
her as Ceres.
The reproductive powers

Rhea
would
of flocks and herds would suggest

or Juno, and philosophy or art
invoke Persephone.
When we
J. F.
were talking about beauty,
C. quoted Goethe, and said that the
spirit
sometimes made a mistake and

itself in
clothed
the
wrong garment.
C.
W. HEALEY.
March
9, 1841.
III.
The
place
third conversation
illness,
was delayed
finally took
by Margaret's
and
March
19, 1841.
Margaret
again complained that

subject,
we
wandered from the
and told the
following story from Novalis.
Imagine a room, on one

and Fable at play.
a marble slab on
side of
it
Eros
On
the other, before
which
rests a vase of
pure
water,
sits
a fair
woman named
sits
Sophia.
Her head
rests
upon her hand.

a
Between
of rev-
her and the children
man
is.
erend age, before a table at which he

writes whatever has been or
This
is
History; and as he finishes each sheet
he hands
it
to Sophia,
who
dips
it
in the

vase of pure water, from which
it
61
often
emerges a perfect blank.
Sometimes a
few
lines, at
others a few words, some-
times only a punctuation mark, survive

the
last
test.
This troubles the old man.
At
he
rises
and leaves the room.
Fable
springs to his vacant seat, and scribbles

as if in play
till
his return,
when History
it
reproves her for wasting the paper, and

passes the sheet to Sophia, when, lo
!
comes out from her vase unchanged.

Fable has borne the test of Truth.
tory
is
Hisin
enraged at
this,
and succeeds
driving both Sophia and Fable from their
home, unfairly.
Sophia
is
driven away,
but the child escapes by a back door, and,
becoming bewildered
erns of the Earth,
the Fates.
in the central cav-
falls
into the
power of
find the
These respectable old ladies

little
Fable very troublesome, and, after

scolding, send her
some
away
to
spin,
62

lo
!
when,
all
from the recesses of the cavern
sorts of
wonders and strange shapes
are spun out.
The Fates
are frightened,
and they seek History
to learn in
what
manner they
may
best rid
themselves
of the intruder.
However much they

is
may
dislike her, she
under their prodo no more
tection,
and
History can
than advise them to send her out to

catch
Tarantulas
Fable departs and

lyre,
meets Eros, who gives her a
upon
which she
plays,
and the venomous insects
swarm about
her.
The Fates behold

!
her return unharmed

she would be stung
They had hoped

to
death, and in
despair Ate throws her scissors at the

child,
who gracefully
avoids them.
Here-
upon the Tarantulas
sting the Fates in
the feet, at which they begin to dance.
As
their clothes are
thick and heavy,
this is rather
inconvenient exercise, and

at their distress they
when Fable laughs
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
63
send her away to spin them some thin

dresses.
Fable
is
tired
of
wandering.
She plays upon her lyre

las,
to the Tarantu-
bidding them spin, and she will give

large
flies.
them three
When
the dresses
are done, she carries

to the Fates,
them immediately
again to dance.
still
who begin
The ends
of the threads are
in the like
flies
bodies of the Tarantulas,

to
who do not
be jerked about.
I
" Behold the
which
promised you," said Fable.

fall
Thereupon the Tarantulas

the
upon
dancing Fates, and a

in
new dynasty
commences,
which Eros reigns, with
Fable for prime minister.
Margaret
had
of
said that in the story she

set
told
she had
us
the
example
wandering from the subject, but she

to
hoped
some purpose.
She hoped no
call
one would have need to
upon
little
Fable's body-guard of Tarantulas.
The
subject of the evening
was Apollo
64

Genius opposed
in contrast with Ceres, or to Productive
Energy.
The
history of
Apollo stood for the history of thought,

its
progressive development and
its
un-
happiness.
miserable.
All the loves of Apollo are
He
never labors for himself.
He
the
uses the
instruments which others
have shaped.
lyre,
He
is
so delighted with
is
which Mercury, that
Sa-
gacity, has
made, that he gives him the
divining-rod, and would give
him more,
but he cannot.
The
earnest simplicity
with which Apollo begs Mercury to swear
by the sacred Styx not

quiver or his darts
is
to
steal
!
his
beautiful
The
common
sagacity,
understanding,
mere
human
it
may
indeed lay hands on the

candart,
weapons of the Inspired One, but

not possess them.
The
all
ray, the
the quiver, of Apollo
stand for the
instantaneous power of thought.
Delphi did not originally belong to

Apollo.
65
With the
it
;
aid of Bacchus, he
wrested
from
Terra,
Neptune, and
Themis
hence the name " Delphi," or

This
is
"The
are
brothers."
only another
All things
instance of his independence.
made
to his hand.
The great conlies in
trast
between Ceres and Apollo

Ceres
is
the success of each.

full,
always
call
always prepared to meet the
of
humanity.
Apollo
is
always
un-
satisfied.
He
transmutes whatever he
touches, as he did one of his
many
loves,
changed
to a bay-tree.
His changes are
always beautiful.
James
F.
Clarke asked how Margaret

be-
would explain the fraternal relation
tween Bacchus and Apollo.

" Don't you remember " I don't like to repeat
?
" she retorted.

so smart
it, it is
and ingenious!"
Apollo and Bacchus

question
seemed
response.
to
her the
and the
Bacchus was what the earth
66

the
yielded to
touch of Genius.
The
grape was genial.

of
It typified the excess
the
earth's
fruitfulness.
Bacchus
avenges the wrongs of Apollo,

said
who
!
is
never to have seen a shadow
He
never perceives an obstacle, but instantly

destroys
an
alien
nature.
Whatever
retri-
opposed Apollo met with terrible

bution,
others.
if
not from himself, then from
Genius cannot endure the presit.
ence of anything that mocks at
Charles
Wheeler
said
something
about the flaying of Marsyas.
Margaret
to
said that this once
seemed
her the most shocking of cruelties,
but she had lately seen a picture which

reconciled her to the deed
!
After look-
ing at the self-complacent face of Marsyas,
she
did not wonder that Apollo
destroyed him.
do
it I
She longed
to see him
Apollo was never indignant at
any sublime treachery.
He
forgave Mer-
MARGARET AND HER

cury
his theft because it
it
FRIENDS.
67
was
god-like,
because he did
so well.
Mrs. Russell said ironically that the

destruction of the children of Niobe
must
have been a gratifying
sight.
said,
'
Margaret laughed, and

like being
ner,'
" That
is
reminded of the
I
poor mari-
when
say that I like to hear the
wind blow."
The indignation of Apollo

one of his noblest
attri-
seemed
butes.
to her
His perfect purity separated him

all
from
the Gods.
Ceres seemed to be
included in the idea of
many
other Gods,
Isis
;
as in Pan, Bacchus, Juno,
and
but
Apollo, the divine Genius, stands alone.
There
is
none
like him.
Henry Hedge
asked whether holiness
appertained to Apollo.
Margaret thought
supposed
a
one's self, but there
not.
Holiness
voluntary consecration of
was no need of
this
68
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
in Apollo.
He
was pure thought, con-
secrated, but not consciously.
Henry Hedge
said
he had asked, be-
cause, considering Jesus to have, as he
certainly had, a mythological character,
he
thought
there
was a resemblance
Apollo.
between
words
him
and
His own
justified
the idea,
"I
on.
am
the
light of the world,"
and so
Mrs. Russell asked suddenly why

Apollo's lyre
had seven
said
strings.
Margaret
seven was a conse-
crated number.
Mrs. Russell asked

to
if it
did not have
do with the seven planets ?
George Ripley
so
said there
were not
many in that day. Margaret liked the reason, and wished

it
she had thought of
herself!
Some one asked about
the connection
between Diana and Apollo.

Margaret
said that
69
Genius needed a
sister to console
him.
the in-
Emerson asked what bearing

scription over the Delphic
temple had
Divine
upon the story
of Apollo,
the
pun
art "
EI,
which means equally " Thou
and " If,"
as grand a pun
said he
!
as that
to
of
him who, dying,
was going
see the great " Perhaps "
"
le
grand
peut-etre."
Better translated,
great "May-be."
thought, as
the
George Kipley asked

art "
if it
were not
generally accepted positively as

?
"Thou
" Probably," Mr.
Emerson
said.
Henry Hedge found

Mrs. Russell asked
another type of
the Apollo in the Egyptian Horus.

if
the two Greek

Isis
vowels had not once stood for

Osiris.
If so,
and
they would have a natural
connection with the oracle.
"
70
I
MARGARET AND HER

remembered the
Isis,
FRIENDS.
on the
inscription
all
statue of
"I
am
that has been
and that
tals
shall be,
and none among mor-
has taken off

" of the Jews,
my
,,
veil.
The "I
am
and the "
Thou
art
of the Delphic temple are epigrammatic,
but the same.
Emerson, replying somewhat curtly

to Mrs. Russell, said
there were various
explanations.
The
story of Phaeton
came next.
Henry Hedge
asked
how Presump-
tion should be the child of Genius.
" Genius must be self-confident," Margaret said, " and that might predominate."
I asked if real Genius did not
its
know
own resources and husband them. Margaret thought Genius often atit
tempted more than

I said a
could do.
man might have

if
genius and
presume, but that
he were a genius I
Still,
should expect him to be modest.

as
it
71
it
must have a crowd of
imitators,
might become the father of presumption.
The substance
creates the shadow.

said
William Story
that did not
no product could
;
be as great as the producing power
but
seem
to
me
to touch the
point, for the question
was not whether

to
Apollo could not give birth
some-
thing less than himself, but whether the

possession of
power could create an unto

it.
founded claim
The
story of Latona followed.

said
Henry Hedge
that
the
word
meant concealment.
Margaret thought
sive,
this
very expres-
and said that the isolation which

geniuses had
Goethe and other

craving
since the
been
world began Apollo

His mother was
had no need
concealment.
to seek.
The
it
oracle
was then
dis-
cussed, how
it
was
possible to consult
many
times and receive each time a
72

answer,
different
how
it
could
be
bribed, as
by Alexander, or would give

in
two answers
one; but nothing very
new was
I
said.
remembered the double answer
of
the Pythoness to Croesus

tated crossing the
when he medi" Thou shalt Halys.

'
destroy a great empire,'
she said.
:
He
thought
it
it
was the enemy's
fate decided
should be his own.
Sophia Ripley
thought
the
oracle
belonged to Wisdom rather than Genius.
Margaret
men's houses.
said
It
Minerva
dwelt
in
was necessary a voice

that Jupiter had
from Heaven should speak.
Some one wondered

led
not possessed himself of the oracle, which
Margaret back
with her
to her exponents,
and she confessed that she was not quite

satisfied
own
definition of Jupi-
ter as Will.
Emerson suggested
that
experience

was a prominent feature
73
in the Jupiter,
and named him Character.

Character
is
educated Will, said Mar-
garet, hesitating, and paused, for the
term did not
suit her.
Juno was then spoken

amusing
of as passive
It
Will, and her traits were dwelt upon.

is
to see
how weak
the
Queen
of
Olympus can be
in opposition to its
King.
The peacock was probably made

plumage, while the eagle was conon account of
its
sacred to her on account of the beauty

of
its
secrated to Jupiter
strength.
I said that the peacock, strutting
with
feet
conceit, glancing at
its
ill-shaped
in
and vexed enough to bawl

quence,
easily
conse-
suggested the scolding
Juno.
Some one asked a question about Msculapius. Margaret said he was genius made practical.
74
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
that Apollo
Henry Hedge thought by his own connection with

art
the healing
life
became the symbol of physical
and beauty.
William
Belvedere.
Story
thought no statue
could bear comparison with the Apollo
Margaret preferred the Antinous. James Clarke asked why Art should present a so much more inspiring view
of
Greek Mythology than Poetry.
Margaret
profess
to
said that all her ideas of
it
were deduced from Art.
She did not

of
know much
depended
the
Greek
authors,
and
chiefly
upon
of
Homer, but wished that some

gentlemen who ought
to
the
know more
it
would speak.
William Story thought

cause the
plause, for recitation
effect.
was
be-
poets wrote for popular ap-
and
its
immediate
Sculptors labored
more purely
for their Art.

I
75
thought
too
that
the
dramatists
often had a political aim, and
manoeu-
vred Olympus
to suit
it
James Clarke
time every public
to his
said
that
if
in
our
speaker must bend

it
audience to a degree,
in Greece. to
was
still
more necessary
We
for the
were told
consider Minerva
next conversation, and to write

her.
down our thoughts about

Greek
ideas.
deities.
For
my
for
part I don't like using Latin

It
names
greatly confuses
my
dif-
Jupiter and Zeus seem very
ferent to me.
In regard to
the story
that
Apollo
never saw a shadow, Caroline Sturgis

asked
nature
how Apollo
if
could destroy an alien

it.
he never met
quite
There was
talk about this,
an
unsatisfactory
which would have ended
had anybody remembered how the sun

solves
the
enigma
every
day.
The
76

it
sun never sees the shadow
destroys.
It annihi-
When
lates
its
rays
alien
fall,
light
is.
the
by merely being.
So
Truth annihilates Falsehood, yet cannot
meet
it.
The two are never
in
one
presence.
CAROLINE WELLS HEALEY.

March
20, 1841.
IV.
March
26, 1841.
Margaret opened our talk by saying that the subject of Wisdom presented
more conversable points than that
Genius.
of
We
could
all
think and talk
about Wisdom, and any
man who had
ever scratched his finger was to a degree

wise.
Minerva was the child of Counsel and

Intelligent Will.
She had no infancy,

Ready,
but sprang full-armed into being.

agile, she
was
in herself the history of
thought.
life
She did not need that her

of incident.
:
should be one
Her
the
attendant emblems are expressive
Sphinx, the owl, the serpent, the cock,
and the javelin suggest her whole
story.
78
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
William White asked why Genius was masculine and Wisdom feminine.
Margaret thought no one

any
the
difficulty
in
could find
the fact
It
that Genius
itself
was masculine.
presented
to
mind
in
the
full
glow of power.
The very
outlines of the feminine form
were yielding, and we could not associate
them with a prominent,

state of the faculties.
self-conscious
like
if
Wisdom was
for
woman, always ready

reality as a basis,
the
it
;
fight
necessary, yet never going to
taking
ar-
and classifying and
ranging upon
it all
that Genius creates,
seeing the relations and proper values

of things.
George Eilpey objected

nition.
to this defi-
He might
have imbibed a He-
brew
idea, but the office of
Wisdom was
this,
surely
something more than
a
to
purely mechanical and orderly
tact.
Margaret
said she
had not meant

give our view of
it,
79
only the Greek idea
as manifest in the story of Minerva.
To
that
William White she
said,
smiling,
she supposed he had not wondered so
much
as
that Genius should be masculine
that
Wisdom should be feminine

Greeks were wise, and
she
But
the
revered their keen perception.
Elisabeth Hoar
her that
said
it
seemed
means.
to
Wisdom provided
A
him
hero might be inspired by Genius, but
Wisdom provided
his armor, taught
to distinguish the goal,
and to perceive
of
clearly the relation to

step.
it
any onward
Margaret agreed to this, and William Story said that Genius was indebted to Wisdom for means
of communication.
Genius thinks words
impertinent,
its
but
Wisdom apprehends
Wisdom
intuitions,
and gives them shape.

said further, that
Margaret
80

adopt
instinctively
must
the
finest
medium.
It
seemed
to
me
that
Wisdom
not
only gave power of communication, but
power
of attainment.
Walter Scott was
a good instance of the union of intuitive
perception and
human
it
sagacity, but all
these words about
cleared up nothing.
that
Margaret then proposed

and so get at the
facts.
we
should take up the attributes of Minerva,
Mr. Ripley did not think
it
noble
enough when she based Wisdom upon

realities.
William Story
have
something
to
said
Wisdom must
work upon.
He
thought Wisdom compared the intuitions

of
Genius with
realities.
Charles Wheeler thought the word

actual
would help
them out
of
their
difficulty.
wanted
to
quote Emerson to the
MARGARET AND HER

effect that the Ideal
is
FRIENDS.
81
more Keal than
the Actual.
Margaret agreed with Mr. Wheeler,

and said that by
anything
tangible.
reality she understood
incarnated,
whatever
was
She then went on to speak
of the Sphinx.
What was it? Elisabeth Hoar seemed surprised the question. Was it not one thing
everybody
?
at
to
Margaret
called for her idea, but she

it.
would not give
Margaret
founding
said that to herself
it
rep-
resented the development of a thought,

itself
upon the animal,
until
it
grew upward
did not throw
into calm, placid power.
She revered these good ancients, who
away any of
but
the gifts of
God
who were
neither materialists nor
immaterialists,
who made matter
always subservient to the highest ends

of the Spirit.
82

William White asked
if
the festivals
of the Gods, the highest source of their

influence over the people, did not
show
how
little
they had penetrated to the
spirit of
things?
nec-
Margaret thought ambrosia and

tar
were
proper
emblems
to
of
Divine taken
Joy.
They were not
be
literally.
" But," persisted
White, " the great
body
of the people thought
them
with
so."
William
Story
said,
happy
grace, that the great body of the people
might be excused
for such a thought.
Margaret enjoyed
that the great Greek
the pun, and said
body was sensuous
and
ate,
but that the Greek soul
knew
better than to suspect the Gods of open-
ing their mouths.

E. P. P.
waked up
at
this
moment,
and asked what
Margaret would say
to Berkeley's theory.

Margaret
it
83
said she did not
know what
of
all
was
E. P. P.
said,
the
evolution
things from the soul, the non-existence

of matter.
James
difficult
F.
to
Clarke thought
decide
it
very
how
far
spirit
and
matter were one.

not in
the
man's identity was
particles
which came and
went every seven

Yet these
years, but in the spirit.
particles constituted the wall
of separation
between himself and

spirit.
others.
His identity was in his
George Eipley begged leave to disagree. He thought we knew as much

about matter as about
spirit,
and that
Berkeley's theory was as good as any.
Margaret
spirit
said
that
it
if
God
created
matter, of course
;
was evolved from
that matter could not be antago-
nistic to that
from which
it
was evolved.
84
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
To express
to say, "
a complete idea,
I
we had only
to
Jehovah,
am."
" Or,"
Charles Wheeler added, "
be silent."
"Yes,"
lies
said
Margaret, "and
in that
the
merit of Mythology.
Every
faculty was, according to that, an incomplete statement.
Therefore Mr. Ripley
did
wrong
to
confound Minerva with the
Logos."
E. P. P. did not see that Berkeley's
statement was answered.
William Story came

pun.
in with another
so,
it
" If Berkeley thought

"
was
no matter
Some
stupid person spoiled the wit by

it,
trying to explain
and the question
remained to us just as much matter as

ever.
They
yet said
in
its
talked about the Sphinx again,

little.
It holds
more meaning
passive
womb
than talk will ever

play the midwife
the
to.
85
It
was the
child of
Destructive Element and
Feeling,
Typhon
by death.
and Echidna,
the
human
heart experienced in misfortune touched
Thought rooted
in the actual
and developed by tenderness was rooted

in this figure.
" Everybody
stings," said
knows
that
so
Margaret, and
of the
Wisdom we went
on to the serpent.
Somebody spoke
Greek Tartarus.
its
Ida Russell thought
torment was
not acute, but consisted of the deprivation of comforts.
The wandering
intolerable
to
idleness of
it
would be
an active Greek, Elisa-
beth Hoar thought, but more endurable than

for
any device of
a priesthood.
As
r
our serpent, no one seemed to know
much about it. Margaret said
that
we owed
it
so
86

she felt
in
it.
much, that
duty bound to
know something of James F. Clarke

tian serpent
said that the Chris-
was quite another thing.

at the idea of a
Everybody laughed
Christian serpent.
William White
miration
for
professed great ad-
the
reptile.
We
should
its
have
had no Christianity but for
beguiling.
Margaret agreed
supposed everybody
and
said
she
felt that.
Mrs. Russell thought the casting of

the skin very expressive.
James
was the
F.
Clarke
gave Coleridge's
exposition, to the effect that the serpent
common
understanding!
all
It
would touch and handle

good from
things,
and
even sought to be as the Gods, knowing

evil.
Its
undulating motion
its
belly
now on
the ground,
now
off
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
87
expressed both the aspiration and the

subserviency of the creature.
Margaret asked if serpents ever lowed their own tails ?

Charles Wheeler
an arbitrary form.
said that
swal-
must be
had been
Margaret
struck
replied, that she
by the
difference
between the
Mexican and the Greek serpent.
The
itself.
Mexican was folded back upon
Not always,
times in
its
I said.
Its tail is
some-
mouth, and the variations
seem
to
be occasioned by the architec-
tural necessity.
James
F.
Clarke spoke of a Virginia

circle,
snake that moves in a

if
and asked
about
when Mr.
Emerson
talked
" coming
full circle " he
was not think-
ing of that?
Margaret
laughed, and declared that
serpent must be of Yankee invention.

iEsculapius bore two on his
staff,
Mer-
88
cury two on his divining-rod, and the

cock was also sacred to ^Esculapius.
I
asked
if this
did not indicate a cer-
tain subjection of these
Gods
to
Wisdom
Some
questions written on paper were
here read.
One asked why Minerva

of the stroke of Vulcan,
was born
and
why
she was the patroness of weavers,
and what that had to do with the story

of Arachne.
Margaret
the
first,
replied with
it
ill
temper
to
that
was because Vulcan held

to the second, that she
the
hammer,
did not know.
But was there

in the fact that
really so little
meaning
Mechanic Art so minis-
tered to Intelligent Will that she could

afford to miss the point?
She said we could see that Minerva
was
told to
marry Vulcan, but declined

to
would have nothing

cripple.
do with the sooty

Sophia Eipley
that
said,
89
aptly
enough,
Minerva had been changing her

since
!
mind ever
Ida Russell thought that when Mechanic Art was married

to Beauty,
it
might charm even Wisdom.
George Ripley
grew
said
she might well

force,
have despised the brute

into something
it.
but as
it
more noble, have
learned to love
Dr.
Dana
was the
In
exist
servant of the Lowell corporation.

these days no
corporation
could
without
its
man
of science.
His salary
was a mere pittance, and when he made

a discovery with which
all
Europe rang,
Dr. Dana, a celebrated chemist, received a salary from the Merrimac Manufacturing Co. as consulting Through his experiments and practical skill, chemist. a radical change was made in the methods of dyeing and printing calicoes. This was in connection with the use of madder, and the Company claimed his discovery and allowed him no extra recompense. It will be perceived that Mr. Ripley got his supposed facts from the
newspapers.
"
90
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
"
he asked
for a part of the profits.
We
will consider/' said the soulless corporation,
and they decided that they had a

right
to
all
legitimate
that
could
be
made out
of their servant!
I
said,
"Thus,"
"Exactly
,,
"Wisdom sows
?
for
the Mechanic Art to reap

so,"
was the reply; "and
this contains the essence of the
Yankee
long
philosophy.
The
life
of
Wisdom was one

Bending
still
struggle for something beyond a merely

serviceable knowledge.
to art
alike
and
artisan, she
till
refused to
love the latter

to their
he had wooed Beauty

service.
common
But Wisdom
has of late married Vulcan.
He no
sits
longer limps, and has washed his face in

the springs of love and thought, and
in holiday robes beside his bride.
Somebody
said
that
the
story
of
MARGARET AND HER

Aracbne was an instance
dess's vindictiveness.
FRIENDS.
of
91
the God-
Margaret hoped
ness
so,
that the vindictiveinterpolation.

If
was a popular
the
story
of
Marsyas shows that
she was malicious.

fortunes upon him.
She brought
If her
his mis-
own
voice
was discordant, there was no reason why

his voice should please
" Divinities have a right to be indignant,"

said
somebody.
Did Margaret
blush?
In speaking of the
tions of Minerva,
artistic representa-
Margaret
said
some
tall
beautiful things.
Minerva was
as
and large as she could be, without being

masculine.
Her
face
was thoughtful and
serene, without being sweet.
Her eye
was
to
so full
and clear that
it
had no need
be deep.
The
talk
was closed by Margaret's
92
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
reading the Essay that E. P. P. had sent

in,
and the criticisms upon
it.
E. P. P. began by speaking of
conservatism
the
which disinclined Jupiter to
the birth of Minerva.
"Yes,"
Margaret
said,
"the good
was always opposed
to the better."
E. P. P. then spoke of the Parthenon,
upon which, according
to the
Homeric
Hymn,
the story of Minerva's birth was
sculptured.
Margaret
said
it
had
been
diffi-
cult to believe that the
Greeks would
put so ugly a thing upon their temple, but the ruins showed a Vulcan with his
hammer
skull.
in his hand,
and the form of
the Goddess hovering over the cloven
Why, asked E. P. P., did Ulysses represent Wisdom in the Odyssey? Margaret thought he represented the history of a thought in life, when

he tired us
all
out with his long story,

to decision.
and so pushed us
E. P. P. alluded to the different conceptions of Minerva in the Iliad and the
Odyssey, and this led to the question

of
priority
of composition.
Margaret thought the Odyssey was written when Homer was young and
romantic
;
but E. P. P. and myself stood

of the
out stoutly for the precedence

Iliad.
I said,
without the least bit of
real
knowledge, that I should not wonif
der
there were two centuries between
the poems, they seemed to indicate such

entirely different states of society
;
but
certainly the
Odyssey was
latest.
Charles Wheeler
scholars
Iliad
said that the best
seemed
all
of one mind.
The
was written
first
by Homer,
the
Odyssey long
after
by another hand.
was a gem
as married
E. P. P. said that there
which represented Minerva
94
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
to a mortal, but she could tell nothing
more about
it.
Jones Very
falls
said that
when Wisdom
into decay
Does that
fallen
we call it Genius mean that prophetic power

to
is
back from the moral nature
the intellect
dwarfed accordingly?
CAROLINE W. HEALEY.
March
27, 1841.
V.
April
2,
1841.
The
story of
Venus and Cupid and Venus she had
Psyche was discussed.
Margaret
less to
said that of
say than of either of the preceding

!
Deities
She was not the expression
of
a thought, but of a fact.
She was the
Greek idea
best
of
a lovely
woman,
of
the
physical
development
woman.
When we
said
all.
have said, " It
is,"
we have
The
birth of
Beauty was the

She sprang
re-
only ideal thing about her.
from the wave, from the flux and
flux of things, from the undulating line.
On
this
Venus, transitoriness had set

at her,
its
seal.
As we look
we
feel that
is
she must change.

fair
Her
loveliness
too
pass
to
last.
Her beauty would
96

She could not
live a
next moment.
year,
of
we
think, without losing something grace.

It
her
full
was peculiarly
and
Greek
to
to create a beautiful symbol,
pause in the
to
symbol.
The Greeks
were very apt
do
this.
They
did
it
effectually in the
Goddess of Love.
all
She
was sportive
in
her amours.
They
to to
had no idea of an Everlasting Love.
They enjoyed themselves

abstract themselves.
too
much
Venus seemed
Margaret a merely human creature. She
was not the type
of Universal
Beauty
Still,
the Greek eye was closed to that.

their their
own embodiment
did
not satisfy
out their
all
own
need.
They
filled
ideal with
Venus Urania, Hebe, and

Graces,
the
attendant Hours and

satisfied.
yet
were not
Then came
girl
the fable
of Psyche and her three Cupids.
Venus
betray
was only a pretty
Her
cestus, her
all
doves, her pets, her jealousies,

it.
97
The Venus Urania was more.

child of Celestial Light.
She
was the
Hebe
fill
was born of immortal bloom.
To
out
the gaps in their conception, Eros, or
Love
in Sadness,
Cupid a frolicsome boy,
and the more noble, more creative Love

which brooded over Chaos were evolved
from their consciousness.
Psyche,
who
did not appear until the age of Augustus,
who was
too
modern
to
be mythological,
yet glowing with mythic beauty, was

only another evidence of their imperfect
idea.
Her
story expresses
It
tells
more than
that of Venus.
story of
not only the
human
love, but represents the
pilgrimage of a soul.
The jealousy
of
Venus was
that which the
good must
is
always feel toward the better which

to supersede
it,
and as soon
as
Psyche
looked upon her sleeping lover she be-
came immortal.
of
The
soul in the fulness
Love became conscious of Destiny.
98
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
James Clarke asked what was the

difference
between the girl-mother
the
and the Greek Venus. Madonna Margaret replied, with more patience
than I was capable
of,
that the
represented more than passing

beauty.
Madonna womanly
She was prophetic, and lived
again in her child.
Then, persisted James
F.,
why was
to
Vulcan the husband of Beauty,
which
Margaret gave no satisfactory answer.
He
then
I
gave
his
own
justice,
thought,
to
it
which
can do no
although
was what
I tried in vain to say at the

It
last conversation.
amounted
to this,
it,
that in seeking
but in aiming at
labor
for
beauty we lose
utility
through hard
we
find perfect proportion
and
said
consequently perfect beauty.
He
that he and his sister Sarah had often
spoken to each other about

felt
this,
and he
that
the
time would come
when
MARGARET AND HER

we now
FRIENDS.
99
essays would be written about our ships,

as
write essays about the Pyrathe
mids and
Greek
Art.
Posterity
might
find the proof of our search after
beauty in the graceful prow and swelling

hold and
tall,
tapering mast or shrouds
of shredded jet; in the bellying canvas
and the patron
saint
which watches the
wake from the

in our
stern.
But we know
that the ship, the most beautiful object
modern world, was the product
of
labor, gradually evoked, according to the
law of
fitness,
compass, and general proits
portion.
To
bring
form into a natural

to find
relation to
wind and wave, was
perfect
harmony and beauty.
At
first
the
prow was too
sharp, and the water

it;
had rushed over
the hold was too
shallow, and she sat ungracefully
where
she
now rides as mistress. Emerson quoted some German

same
effect.
author
to the
100
MARGARET AND HER

said there
E.'s
FRIENDS.
Mr. Clarke
in
was something
one of R.
W.
own Essays which

said,
expressed the same thing.
Emerson laughed and

changed the subject, when
" Very
important authority," and would have
it
William White
tally well
said that
did not
with James Clarke's theory
that the ugly steamer had succeeded the

beautiful clipper.
Mr. Clarke said the
theory failed
only because there was no noble end in

view.
The steamer was not intended
to
be in harmony with Nature.
Emerson asked
symbol
for
if
the Greeks had no
natural
beauty.
Several
were suggested that he would not accept,

but he finally took Diana on Charles
Wheeler's suggestion.
Wheeler Venus. He
then spoke of the birth of

said
many
writers thought
the story as late as that of Psyche, and
MARGARET AND HER

the
line
FRIENDS.
it
101
of
Hesiod relating to
an
interpolation.
Margaret thought
suspected
it.
she should have
this
if
she had never heard

it
The thought
expressed was too
comprehensive to be in keeping with

the remainder of her story.
Charles Wheeler would not accept

the criticism, but
the marriage of
went on
to talk about
Venus with Mars, which

Olympian Deities
talk
to
had amazed Olympus.
Margaret
were
like
said the
modern men, who
women
only
forever about their softness and
delicacy, until
women imagine that the good thing in man is a strong arm.

elopes with a red coat, and the
The
girl
indignant lords of creation wonder
why
she did not appreciate their modest merit
and unobtrusive
weeps out
virtues.
Poor Beauty
the crimson stain upon her
escutcheon in a long age of suffering.
102

laugh followed
this
bright
that
sally,
and then somebody
said
Venus
once married Mercury.
Margaret
of
declared that must be an
interpolation, for there
were no points
of
sympathy between the Goddess

craft.
beauty and the God of
James Clarke
that;
did
not
know about
finish
he
thought that the

of
and
completeness
Davis, Palmer,
of beaut//
the
late
robbery of
&
Co. constituted a kind
Margaret
gether grand
said
;
that affair
was
alto-
she had never heard of
anything so Greek as Williamson's exclaiming, " Gentlemen

!
you
will not de-
prive
me
?
of
the
implements of
my
to
trade
his
"
She could not help respecting

!
impudence
The Greeks ought
be respected for developing every

faculty into deity.
stealing,
human
of
She thought lying,
and so forth only excesses
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
103
a good faculty; and so did the Greeks,

for
in
their
mistaken way
they had
deified Mercury.
The Spartans taught

and the Greeks
their children to steal,
universally acknowledged that to cheat
was honorable
I
if
it
could be concealed.
the
remembered
passage in
the
con-
u Republic "
fesses that
where
Polemarchus
he had learned from
Homer
for his
to
admire Autolycus, grand sire of Ulysdistinguished above

all
ses,
men
thefts
and oaths
Thrasymachus
said
that the unjust were both prudent and
good,
if
they were able to commit injus!
tice to perfection
Is
the immortality of
?
Autolycus the destiny of Williamson
Wheeler
well
said there certainly
was a
authenticated
marriage
between
Venus and Mercury.

I could
not help thinking
it
might be
an astral connection that was indicated.
On
that
remarkable day of his birth,
104
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
stealing
Mercury was not content with

the divining-rod
also the
from Apollo
he took
cestus from Venus, the voice
from Neptune, the sword from Mars,

the will from Zeus, and his tools from
Vulcan
Sagacity
compassed
its
all
the
deeps of divinity to reach
end.
Ida
Russell
asked
if
Venus and
belonged to
Astarte were not the same.
Margaret
the stars.
said
Astarte
Did not Venus,

course
wonder?
But
of
they are creations far asunder
as the poles.
Charles Wheeler thought Astarte

and Venus Urania were the same.
Ida
statues
said that could not be.
The
first
of Astarte
were rough
blocks
of wood, with veiled heads.
So, I said,
were
all
first
statues of
Deities; so that
was no argument.
asked Margaret
When James Clarke
MARGARET AND HER

to
FRIENDS.
105
compare Venus with the Madonna, a
curious talk arose between Alcott, Margaret, Charles Wheeler,
and Emerson.
Christ
of a
Alcott wanted
was not
as
to
know why
much an impersonation
human
Deities
faculty as either of the
Greek
Margaret
thought.
said
Jesus
was
not
He was
born on the earth, and
lived out a thought.
He was no
to
abstrac-
tion to her, but a brother.
Alcott wanted
know whether
arise
purer mythology, suited to the wants of
coming time, might not
from the
Greeks,
mixed mythology
and Christians
of
Persians,
very confusing and tiresome talk
arose thereupon, which Charles
Wheeler
smiled
at,
but did not join
in,
and which
profited nobody.
CAROLINE WELLS HEALEY.

April
3,
1841.
VI.
CUPID AND PSYCHE.

April
9,
1841.
Margaret thought
impertinent to
it
would be very
begin by telling what
everybody
knew,
the
old
story
of
Cupid and Psyche.

E. P. P. declared that Margaret never
told
it
twice alike, and at last she yielded

:
and
said
The
beautiful
young
princess Psyche
to
was envied by Venus, who sent Eros

destroy her
but the God, finding Psyche
wholly lovely, wedded her.
They
lived
happily until Psyche began to doubt.
Eros had told her that she must not

seek to
know him
but curiosity prein looking at
vailed over faith,
and
him
MARGARET AND HER

as
FRIENDS.
107
he slept she wounded and waked him.

left
He
her in dismay
and
as a punish-
ment the
of mortals
three trials which are the lot
were awarded
to her.
She
must
sort grain, she
must bring three
drops from the river Styx, and must get

the box of beauty from Proserpine.
birds
The
helped her with the grain; but

she reached the banks of the Styx
fulfil
when
and stooped to
the second task, she
found the water too dark, too cold, and

the eagle
came
to her aid.
trial
At the
pros;
pect of the third
her soul sank

it;
she
refused to undertake
but, winning
self-
from one of the Gods the secret of

dependence, she set
off
for
Tartarus,
gave the usual sop to Cerberus, and

returned with her prize.
" possessed "
treasures
But she was

idea
that
with
the
the
the box contained might re-
store to her her husband's love,
and she
opened
the
box
as
she
came.
The
108
MARGARET AND HER

vapors which
FRIENDS.
noxious
issued
from
it
deprived her of consciousness, and she

fell.
Eros,
as soon as
who had flown to seek her his wound was healed, brought
Immortality which he had
her the
gift of
begged of
Jupiter.
Elisabeth
Hoar
asked
sisters,
what
whose
had
inter-
become of Psyche's
ference was a striking point in the story.
Margaret
us.
said she
knew nothing
of the story
of
them, and wished Miss Hoar would
tell
Her own knowledge

and
his frescos
was
gained entirely from Raphael's original

studies,
on the walls of a
Roman
palace.
Elisabeth
Hoar
recapitulated.
The
parents of Psyche were ordered by the
angry Venus to expose her upon a high

mountain,
when Zephyr carried her to the embraces of Love, who dwelt in the depths of a quiet valley hard by. Her
came
to bewail her
sisters
death, and
MARGARET AND HER

Psyche begged Love to
FRIENDS.
109
let
Zephyr bring
For
it
them
to rejoice in her happiness.
some time he refused,

was not
for
telling her that
her good, and that she could

This our foollast
be happy without them.

ish
Psyche would not believe, and at
they were permitted to come, only she
must not
tell
them the
little
she
knew
about her husband.
The
first
time Psyche had sent them with

gifts.
away loaded
They had
questioned her about her husband, and
Psyche replied that he was only a lovely

child.
The year went round, and again

sisters'
the lovely bride longed for her

presence.
Again the God entreated her

they
to be patient, assuring her that if
came
it
would only be
to
make her
miserable.
Psyche could not be quieted.
Again they came, again they questioned.

She forgot the story she had previously
told,
and replied that he was an old man,
110
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
bent with years, but very kind to her.
Then the envious women saw that Psyche

was herself ignorant
of his true nature.
They
meant
told her that

to
he was a dragon, and
devour her; that they had them-
selves seen
the
fields.
him as he passed through They begged her to take a

kill
knife
and lamp and
him
as
he
slept.
The frightened Psyche consented.
The God was sleeping

at her side,
in radiant
beauty
and as she gazed upon him
she drew an arrow from his quiver and

carelessly scratched her finger.
Impas-
sioned
by the wound, she bent over him,

of scalding oil fell
and a drop
lamp.
from her
the
Angry and
irritated
confused,
God
awoke, and,
by the
to
pain, flew
away.
Psyche clung
him; but she
could not support herself, and he was too
angry to hold
her.
She
fell
to
the
ground, and he, perched upon a neighboring tree, reproached her.

Margaret
she
did not
Ill
know
this,
but said
tried
remembered
herself.
that
Psyche
to
drown
Elisabeth
despaired,
river
;
said that
was
later.
She
and threw herself into the
but the river pitied her, and bore
her to the shore.

of
Venus, growing
tired
her guest, sent Mercury to advertise
her.
Psyche yielded to the terms of the
Goddess, rendered herself up, and was
busy sorting the
gifts in the
temple of
to berate
Beauty when Custom was sent

her.
This, I suppose,
is
a condensation of
the lovely allegory of Apuleius in the
second century of our era, but

to
it
seems
me
Elisabeth
made some
that
additions.
Margaret
to
said
everybody had
sisters.
contend with the meddlesome

at the
They were
story,
bottom of every
to
fairy
from that of Psyche
Beauty
and the Beast.
112
MARGARET AND HER

said
it
FRIENDS.
Elisabeth Hoar
with the
Psyche.
was always
it
young
It
soul
as
was with
could give no account of
the love which

So,
I said,
made
it
so happy.
every
human
if
heart shrivels
is
under a curious touch.

that
Love
angry
we wound him, and

it is
he ever does
return
with Immortality in his hand.
When
custom berates, God accepts.

if
James Clarke asked
there was not a
celebrated statue of Cupid and Psyche.
Margaret had only heard

one older.
of Canova's,
but James said he was sure there was
William Story asked

Ida Russell
Psyche
Yes,
tions
to look.
if it
were older
than Apuleius, but James did not know.

said
it
was wrong
for
Margaret
said,
;
but her temptaif
were strong
and
they had not
come through her
sisters,
they must have
come through her own
soul.
Everything

was
produced
113
This
by
antagonism.
morning she had taken
up
Kreitzer,
meaning
to
open the Greek volume, but

In that Mythology
all-
took up the Indian.
which William Story called deep and

embracing
there
were the antagonist
principles of Vishnu, or unclouded inno-
cence, and Brahm,
who could only become

all
pure by wading through
wickedness.
sin,
There seemed
to
be a need of
for
to
work out salvation
human
beings.
Emerson
said
faith should
It
work out
that salvation.
was man's privilege

triumphantly
to resist the evil, to strive to recognise it
never
of.
Good was
al-
ways present
not to look!
to the soul,
was
It
all
the
true soul took note
was a duty
Margaret thought
sin to despair.
it
the climax of
evil to
She believed
be
a good in the grand scheme of things.
She would not recognize
it
as a blunder.
114

its
She must consider
scope a noble one.
In one word, she would not accept the world
for she felt within herself

it
the
power
evil
to reject
did
she not believe
working
in it for good!
Man had
his
fall.
gained more
than he
lost
by
The
ninety-nine sheep
in
the parable
were of less value than the " lost found,"

over which there was joy in heaven.
E. P. P. spoke of the Tree of
Life,
which would have made immortal those
who
ate of the Tree of
Knowledge.
Caroline Sturgis
said that this pro-
bation was what she could not compre-
hend.
"We began at the circumference,
and
if
we
fulfilled
our destiny must end

centre.
!
by being near the

better to have
How much
begun there
Why could
say
of that
not
God have made it so ? William Story began to God must seek the best good
creatures
;
all his
but Caroline interrupted him

by saying that there was
good
ference.
115
certainly
more
at the centre than at the circum-
William White thought

better,
all this
good,
and best very puzzling.

Caroline
if
Margaret asked
had herself defined
she could
not see probation to be a good, as she

it?
?
Are we better then, than God

Caroline.
asked
Not
better, replied
Margaret,
for
we
cannot compare
dissimilar things.
if
William White asked
any one could
be more than good, more than pure.
William Story
its
said
perfection had
degrees
White
after
said,
How
man
can you progress

?
you have reached your goal

if
As
Is
any
I.
live
ever did reach his
goal! said
there any progress for
God
re-
torted he.
116
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
Not any,
for that is a contradiction in

;
terms, I said
it
but surely you conceive of
for souls in
heaven
said
Margaret
something about the
Gospel injunction to be perfect even as
our Father in Heaven

not " even as "
is
perfect.
Does
mean "
after the pattern
of"?
Does
it
involve the nature,
as
well as the degree?
Emerson interrupted
are not finite."
quickly,
"We
Everybody smiled
swer to
this
is
but the best anin the fact, that
found
we never
and at
conceive of ourselves as infinite
rest,
only
as reaching after the
Infinite in our motion.
White
evil
said to Caroline Sturgis, " If
brings
?
knowledge
"
of
good,
is
it
not a gain
William Story
evil
talked nobly, some:
thing to this effect
That good and

If
were related terms.
both did
117
not exist, neither could, antagonism be-
ing the spring of most things in the

universe.
Margaret went back

said that in Raphael's
to
Cupid, and
studies
original
Cupid was always a boy.

a youth, almost a man.
in his frescos,
of
She spoke
the difference of
expression which he
his
gave
to
his
Venus and
Psyche,
especially in the eye.
That of Psyche
was deep and thoughtful.

tion
The
the
distinc-
extended to their attendant Cupids,

in
and was most marked
Psyche
when
she takes the cup of Immortality
from her husband.
Margaret
wanted
to
pass
on
to
Diana, but there were too
many
clergy-
men
in
the company.
Everybody was
at hand,
interested in
somebody nearer
and views
of the
unchanging Providence
were next presented.
Margaret
said
God was
the
back-
118
MARGARET AND HER

all
FRIENDS.
creation was
ground against which

thrown.
William
not
think
?
Story asked
if
she
did
He was
greater
than his
creatures
"Always beyond/' was Margaret's

reply.
Creation,
Story
said,
was rather the

must
act.
bless,
exponent
of
a Love which
than of an activity which must
It
was a Paternal power that

autocratic
ruled,
not an
power which fathered
us.
Margaret
said that the story of
Cupid
and Psyche was the story of redemption.

It contained the seeds of the doctrine of
election,
saving by grace, and

said,
so
on
good many queer things were

this.
said
on various points touched by
Emerson
that
to
imagine
fall.
it
possible to fall
was
to hegin to
little
E. P. P. got into a
to
maze trying
introduce
Margaret
and
W.
E.
! !

to each other,
119
consummation which,
be wished,
will
however
devoutly to
never happen
James Clarke
just
told her that she
was
said,
where
Paul was
when
he
"
What then ? Shall I sin, may the more abound?"

Emerson
said the
that Grace
woodlands could
tell
us most about Diana, about

contrived to say very
little.
whom we
The
omis-
sion of orgies in her worship
was dwelt
upon.
Her pure and sacred character

of
with the Athenians was compared to

that
the
Diana
of
Ephesus, whose
orgies
were not unusual, and who was
considered as a bountiful mother rather
than as a virgin huntress.
Ida Russell said that her Mythology

accused Diana of being the mother of
fifty
sons and fifty daughters

said that cer-
Margaret laughed, and

tainly
was Diana of Ephesus
120
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
The maddening
fable
fact.
influence of moonlight
as if
it
was commented upon,

;
were a
it
but William Story said
was a
In tropical regions very sad con-
sequences resulted from long gazing on

the moonlight or sleeping in
it.
In one
town
he
had known sixteen persons

this
bewildered in
way.
said
William White
book
the
of Nichols
it
that in a late
was contended that

light of her
moon had some

eclipse,
is
own,
because she shows a brazen color even
under
earth
when
the dark side of the
toward her.
But why may she
not gather stellar light from the whole

universe, as the earth seems to
?
Sallie Gardiner said something to

William
Story in a
said
low
voice.
He
laughed, and
he had been think-
ing of the consequences of his theory.
Margaret asked what he was

about.
talking

Story
said
it
121
of
was an application
the sun
eclipses to his theory that love
was the
is
it
motive to creation.
If
bene-
ficent truth shorn of its beams,
would
be like the moon, no better than brass
Caroline
Sturgis
asked
why
the
Mahomedans bore
the crescent.
said because of
William White
some
change in the moon which occurred at

the time of the Hegira.
William Story
shippers at
said
that
the
wor-
Mecca
carried the crescent
before Mahomet's time.
There
is
a cres-
cent on the black stone.
Both
stories
may
be true.
There
is
certainly a crescent on the old Byzantine coin, or besant.
Ida Russell said
something about
Diana being wedded.

This reminded E. P. P. of Minerva's
marriage, discussed last week.
that Charles
She
said
Wheeler had seen the gem
122
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
of which she then spoke, and that Nep-
tune was the favored
suitor.
William Story said the Greeks could not wed Neptune to Diana, for the tides
were too low
in the Mediterranean!
C.
W. HEALEY.
April 10, 1841.
VII.
PLUTO AND TARTARUS.

April 15, 1841.
Margaret
said
very
little
about Pluto.
On
the
first
evening she had called him
the depth of things, and
James Clarke
upon the
now had
a good deal to say
three ideas which she thought pervaded the Greek mythology,
the source,
the
depth, and the extent or flow of thought.
He
said that this distinction
had struck
first
him very
mentioned
forcibly
it.
when Margaret
speak of widely
We
dif-
fused thought, of aspiring and profound
thought
feeling,
of sympathetic, exalted, or deep

this
and
It
seemed
to
exhaust
of
language.
was through the depths
124
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
to
feeling
and experience that we came
the profound of thought.

E. P. P. said, " There
is
no genius
in
happiness."
Not
very
intelligible
statement.
Margaret
said,
"There
is
nothing
worth knowing that has not some penalty attached to

it.
We
pay
it
the more
wise.
willingly in proportion as
we grow
Depth, altitude,
births of
diffusion, are the three

It
is
Time.
this
which makes
the
German cover
at the
the operations of the

veil.
miner with a mystic

laugh
think."
Bostonians
Germans because
they
Wheeler
Irish phrase,
liked
what Mr. Clarke
said,
and added that there was meaning in the

" Lower me up."
said that
all
Margaret
fort,
the
punishef-
ments of Tartarus expressed baffled
the penalty least endurable to the
active Greek.

Mr. Mack thought
it
125
singular that in
every nation where the belief in Tartarus
had prevailed, an exact
locality
it.
had
al-
ways been assigned
to
William White
said that, so long as

locality of
anybody could point out the

the garden of Eden,
we had no need
to
smile at the locality of a Tartarus or an
Elysium.
I
do not think these " myths " belong
to the
same
class.
Charles Wheeler quoted Champollion to the effect that the
Styx was only
a small river flowing

at
between the Temple
Thebes and a neighboring " place
of tombs."
The ferryman was named
Charon, and the Egyptian habit of judging the dead probably gave rise to the
rest of the fable.
Margaret
natural."
said,
" This
was
very
She asked Mr. Wheeler the

of certain
meaning
names.
126
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
Phlegethon, he answered, meant burning

fire
;
Acheron, anguish.
did
Why
lifeless
not somebody say that the

first
current of the Styx

to give
it
tempted
?
Homer
to the Infernals
It
is
in reality a river of Epeiros.
The Styx, Wheeler

the
said,
was a cold
unhealthy stream, like that which caused

death
of
Alexander.
It
flowed
slowly through Acadia, but was supposed

to
take
its rise
in Hades.
Lethe
is
river near the Syrtus in Africa.
It dis-
appears in the sand, but
rises
again.
Hence
its
name.
difficulty in
Mr. Wheeler had some
explaining certain inconsistencies in the

poets.
Mr. Clarke quoted the remark of

Achilles (?) concerning Elysium,
that
a day of hard labor on earth was preferable to an eternity of pleasure in Elysian

fields
MARGARET AND HER

Margaret
FRIENDS.
127
said that in Elysium, as in
Tartarus, souls waited.
These
restless
Greeks could do nothing.

cut
off
They were
their
to
from action, which was

All their punishments
delight.
seem
consist of frustrated effort,
the
conse-
quence of some presumption.
Tantalus
was ever
cause
thirsty
and ever famished beaspired

to
he
had
nectar
and
ambrosia.
Ixion,
who would have

condemned
scaled
the heavens, was
to incessant
revolution upon a wheel, which
never
paused yet never accomplished anything.
The Danaides, who murdered the

which wooed them, were doomed
a broken
love
fill
to
vessel
with
water which as
constantly escaped.
Sisyphus,
who had
end,
as con-
never labored except for a
selfish
was
to roll a stone
up
hill,
fit
which
stantly rolled down,

selfish labor.
emblem
of
all
As
for Tityrus,
who sought
the
to
violate
the
secrets
of Nature,
vulture fed always upon his entrails.
128
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
Wheeler
Margaret
morse
;
said this did not represent
frustrated effort.
said,
No
this
was
re-
but
there
was
an
admirable
instance of the former given by Goethe,

of
man who
wove
rope
from the
sedges which grew upon the banks of

Lethe, for an ass
who
continually deto be that
voured
it.
The moral seemed
the ass could just as well
have eaten
to say
them unwoven.
poor
Goethe goes on
that the Greeks only thought that the
man had
a prodigal wife, but that
the moderns would look deeper and see
more
in the fable.
all
We
weave sedges
I.
for asses to eat,
thought
Margaret seemed
would correspond
hero must
I
to think that
every
heart might have an experience which

to
Tartarus.
Every
visit it at least once.
suggested
Pluto,
Persephone,
the

Fates,
129
the
Gorgons,
the
Furies,
and
Cerberus.
Pluto was equal to Neptune
and Jupiter.
Margaret continued Hades was not given to Pluto to mark defective char:
acter,
but simply as his kingdom.

all
His
bride
wants were
supplied.
The
Olympus refused him he was permitted

to steal
from earth while she gathered

Persephone, seed of
in
all
flowers.
things,
must dwell
legend
willing
tells
the
dark;
if
but another
she
us
that
had been
she
to
leave
her
veil,
might
have stolen away.
There was a mean"
ing in her being forbidden to eat in the

infernal regions.
Fate
said,
Do
not
touch what you
don't want."
Psyche
was forbidden
banquet
for
to partake
of the regal
Persephone
this
spread.
soul,
Seeking
every
bitter
Immortality,
like
other,
must be
content to
eat
bread.
130
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
There was then a talk about Cerberus
and the Gorgons.
Mr. Clarke
said
that
in
the
New
Testament the dog seemed

popular prejudice.
to stand for
The swine
stood for
what
could not, the
dog for what would
not, be convinced.
Yes,
Margaret
said,
the
wolf
is
misanthropic dog.
He
has
little
dignity.
for
Ida Russell said Cerberus stood

the temperaments.
Well,
she
Margaret
the
said, that
being
so,
liked
Greeks for making
no
allowance for the lymphatic.

she continued, do
as
To what, As
for
we
offer the first sop,

life ?
we
pass through
the
Gorgons, every one, she thought, would

find his
own
interpretation of them.
To
her there was no Gorgon but apathy

there
is
nothing in creation that will so
soon turn a live
man
into stone.
These
Gorgons were three women, who used

who was
hair
131
one eye and one tooth between them,

except Medusa,
perfect.
beautiful and
Her
had provoked
the
into
envy of Minerva, and was changed

serpents.
Margaret had a copy of a
gem, which Marion Dwight had made

for her,
which showed
if
this.
E. P. P. asked
Perseus did not en-
deavor to show Medusa her own head.
Margaret
her!
said that
might well rouse
Charles Wheeler explained.

seus only used a mirror given
Per-
him by
Gorgon.
old
Minerva
to avoid looking at the
Caroline Sturgis
said that the
woman who
to her.
keeps house for Helen in
the second part of " Faust " was a Gorgon
This
dragged a
critical
analysis
of
the " Faust" forward.
Margaret
said the
Seeker represents
the Spirit of the Age.
He never
sinned
132
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
save by yielding, and yet he was emphatically saved by grace.

cult to see
It
was
diffi-
what Goethe meant
until
he
got to the Tower of the Middle Ages.
That made
all clear.
Charles Wheeler
went
said,
the
reader
would a great deal rather that Faust

to the Devil than not! of
Margaret defended Goethe's way
exhibiting character, of which Wilhelm
Meister was an instance.

to
Goethe
I
said
himself,
What
should
do with a
?
hero in such rascally society
Meister
preferred the Brahmal experience.

E. P. P. asked
if
this
moral
indiffer-
ence was well
Margaret
frightful as
replied, that
it
was
just as
If
any other Gorgon.
we
are to have a purely intellectual devel-
opment,
to
it
was well
it.
for a
man
like
Goethe
represent
evil
To choose
fairly be-
tween
and good, the
intellect
must
regard both with indifference..
MARGARET AND HER

Somebody asked how
head
FRIENDS.
the the
133
Gorgon's
^Egis
of
came
?
to
be
on
Minerva
If
Apathy
needs
it
is
the Gorgon, snrely Wis-
dom
in
Then we began
connection
sit
to talk
about Theseus
with
Tartarus.
?
Why
should he
forever on a stone
Margaret
reform
thought
he
represented
Mr. Mack
said reform checked itself
by
own fanaticism. Wheeler, in this connection, asked

its
after the
Greek notion
of accountability.
Margaret
had any.
did not think the Greeks
Wheeler
and
told
assured her to the contrary,

it.
anecdotes to prove
He
spoke of the
fatal transmission of guilt in
one family, generation after generation.
Margaret
rejected facts.
said
the
Greeks
never
134

last
Ida Russell spoke of the
King
of
Athens, Codrus, supposed to have been
punished for the crimes of his ancestors.
Wheeler
killed
said that
when
the Greeks
felt
some ambassadors, they
so
sure that
Heaven would avenge
the sin
that they sent two citizens to expiate

it
;
but Darius, to
whom
they were sent,
refused to release the Greeks from their
impending doom.
Margaret
supposition
said
the
moment
there
it.
such a
was
started,
were
plenty of facts to sustain

is
Orestes
family.
the
purified
victim
of
his
The
old Greeks had

of
made no complete
destiny
or
their
statement
their
accountability.
E. P. P. said they had
made
C.
it
in art.
W. HEALEY.
April
16, 1841.
VIII.
MERCURY AND ORPHEUS.

April 22, 1841.
Margaret said it surprised her that young men did not seek to be Mercuries.
She
said that
one of the ugliest young
men
ries,
that she
knew had become
so en-
raptured with one of Raphael's Mercuthat he confessed to her
that
to
he
was never alone without trying

its
assume
said
attitude before the glass.
She
she could not help laughing at the image
he suggested, an ugly figure in highheeled

boots and a strait-coat in
the
act of flying, commissioned with every
grace
from Heaven to men
but she
respected the feeling, and thought every

sensitive soul
must share
it.
136
MARGARET AND HER

sent
FRIENDS.
Emerson had
a
Sophia Peabody
several fine engravings.
One
a
It
of these,
of
Correggio, represented
as
woman
Parma
a Madonna.
might give
any woman a
similar desire.
William Story, Frank Shaw, Mr.
Mack
and
his friends,
S.
Mrs. Ripley, Ida Russell,
and Mrs.
to-night.
G.
Ward were
that
all
missing
Margaret
so to
of
said
she
was sorry
she had allowed our subject to embrace
much.
The Grecian Mercury seemed

so little that she
mean
the
had not thought

connected
depth and
difficulty
with
the
Egyptian Hermes.
Among
the Greeks, Ceres, Persephone, and Juno
represent the productive faculties, Jupiter
and Apollo the
divine,
and Mercury
the
simply the
human
understanding,
thieves.
it
God
of eloquence
and of
Marianne Jackson thought
strange
that he should be at once the
God
of
persuasion and the Deity of theft!
MARGARET AND HER

Margaret
of thieving!
FRIENDS.
137
said eloquence
was a kind
Did the Greeks
so consider it? asked
Marianne.
Margaret
children
so
said,
Yes, more than any
nation in the world, and taught their

to
do
and in
fact
such
dis-
mental
recognitions
were
what
all
tinguished
peoples.
the
nation from
other
The Egyptian Hermes represented the

whole intellectual progress of man.
one made a discovery
mes, and under that
to posterity.
it
If
was signed Hertransmitted
name
Hence
the forty volumes
of
Hermetic theology, philosophy, and

Individuals were
so on.
merged
in the
God.
Hermes was always the mediator,

it
the peacemaker, and
was
in this rela-
tion that the beautiful story
was
told of
the caduceus.
Mercury has
originally
only the divining-rod which Apollo had
given
him, but, finding two
serpents
138
fighting one day, he pacified them, and
had ever
after the
right to bear
them
she
embracing on his rod.
There was an-
other story, Margaret said, which

could not understand,
the story
of
of his
obtaining the head

Osiris.
the
the
Ibis
from
Hermes kept
first
or out-
side gates of
Heaven, a
significant fact
typically considered.
I
am
sure
there
is
something'
the
in
Heeren's
researches
about
Ibis
story, but Caroline Sturgis said, No.
William White asked

the
if
the
God gave
was given
name to the planet ? Margaret said, Yes and

;
it
because
it
stood nearest the sun.
E. P. P. said Plutarch had written some-
thing about
Hermes
said,
in his " Morals."
Margaret
did n't
Perhaps
so,
but she
read
know, as she never
could
them.
Plutarch went round and round

all
a story; presented
the corners of
it,

told all the pretty bits of gossip
find, instead of
139
he could
penetrating to
its secret.
So she preferred
his anecdotes of
Heroes
to his Parallels or Essays.

I said, in surprise,
how much
said,
I liked
the "Morals."
"Yes," Margaret
"even Emer-
son paid the book the high compliment

of
calling
it
his
tuning-key,
when he
was about
to write."
E. P. P. said Coleridge was her own
tuning-key, and asked Margaret
if
she
had no such friendly
instigator.
Margaret
said she could
keep up no
intimacy with books.

dearly for a while
;
She loved a book

but as soon as she
began
to look out a nice
Morocco cover
to take a
for her favorite, she
was sure
it.
disgust to
it,
to
outgrow
She did not
mean
that,
that she outgrew the author, but
having received
all
from him that

her.
he could give her, he tired
That
140
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
!
had even been the case with Shakespeare

For several years he was her very
then
she
life
gave
him
up.
About two
years ago she had occasion to look into

" Hamlet," and then wished to refresh
her love, but found
it
impossible.
It
was the same with Ovid, whose luxuriant

fancy had delighted her girlhood.
She
all
took him up, and read a
little
with
her youthful glow
but
it
would not
last.
Friends must part, but

part from our books
?
why need we
by
it.
She regretted her
oddity, for she lost a great solace
She proceeded
with Mercury.
to contrast the Apollo
In Egypt,
Hermes was
the
the experimental Deity, the Brahma.
Caroline
Sturgis
asked what
of the
Hermes on
the door-posts
Athe-
nian houses meant.
Margaret thought
that
he
posed
there as a messenger, an opener of the
gates merely, and then spoke of several

Mercuries by Raphael.
so
full
141
One she knew,

grace
that
it
of
beauty and
seemed a
all
single trumpet-tone.
Another
life
loveliness
was handing the cup of
to
Psyche.
She wondered that such
symbols as Apollo and Mercury did not

inspire all
young men with
ardor,
and
make them something better than young men usually are. William White said Apollo was too
far
beyond the average man
to
do
this
but that Mercury, graceful and vivacious,
would naturally attract the attention.
Margaret asked
easier
if
he would be an
model
to imitate,
and then repeated
her anecdote about the ugly youth
who
longed to be a Mercury.
William
have taken
said that
if
his faith
had been
strong enough, the transformation might

place.
is
Query
enough
what
meant
by strong
142
MARGARET AND HER

of
to
FRIENDS.
Egyptian
Margaret spoke
Osiris
said
the
in
his
relation
Hermes, and
him to
be
that she did
not
like
confounded with the Apollo.

in reality the
He was
Egyptian Jove.
to speak of
is
This led
me
the Orphic
Hymn
in
which Apollo
addressed as
" immortal Jove."
Margaret
very
little
said
she
had
discovered
about Orpheus.
In relation
to the five points of
Orphic theology, she

leaf
had lately read a posthumous

Goethe's Journal.
from
The existence of a
to
Daemon seemed
of his.
that
all
be a favorite idea
He
did not believe with
Emerson
souls,
things were in our
own
but that they existed in

(does anybody
the original souls,
know what
that means?)
and we must go out to seek them.

notion Goethe thought verified
This
by
his
own
experience.
Goethe's works, Mar-
garet thought, had
more variety than

anybody's except
Shakespeare's.
143
His
powers of observation seemed to condense his genius.
William
Goethe
Byron.
White
such
wondered
tenderness
why
for
showed
Margaret
tant sense
said that in
his
every impor;
Byron was
very opposite
but Goethe hardly looked upon him as

a responsible being.
He was
rather the
instrument of a higher power.

the exponent of his period.
He was
Sophia Peabody had been making a

drawing of Crawford's Orpheus
Athenaeum.
for
It
at the
was here brought down
me
to see.
At
Sophia's
request,
Margaret
re-
peated a
it.
sonnet she had

it
written on
She recited
wretchedly, but the
sonnet was pleasant.

I
spoke of Bode's Essay on the Orphic
Poetry, and sympathized in his view of
144

Hymns.
the spuriousness of the
They
might have been signed Orpheus, however, as other things
were signed Hermes,
simply because they were exponents of
Orphic thought.
Margaret
thought.
dilated
on
this
Orphic
I quoted Proclus in his
Commentary
on Plato's " Republic " as follows:

"
of the
Mars perpetually discerns and nourishes,
and constantly excites the contrarieties

Universe, that the world
may
;
exist
perfect
and entire
in all its
parts
but requires the
assistance of Venus, that he
may
bring order
dis-
and harmony into things contrary and

cordant.
"Vulcan adorns by
universe, which he
fills
his art
the
sensible
with certain natural

he
impulses, powers,
requires the
and proportions; but

of
assistance
Yenus, that he
may
invest material effects with beauty, and
by this means secure the comeliness of the

world.
Yenus
is
the source of
in the
all
the har-
mony and analogy
Universe, and of
MARGARET AND HER FRIENDS. 145

the
union of form with matter, connecting

of
and comprehending the powers

ments.
the ele-
Although
this
Goddess ranks among
the supermundane divinities, yet her principal
employment
consists in beautifully illumi-
nating the order, harmony, and

of all
communion
mundane concerns."
Margaret if this was not something like her own thought, this
I
asked
Venus, for example, was
it
not better
than that we got from Greek art?
She
said
it
was the primal
idea,
but
to
she did not attach
much importance
chronology.
Philosophy must decide the
age of a thought.
I
gave her as good an abstract of
Bode's theory as I could.
William White took

of
its
the drawing of
Orpheus from me, and, while speaking

beauty, said
to
it
always made him
angry
the
think of the deterioration of

figure.
human
He
10
thought
it
ought
146
to
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
his
his
have been prevented, and that
ancestors
rights.
had
deprived
him
of
Upon
a
lively
this,
Margaret
said the
entered into
disquisition
upon
best
masculine
beauty.
of
it
She
specimens
she had ever seen were a South-
ern oddity named Hutchinson and some
Cambridge
Virginia.
students
who came from

through
We
was
to
lost a finer talk to-night
the inclemency of the weather.
Wheeler
of
so,
have come with a great stock
information.
Had he done
need
not have quoted Bode or Proclus.
CAROLINE W. HEALEY.
April 23, 1841.
IX.
HERMES AND ORPHEUS.

April 29, 1841.
We
did not have a very bright talk.
There were few present, and we had only

the subject of last week.
did not speak at length.
Margaret Wheeler had

prescribed
been
ill,
and
his
physician
light diet of both
body and mind.

of
Somebody spoke
the courts of
Mercury sweeping
sug-
the Gods, but that
gested nothing to Margaret.
Sarah Shaw had

cury on
it,
a pin, with a Mer-
represented as holding the
head of a goat.
Margaret had never

that
seen anything
would explain
it,
it.
and there was
some dispute about
148
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
E. P. P. said that, according to the
Orphic
of
Hymn, Mercury sought

fruit
the love
goat.
Dryope under the form of a

of
Pan was the

this
that
amour.
In
form
also he
wooed Diana.
little,
We wandered
to
from our subject a
hear Mr.
Mack
talk about the Gorgons.
He
of
thought they stood for the three sides
human
nature.
Medusa, the chief
care-taker, the body,
was the only one
not immortal, and the only one beautiful.
Stheno and Euryale, wide-extended force
and wide-extended
spirit
scope,
represented
immortal.
and
intellect, essentially
The changing of Medusa's

sented the
It
curls (or ele-
ments of strength) into serpents reprefall.
was not the Gorgons

tooth be-
who had but one eye and one

tween them, but three
sister guardians,
whom
Perseus was compelled to destroy
before he could reach Medusa.
Mr. Mack did not
tell
us
why human
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
149
nature so divided had a certain petrify-
ing power
E. P. P. thought the intellect, not the
body, was the care-taker.
Mr.
Mack
tried
in vain to explain, owing, I think, to his
German misconception
of words.
Cer-
tainly the five senses are the providers,
which was what he must have meant.
Margaret
there
liked his theory, because

in
it
was a place
for sin
She
disliked failure.
Perhaps
we
it,
all
!
had per-
ceived her attachment to evil

she wished
Not that
it
men
to fall into
but
must
be accepted as one means of
final good.
The only
Neither
copies
of
Bode belong
to
Edward Everett and Theodore Parker.

is
at this
moment
on
to
be had.
of
The
talk
turned
the age
the
Orphic idea.
The Orphic Hymns, Wheeler

were merely hymns
Orphic mysteries.
said,
of initiation into the
They were
altered
by
every successive priesthood, and finally
150

Platonists.
by the Christian
Those now
remaining were undoubtedly their work.
Perhaps the ancient formulas were

hidden in them.
ful story of
still
We know
If
all
the beauti-
Orpheus.
he indeed rep-
resents
many, yet
is
that has been said
of
him
also true of one.
Mr. Mack
represented
killed
declared
that
Eurydice
the
true faith!
She was
by an envenomed serpent, which

possibly
might
stand for
an enraged
priesthood
I got a little impatient here,
I did
and
said
;
not care to
but the
know about the Hymns Orphic idea, which made Scaliger
speak of the
Satan,"
Hymns as how old was

so.
the " Liturgy of

that
?
Margaret
called
could not guess
why he
since
them
Charles Wheeler
said
that,
they made a heathen worship attractive,
perhaps he fancied them a device of the

Evil
One

Too great a compliment
thought.
151
to Scaliger, I
Margaret had no objection

as
to
Orpheus
crowning an age
she liked that mul-
titudes should produce one.
Charles Wheeler
had spoken
of
said that Carlyle
Orpheus
as standing in
such a relation to the Greeks as Odin

bore to the Scandinavians.
Margaret
see with
said at this point (I don't
what pertinency) that Carlyle

her by making so
displeased
much
of
mere men.
James Clarke quoted Milton, speaking of himself
among
the
revellers of
the Stuart Court, as like Orpheus the Bacchanals.

I said that
among
in the
Bode placed Homer
tenth century before Christ, and Orpheus

in the age just preceding, say the thir-
teenth century before.
Mr.
Mack
thought
all
that
mere
conjecture.
152
I
MARGARET AND HER

told
FRIENDS.
him
to
it
made
a good deal of
the
difference
me whether
Orphic
Mythology came before Homer.
or after that of
Had man grown
out of the
?
noble and into the base idea
our knowledge only
memory ?
till
Was all Had the

the
Pla-
Orphic fancies no beauty

tonic Christians shaped
them
to
Margaret responded
that she
did
what
I said,
not like a mind always
looking back.
E. P. P. said there was a great deal of
consolation in
ecy.
it.
Memory was
like
proph-
She
did n't
such
mind,
it
but since she happened to have
she
wanted support
for
it.
Mr. Mack
support.
said all history offered such
Charles Wheeler
believe
it,
did n't
like
to
but
felt that
he must.
He
spoke of the Golden Age.
Margaret
said
every nation looked

back to
this
;
153
but, after
all, it
was only
the ideal.
The
past was a curtain on
which they embroidered their pictures

of the present.
William White
said that
all
great
men
looked to the appreciation of the
future.
We
are too near to the present.
Margaret
agreed.
all
E. P. P. said,
the science of Europe

the
old
could not offer anything like
Egyptian
lore.
Margaret
said
the moderns needed
the assistance of a despotic government.
Charles Wheeler spoke

uments
in Central
of the
monmind,
America; but before

in
his
he could utter what was
Margaret
ficed to
interrupted, saying that all
the greatness of the Mexicans only suf-
show
in
their littleness.
We
might
have
lost
grandeur and piety, but

in a
we had gained
ways.
thousand tag-rag
154
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
me, "Write
it.
Mrs. Farrar whispered

that
to
down
" and I have done
Charles Wheeler
plete
said that late dis-
coveries proved that there was a com-
knowledge
of
electricity
among
the ancients.
There were lightning-rods
on the temple at Jerusalem, and they

are described
by Josephus, who however

the " tag-
does not
know what they are. Margaret and I clung to
rag " gain.
Charles Wheeler agreed with me

thinking the Orphic
origin.
in
Hymns
of very late
Margaret
could not see the use of
creating a race of giants to prepare the

earth for pygmies
!
If
these must exist,

?
why
not in some other sphere
She
referred to the beautiful Persian fable.
The first was God,
of course
since
man
may
always revert to Him, what matter
about the giants?

I said that primitive
155
ages were sup-
posed to be innocent rather than great.
Margaret
to
said the Persian fable bore
the same point as the Vishnu

It
and
Brahma.
duced
all
was antagonism that pro-
things.
The universe
at first
"
;
was one Conscious Being,

word, no darkness, no
scious
it
"I
am
no
light.
This Conitself,
Being needed
to
know
and
passed into darkness and light and a
third being,
two.
This
the Mediator between the Trinity produced

ideals,
;
men, animals, things

of
and after a period

years
all
twelve
thousand
return
again into the
One, who has gained

a multiplied
by the phenomena only

consciousness.
Were they merged? " asked Charles Wheeler. Margaret said, " No once created,
"
!
they could not lose identity."

c.
w. healey.
April 30, 1841.
X.
BACCHUS AND THE DEMIGODS.

May
6,
1841.
Few
were
does
present.
dull.
Our
For
me,
last talk,
and we
Bacchus
all
my
last
part,
I
not inspire
it
and
was sad
that
I
because
was the
time
should see Margaret.
She does not love
me
I could not venture to follow her
into her
!
much Her face is full Young as I am,

at her.
own home, and I love her so Her life hangs on a thread.

of
the marks of pain.
I feel old
when
I look
Margaret spoke
of
Hercules as rep-
resenting the course of the solar year.
The three apples were the three seasons

of four
months each
into
which
the

ancients divided
it.
157
The twelve
labors
were the twelve signs

E. P. P. accepted this, and spoke of
Bryant's book, which Margaret did not

like.
Margaret
fact to
said
Bryant forced every

in a case.
falsified
be a point
Bending
it.
each to his theory, he
She
wished English people would be content,

like the wiser
fied facts
act.
Germans, to amass
classi-
on which original minds could
She liked to see the Germans so

to
content
pile
throw their
to
gifts
upon the
though
to
go down
posterity,
the pile might carry no record of the

collectors.
She spoke of Kreitzer, whose
book she was now reading, who coolly

told
his
readers
that
he should not
classify a
second edition afresh, for his
French
translator
if
had
done
it
well
satis-
enough, and
fied
readers were not
with his
own work, they must have
158
MARGARET AND HER

to
FRIENDS.
This she
recourse
the
translation.
it
thought was as
ought
said
it
to be.
James Clarke
always vexed
speak of
him
to hear ignorant people

if
Hercules as
he were a God, and of

if
Apollo and Jupiter as
they might at
some time have been men.
Margaret
said,
Yes, the distinction
between Gods and Demigods was that

the former were the creations of pure
spontaneity, and the latter actually existent
personages, about whose

all
heroic
characters and lives

clustered.
J.
congenial stories
F.
C.
;
did not like the statues of
Hercules
his taste.
the
brawny
figure
was not
to
Margaret thought
said
it
majestic.
She
he belonged properly to Thessaly,

its
and was identified with

told
scenery.
She
him.
of
several
of
little
stories
about
That
his sailing
round the rock
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
159
Prometheus, in a golden cup borrowed

of Jupiter,
was the
least
known.
She
told the story
from Ovid, the glowing
account of his death, of the recognition
by
delighted
"
Jove.
in
She said
Greece "
Wordsher
worth's
Tour
gave
great materials for thought.
Then she turned To show

Bacchus
in
to Bacchus.
what manner she supposed
to be the answer or
complement
to Apollo, she
mentioned the statement
of
some
late critic
upon the
relation of
Ceres and Persephone to each other.
Persephone was the hidden energy,

the vestal
fire,
vivifying the
universe.
ex-
Ceres was the

ternal,
productive
faculty,
bounteous.
They
It
were
two
phases of one thing.
was the same

Apollo was
;
with Apollo and

the vivifying
Bacchus.
power of the sun

the earth, and
its
genial
glow
stirred
its
noblest
product, the grape, responded.
160
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
festi-
She spoke of the Bacchanalian
vals, of the spiritual character attributed
to
them by Euripides, showing
that ori-
ginally they were something
more than
gross orgies.
Mrs. Clarke (Ann Wilby)
said that
they licensed the wildest drunkenness

in Athens.
I
said
that
was
at
later
to
time
than
Euripides
undertook
picture.
?
Were they
Egypt?
identical
with the Orphic

bring
Did Orpheus
really
them from
Margaret would
beginning.
accept
that for a
E. P. P. thought
that
next
about
winter
we might have
Mythology.
a talk
Roman
Margaret liked the idea, and James Clarke seemed to accept it for the whole
party.
He
said that he
had never
felt
any
interest in the
Greek
stories, until
161
Margaret bad made them the subject of

conversation.
E. P. P. said she
bad
felt
excessively
ashamed
little.
all
through that she knew so
Margaret
so.
said
no one need
to
feel
It
was a subject that might exhaust

Still,
any preparation.
would study
!
she wished
we
She had herself enjoyed
great
tions
advantages.
Nobody's explana-
had ever perplexed her brain.
She
had been placed in a garden, with a

great pile
of books
before
her.
She
read
began
to
read
Latin before
she
English.
For a time these
deities
:
were
real to her,
if
and she prayed

!
"
God
thou art Jupiter "
etc.
James Clarke
Bacchus
said
he remembered
her once telling him that she prayed to

for a
bunch
of grapes!
Margaret
she was
first
smiled, and said that

old
when
about
enough
11
to think
162
MARGARET AND HER
FRIENDS.
Christianity, she cried out for her dear
old
Greek gods.
Its spirituality
seemed
nakedness.
She could not and would

it.
not receive
It
its
was a
long while
before she saw
deeper meaning.
CAROLINE W. HEALEY.
May
7,
1841.
'
,0 C
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
029 557 489 6

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