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Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Atlantic Essays, Literature as an art. (search)
le house-breaking, and bigamy is almost impossible, so that we hear delightfully little about them; whereas, if you subtract these from the current English novels, what is there left? Germany furnishes at present no models of prose style; and all her past models, except perhaps Goethe and Heine, seem to be already losing their charm. Yet for knowledge we go to Germany, more than ever, and there is a certain exuberant wealth that can even impart fascination to a bad style, as to that of Jean Paul. Such an author may therefore be very useful to a student who can withstand him, which poor Carlyle could not. There was a time, it is said, when English and American literature seemed to be expiring of conventionalism. Carlyle was the Jenner who inoculated and saved us all by this virus from Germany, and then died of his own disease. It is an exciting thing to remember the time when all literature was in the inflammatory stage of this superinduced disorder; but does any one now read Ca
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Atlantic Essays, Ought women to learn the alphabet? (search)
rmer has already emancipated himself from these fancied incompatibilities; and so will the farmer's wife. In a nation where there is no leisure-class and no peasantry, this whole theory of exclusion is an absurdity. We all have a little leisure, and we must all make the most of it. If we will confine large interests and duties to those who have nothing else to do, we must go back to monarchy at once. If otherwise, then the alphabet, and its consequences, must be open to woman as to man. Jean Paul says nobly, in his Levana, that, before and after being a mother, a woman is a human being, and neither maternal nor conjugal relation can supersede the human responsibility, but must become its means and instrument. And it is good to read the manly speech, on this subject, of John Quincy Adams, quoted at length in Quincy's life of him, in which, after fully defending the political petitions of the women of Plymouth, he declares that the correct principle is, that women are not only justi
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Atlantic Essays, The Puritan minister. (search)
ing them as a token of submission to husbands in an unscriptural degree. It is pleasant to think that there could be an unscriptural extent of such submission, in those times. But Governor Endicott and Rev. Mr. Williams resisted stoutly, quoting Paul, as usual in such cases; so Paul, veils, and vanity carried the day. But afterward Mr. Cotton came to Salem to preach for Mr. Skelton, and did not miss his chance to put in his solemn protest against veils; he said they were a custom not to be tolPaul, veils, and vanity carried the day. But afterward Mr. Cotton came to Salem to preach for Mr. Skelton, and did not miss his chance to put in his solemn protest against veils; he said they were a custom not to be tolerated; and so the ladies all came to meeting without their veils in the afternoon. Beginning with the veils, the eye of authority was next turned on what was under them. In 1675 it was decided, that, as the Indians had done much harm of late, and the Deity was evidently displeased with something, the General Court should publish a list of the evils of the time. And among the twelve items of contrition stood this: Long hair like women's hair is worn by some men, either their own or others'
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Carlyle's laugh and other surprises, chapter 24 (search)
. There was Dr. O. W. Holmes, who came to Newport as the guest of the Astor family, parents of the present English author of that name. At their house I spent one evening with Holmes, who was in his most brilliant mood, at the end of which he had talked himself into such an attack of asthma that he had to bid adieu to Newport forever, after an early breakfast the next morning. There was the Reverend Charles T. Brooks, a man of angelic face and endless German translations, who made even Jean Paul readable and also unbelievable. There was Professor George Lane, from Harvard, a man so full of humor that people bought his new Latin Grammar merely for the fun to be got out of its notes. There was La Farge, just passing through the change which made a great artist out of a booklover and a student of languages. He alone on this list made Newport his home for years, and reared his gifted and attractive children there, and it was always interesting to see how, one by one, they developed
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Short studies of American authors, Helen Jackson. ( H. H. ) (search)
were too painful to be heartily enjoyed. After all, the public mind is rather repelled by a tragedy, since people wish to be made happy. Great injustice has been done by many critics, I think, to Hetty's strange history. While its extraordinary power is conceded, it has been called morbid and immoral; yet it is as stern a tale of retribution as Madame Bovary or The scarlet letter. We rarely find in fiction any severity of injustice meted out to a wrong act done from noble motives. In Jean Paul's Siebenkas the husband feigns death in order that his wife may find happiness without him: he succeeds in his effort, and is at last made happy himself. In Hetty's strange history the wife effaces herself with precisely the same object,--for her husband's sake: but the effort fails; the husband is not made happy by her absence, and when they are re-united the memory of her deception cannot be banished, so that after the first bliss of re-union they find that complete healing can never co
Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 4, Chapter 56: San Domingo again.—the senator's first speech.—return of the angina pectoris.—Fish's insult in the Motley Papers.— the senator's removal from the foreign relations committee.—pretexts for the remioval.—second speech against the San Domingo scheme.—the treaty of Washington.—Sumner and Wilson against Butler for governor.—1870-1871. (search)
ess at all titles to maintain, and which, even after his assault on me, he was willing to seek at my own house. To expect more shows on his part grievous insensibility to the thing he had done. Whatever one signs he makes his own; and the secretary, when he signed this document, adopted a libel upon his friend; and when he communicated it to the Senate he published the libel. Nothing like it can be shown in the history of our government. It stands alone. The secretary is alone. Like Jean Paul in German literature his just title will be, The only one. For years I have known secretaries of state, and often differed from then; but never before did I receive from one anything but kindness. Never before did a secretary of state sign a document libelling an associate in the public service, and publish it to the world. Never before did a secretary of state so entirely set at defiance every sentiment of friendship. It is impossible to explain this strange aberration except from the
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Oldport days, with ten heliotype illustrations from views taken in Newport, R. I., expressly for this work., The haunted window. (search)
e very often. The gate was sometimes opened by Paul, the silent Bavarian gardener, who was master oom my own mind, I got the key of the house from Paul, explored it thoroughly, and was satisfied thatcross the doorway. This did no great credit to Paul's stewardship, but was, perhaps, a slight relied. Either it was pure fancy, I said, or it was Paul the gardener. But here he was prepared for mscaled the wall, and looked in at the window of Paul's little cottage, where the man and his wife weclimbed it, as Severance had done, to look into Paul's cottage. That worthy was just getting into b Failing to get any clew, I waited one day for Paul's absence, and made a call upon the wife, underwn by the storm. I therefore went inside, with Paul's household, leaving the fishermen without. lness he told me all he had to tell; and though Paul and his family disappeared next day,--perhaps gs country, and joined her sister, Paul's wife. Paul had received her reluctantly, and only on condi[3 more...]
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Oldport days, with ten heliotype illustrations from views taken in Newport, R. I., expressly for this work., A shadow. (search)
ophetic life had begun. I cannot foretell that child's future, but I know something of its past. The boy may grow up into a criminal, the woman into an outcast, yet the baby was beloved. It came not in utter nakedness. It found itself heir of the two prime essentials of existence,--life and love. Its first possession was a woman's kiss; and in that heritage the most important need of its career was guaranteed. An ounce of mother, says the Spanish proverb, is worth a pound of clergy. Jean Paul says that in life every successive influence affects us less and less, so that the circumnavigator of the globe is less influenced by all the nations he has seen than by his nurse. Well may the child imbibe that reverence for motherhood which is the first need of man. Where woman is most a slave, she is at least sacred to her son. The Turkish Sultan must prostrate himself at the door of his mother's apartments, and were he known to have insulted her, it would make his throne tremble. Am
Laura E. Richards, Maud Howe, Florence Howe Hall, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, in two volumes, with portraits and other illustrations: volume 1, Chapter 4: girlhood 1839-1843; aet. 20-23 (search)
ston gave her time to examine her feelings. Relieved from the pressure of a twofold excitement, breathing a calmer and a freer air, she realized that there could be no true union between her and the Rev. Mr.--, and the connection was broken off. The course of Julia's studies had for some years been leading her into wider fields of thought. In her brother's library she found George Sand and Balzac, and read such books as he selected for her. In German she became familiar with Goethe, Jean Paul, and Matthias Claudius. She describes the sense of intellectual freedom derived from these studies as half delightful, half alarming. Mr. Ward one day had undertaken to read an English translation of Faust and came to her in great alarm. My daughter, he said, I hope that you have not read this wicked book! She had read it, and Wilhelm Meister, too (though in later life she thought the latter not altogether good reading for the youth of our country ). Shelley was forbidden, and Byron
Laura E. Richards, Maud Howe, Florence Howe Hall, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, in two volumes, with portraits and other illustrations: volume 1, Chapter 8: little Sammy: the Civil War 1859-1863; aet. 40-44 (search)
s against that feeling. At Parker's meeting individuals read the newspapers before the exercises begin. A good many persons come in after the prayer, and some go out before the conclusion of the sermon. These irregularities offend my sense of decorum, and appear to me undesirable in the religious education of my family. It was a grievous thing to her to make this sacrifice; she said to Horace Mann that to give up Parker's ministry for any other would be like going to the synagogue when Paul was preaching near at hand; yet, once made, it was the source of a lifelong joy and comfort. Mr. Clarke was then preaching at Williams Hall; hearing Parker speak of him warmly, she determined to attend his services. She found his preaching as unlike as possible to that of Theodore Parker. He had not the philosophic and militant genius of Parker, but he had a genius of his own, poetical, harmonizing. In after years I esteemed myself fortunate in having passed from the drastic discipline
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