The spirit-rapper; an autobiography
action, not in non-action, which is death, the wages of sin. The only
good is free activity, and every conceivable good is included in that
one word, LIBERTY.”
“But liberty, if not sustained and regulated by authority, may
degenerate into license.”
“Still, _mon pauvre ami_, in bondage to the law, and ignorant of the
glorious liberty of the children of God. Away with your legal cant. By
the deeds of the law no flesh ever was or ever will be justified. Long
had the world groaned in this ignoble bondage, but know you not that it
was to set them free that the Liberator came? O, liberty! sweet, sacred
liberty! how I love thee! My heart and soul pant for thee as the thirsty
hind pants for brooks of water. My flesh cries out for thee. Thou art my
God, and to thee I consecrate my life, my love, and on thy altar I offer
myself a living holocaust.”
“Is there really no difference between liberty and license?”
“Be not the dupe of words. You seek to be a philanthropist.
Philanthropy, I tell you again and again, is the love of man, mankind,
humanity. Who that loves humanity would repress any thing human? If man
is the supreme object of your love, how can you distrust any human
tendency, or fear any human activity?”
“Suppose, my dear Priscilla, who speak to me as one inspired, I should
forget myself so far as not to remember James, and proceed to make love
to his wife?”
“She would say you have a very short memory, and no very great sagacity.
She would most likely know how to oppose her activity to yours.”
“And thus surrender her doctrine; for in such case her activity would
overcome mine, or mine would overcome and restrain hers.”
“Not necessarily. There would be a struggle of opposing forces, a free
activity on both sides, and whatever the result, a development and
progress of humanity. But all this is folly. There can be no love
passages between us. We understand each other on such matters. United,
married, if you will, in spirit, we are, or if not, must be, but we have
no leisure or inclination for dalliance, which would be foreign to our
mission. Our thoughts, I trust, yours as well as mine, rise higher, and
move in a serener atmosphere. But be not disheartened. Our relation is,
and must be, purely spiritual.”
“I did but ask the question, my dear Priscilla, in order to see if you
were prepared to carry out your doctrine to its legitimate conclusion.”
“That was foolish. No true woman ever stops half way in her principles,
or shrinks from carrying them out, by a cold and cowardly calculation of
consequences. She leaves that to masculine virtue. When once women adopt
a principle, they are prepared to follow it to its last results, without
counting the sacrifice. You men cannot do this. You are always
hesitating, deliberating, craving the end, but afraid to grasp it,
compromising with your reason and your conscience. Recollect Macbeth,
and Lady Macbeth, as painted by Shakspeare, who knew man’s heart and
woman’s too. Here is the reason why you always stop half way in your
reforms, or never do more than patch a piece of new cloth on to an old
garment, which only makes the rent worse. Hence your need of woman’s
straightforward logic, her disinterestedness, her singleness of heart,
her constancy of purpose, and her invincible courage.”
“But perhaps, my dear lady, women are not seldom rash, and what you
commend in them is the effect of narrowness of view, and not of that
clear and enlarged comprehensiveness, that “many sidedness,” to use a
Germanism, which is desirable in a true and trustworthy reformer.
Perhaps she lacks prudence, and may not use sufficient caution in
adopting her principles, and thus may adopt false principles, and find
ruin where she imagines she is to find only safety.”
“It is safer to trust her instincts than man’s reason. Yet I deny not
the danger to which you allude, and therefore it is that it is never
safe to trust her to act alone. Hence the necessity, in all our
movements for reform, of the strict union of man and woman. She needs
him as a drag on her too great rapidity of motion, and to temper her
zeal with his prudence, and he needs her to inspire him with courage,
energy, and love. Either is only a half without the other, and both must
be united, as I have already told you, to form a complete and productive
whole.”
“I think I now understand what is meant by philanthropy. I have the
idea, but as a pure idea it amounts to nothing. We must realize it, or
reduce it to practice. Our great work is to remodel the world according
to this idea. But how is this to be done?”
“That is undoubtedly the most difficult question, although our
difficulties will not end even there. When we have ascertained what we
are to do, and how it is to be done, we have still the difficult task to
do it. But courage, _mon ami_. Once started, reforms are carried forward
by their own momentum, and, like popular rumor, grow as they go onward.
For myself, I am not exclusive, and have no special plan of my own. I
listen to all sorts of plans, and countenance all sorts of reforms. None
of them commend themselves in all respects to my understanding any more
than to my taste. But all seem to me to be inspired by the same spirit,
and in different ways to work to one and the same end. There is a
diversity of gifts. All see not truth under the same aspect; none,
perhaps, see it under all aspects at once, and each sees it under some
special aspect. We must tolerate them all; for to attempt to bring them
all into order, and to compel them all to think alike, and to work after
one and the same manner, or in one and the same method, is absurd, and
if successful, would only establish in another, and perhaps in an
aggravated form, the very system of tyranny and repression we are
laboring to demolish. You know something already of our reformers, and
the most prominent are now in the city, holding conventions. We have
representatives from all the Northern and Middle States, and several
English and Continental philanthropists. Some of them, I cannot say how
many, will meet at my house this evening, and you must meet with them.
You will find their conversation interesting and instructive, and
perhaps you will become acquainted with some who will give you valuable
hints, although, to confess the truth, I have no very high opinion of
any of them, taken individually. Be sure and not fail me; come early, at
seven o’clock.”
So saying, she rose, gave me her hand, _au revoir_, and I departed to my
lodgings, charmed with the sweetness and fascinated by the manner of
Priscilla, rather than enlightened by her philosophy or convinced by her
reasons.
CHAPTER VIII.
A LESSON IN WORLD-REFORM.
When I returned in the evening, I found Priscilla in high spirits, more
radiant and fascinating than ever. Her company were slowly assembling in
her luxuriously, and even elegantly furnished rooms. Among the earlier
arrivals were my friend, Mr. Winslow, and strange enough, my Puritan
acquaintance, Mr. Cotton, who had recently become a resident of
Philadelphia, and pastor of a Presbyterian church in that city. Others
were announced, some whom I knew, but more whom I knew not. The majority
were from the middle and upper classes, although all classes of society
had their male or female representatives. The principle on which they
came together was universal philanthropy, and whoever was a
philanthropist, and had an idea, or the smallest fraction of an idea,
had the _entrée_, unless he had African blood in his veins. All were of
course abolitionists, or friends of the blacks, and therefore excluded
studiously the negroes from their social gatherings. Generally speaking,
all professed universal democracy, and hence were very exclusive in
their feelings, and aristocratic in their tone and bearing; that is, so
far as aristocracy consists in a consciousness, not of one’s own worth,
but of the worthlessness of his brother. The company was too large to
have only one centre, and gradually separated into groups according to
their special tastes and tendencies. In the centre of each group was
some male or female reformer, distinguished from the rest by superior
knowledge, volubility, or impudence, and regarded as the oracle of his
or her own set, for however loud people’s profession of democratic
equality, nature will show itself, and every set of them will have its
chief, honored as my Lord or my Lady.
Mr. Winslow had been dismissed from his parish, and having no other
means of getting his living, he had followed the example of Mr. Sowerby,
and devoted himself to lecturing and experimenting on mesmerism. He was
urging upon Priscilla the importance of forming mesmeric circles in all
the cities, towns, and villages, of the Union. The first thing to be
done was to organize a philanthropic Ladies’ Aid Society, for the
purpose of supporting a mesmeric travelling agent or missionary, whose
business should be to form these circles or associations, instruct some
member of each in the art of mesmerizing, and serve as their common
centre and bond of union. If no one more worthy were found he would
himself consent to accept, for a moderate salary, such agency, or to be
such missionary. These circles formed, and affiliated, visibly and
invisibly to each other, would become a powerful body, and exert a moral
influence which both the church and the state, politicians and
clergymen, would be obliged to respect. In this way he was sure all the
elementary forces of nature herself could be brought to bear on the
great and glorious work of world-reform.
Mr. Edgerton, a New England Transcendentalist, a thin, spare man, with a
large nose, and a cast of Yankee shrewdness in his not unhandsome face,
was not favorable to this plan. “I dislike,” he said, “associations.
They absorb the individual, and establish social despotism. All set
plans of world-reform are bad. Every one must have a theory, a plan, a
Morrison’s pill. No one trusts to nature. None are satisfied with wild
flowers or native forests. All seek an artificial garden. They will not
hear the robin sing unless it is shut up in a cage. The rich undress of
nature is an offence, and she must be decked out in the latest fashion
of Paris or London, and copy the grimaces of a French dancing-master, or
lisp like an Andalusian beauty, before they will open their hearts to
her magic power. Say to all this, Get behind me, Satan. Dare assert
yourselves; plant yourselves on your imperishable instincts; sing your
own song of joy, your own wail of grief; speak your own word; tell what
your own soul seeth, and leave the effect to take care of itself. Eschew
the crowd, eschew self-consciousness, form no plan, propose no end, seek
no moral, but speak out from your own heart; build as builds the bee her
cell, sing as sings the bird, the grasshopper, or the cricket.”
“So,” said Mr. Merton, a young man, with a fine classic head and face,
who seemed to have been drawn hither by mere curiosity, “so you think
the nearer men approach to birds and insects the better it will be for
the world.”
“I never dispute,” replied Mr. Edgerton. “I utter the word given me to
utter, and leave it as the ostrich leaveth her eggs. Men should be
seers, not philosophers; prophets, not reasoners. I never offer proof of
what I say. I could not prove it, if asked. If it is true, genuine, the
fit word, opportunely spoken, it will prove itself. If it approves not
itself to you, it is not for you. You are not prepared to receive it. It
is not true for you. Be it so. It is true for me, and for those like me.
Fash not yourself about it, but leave us to enjoy it in peace.”
“But are we to understand,” replied Mr. Merton, “that truth varies as
vary individual minds?”