Chapter C: W. Healey

March 9, 1841.

III.

The third conversation was delayed by Margaret’s illness, and finally took place—

_March 19, 1841._

MARGARET again complained that we wandered from the subject, and told the following story from Novalis.

Imagine a room, on one side of it Eros and Fable at play. On the other, before a marble slab on which rests a vase of pure water, sits a fair woman named Sophia. Her head rests upon her hand. Between her and the children sits a man of reverend age, before a table at which he writes whatever has been or is. 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 often emerges a perfect blank. Sometimes a few lines, at others a few words, sometimes only a punctuation mark, survive the test. This troubles the old man. At last he rises and leaves the room. Fable springs to his vacant seat, and scribbles as if in play till his return, when History reproves her for wasting the paper, and passes the sheet to Sophia, when, lo! it comes out from her vase unchanged. Fable has borne the test of Truth. History is enraged at this, and succeeds in driving both Sophia and Fable from their home, unfairly. Sophia is driven away, but the child escapes by a back door, and, becoming bewildered in the central caverns of the Earth, falls into the power of the Fates.

These respectable old ladies find the little Fable very troublesome, and, after some scolding, send her away to spin, when, lo! from the recesses of the cavern all 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 may dislike her, she is under their protection, and History can do no more than advise them to send her out to catch Tarantulas! Fable departs and meets Eros, who gives her a lyre, upon which she plays, and the venomous insects swarm about her. The Fates behold her return unharmed! They had hoped she would be stung to death, and in despair Ate throws her scissors at the child, who gracefully avoids them. Hereupon 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 when Fable laughs at their distress they send her away to spin them some thin dresses. Fable is tired of wandering. She plays upon her lyre to the Tarantulas, bidding them spin, and she will give them three large flies. When the dresses are done, she carries them immediately to the Fates, who begin again to dance. The ends of the threads are still in the bodies of the Tarantulas, who do not like to be jerked about. “Behold the flies which I promised you,” said Fable.

Thereupon the Tarantulas fall upon the dancing Fates, and a new dynasty commences, in which Eros reigns, with Fable for prime minister.

MARGARET said that in the story she had told she had set us the example of wandering from the subject, but she hoped to some purpose. She hoped no one would have need to call upon little Fable’s body-guard of Tarantulas.

The subject of the evening was Apollo in contrast with Ceres, or Genius opposed to Productive Energy. The history of Apollo stood for the history of thought, its progressive development and its unhappiness. All the loves of Apollo are miserable. He never labors for himself. He uses the instruments which others have shaped. He is so delighted with the lyre, which Mercury, that is Sagacity, 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 to steal his quiver or his darts is beautiful! The common understanding, mere human sagacity, may indeed lay hands on the weapons of the Inspired One, but it cannot possess them. The ray, the dart, the quiver, of Apollo all stand for the instantaneous power of thought.

Delphi did not originally belong to Apollo. With the aid of Bacchus, he wrested it from Terra, Neptune, and Themis; hence the name “Delphi,” or “The brothers.” This is only another instance of his independence. All things are made to his hand. The great contrast between Ceres and Apollo lies in the success of each. Ceres is always full, always prepared to meet the call of humanity. Apollo is always unsatisfied. 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 would explain the fraternal relation between Bacchus and Apollo.

“Don’t you remember?” she retorted. “I don’t like to repeat it, it is so smart and ingenious!” Apollo and Bacchus seemed to her the question and the response. Bacchus was what the earth yielded to the touch of Genius. The grape was genial. It typified the excess of the earth’s fruitfulness. Bacchus avenges the wrongs of Apollo, who is said never to have seen a shadow! He never perceives an obstacle, but instantly destroys an alien nature. Whatever opposed Apollo met with terrible retribution,—if not from himself, then from others. Genius cannot endure the presence of anything that mocks at it.

CHARLES WHEELER said something about the flaying of Marsyas.

MARGARET said that this once seemed to her the most shocking of cruelties, but she had lately seen a picture which reconciled her to the deed! After looking at the self-complacent face of Marsyas, she did not wonder that Apollo destroyed him. She longed to _see him do it_! Apollo was never indignant at any sublime treachery. He forgave Mercury his theft because it was god-like, because he did it so well.

MRS. RUSSELL said ironically that the destruction of the children of Niobe must have been a gratifying sight.

MARGARET laughed, and said, “That is like being reminded of the ‘poor mariner,’ when I say that I like to hear the wind blow.” The indignation of Apollo seemed to her one of his noblest attributes. His perfect purity separated him from all the Gods. Ceres seemed to be included in the idea of many other Gods, as in Pan, Bacchus, Juno, and Isis; but Apollo, the divine Genius, stands alone. There is none like him.

HENRY HEDGE asked whether holiness appertained to Apollo.

MARGARET thought not. Holiness supposed a voluntary consecration of one’s self, but there was no need of this in Apollo. He was pure thought, consecrated, but not consciously.

HENRY HEDGE said he had asked, because, considering Jesus to have, as he certainly had, a mythological character, he thought there was a resemblance between him and Apollo. His own words justified the idea,—“I am the light of the world,” and so on.

MRS. RUSSELL asked suddenly why Apollo’s lyre had seven strings.

MARGARET said seven was a consecrated number.

MRS. RUSSELL asked if it did not have to do with the seven planets?

GEORGE RIPLEY said there were not so many in that day.

MARGARET liked the reason, and wished she had thought of it herself!

Some one asked about the connection between Diana and Apollo.

MARGARET said that Genius needed a sister to console him.

EMERSON asked what bearing the inscription over the Delphic temple had upon the story of Apollo,—the Divine pun EI, which means equally “Thou art” and “If,”—as grand a pun as that of him who, dying, said he was going to see the great “Perhaps”!—“le grand peut-être.”

Better translated, I thought, as the great “May-be.”

GEORGE RIPLEY asked if it were not generally accepted positively as “Thou art”?

“Probably,” MR. EMERSON said.

HENRY HEDGE found another type of the Apollo in the Egyptian Horus.

MRS. RUSSELL asked if the two Greek vowels had not once stood for Isis and Osiris. If so, they would have a natural connection with the oracle.

I remembered the inscription on the statue of Isis, “I am all that has been and that shall be, and none among mortals has taken off my veil.” The “I am” of the Jews, 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 Presumption should be the child of Genius.

“Genius must be self-confident,” Margaret said, “and that might predominate.”

I asked if real Genius did not know its own resources and husband them.

MARGARET thought Genius often attempted more than it could do.

I said a man might have genius and presume, but that if _he were a genius_ I should expect him to be modest. Still, as it must have a crowd of imitators, it might become the father of presumption. The substance creates the shadow.

WILLIAM STORY said no product could be as great as the producing power; but that did not seem to me to touch the point, for the question was not whether Apollo could not give birth to something less than himself, but whether the possession of power could create an unfounded claim to it.

The story of Latona followed.

HENRY HEDGE said that the word meant concealment.

MARGARET thought this very expressive, and said that the isolation which Goethe and other geniuses had been craving since the world began Apollo had no need to seek. His mother was concealment. The oracle was then discussed,—how it was possible to consult it many times and receive each time a different answer,—how it could be bribed, as by Alexander, or would give two answers in one; but nothing very new was said.

I remembered the double answer of the Pythoness to Crœsus when he meditated crossing the Halys. “Thou shalt destroy a great empire,” she said. He thought it was the enemy’s: fate decided it should be his own.

SOPHIA RIPLEY thought the oracle belonged to Wisdom rather than Genius.

MARGARET said Minerva dwelt in men’s houses. It was necessary a voice from Heaven should speak.

Some one wondered that Jupiter had not possessed himself of the oracle, which led MARGARET back to her exponents, and she confessed that she was not quite satisfied with her own definition of Jupiter as Will.

EMERSON suggested that experience was a prominent feature in the Jupiter, and named him Character.

Character is educated Will, said MARGARET, hesitating, and paused, for the term did not suit her.

Juno was then spoken of as passive Will, and her traits were dwelt upon. It is amusing to see how weak the Queen of Olympus can be in opposition to its King. The peacock was probably made sacred to her on account of the beauty of its plumage, while the eagle was consecrated to Jupiter on account of its strength.

I said that the peacock, strutting with conceit, glancing at its ill-shaped feet and vexed enough to bawl in consequence, easily suggested the scolding Juno.

Some one asked a question about Æsculapius. MARGARET said he was genius made practical.

HENRY HEDGE thought that Apollo by his own connection with the healing art became the symbol of physical life and beauty.

WILLIAM STORY thought no statue could bear comparison with the Apollo Belvedere.

MARGARET preferred the Antinous.

JAMES CLARKE asked why Art should present a so much more inspiring view of Greek Mythology than Poetry.

MARGARET said that all her ideas of it were deduced from Art. She did not profess to know much of the Greek authors, and depended chiefly upon Homer, but wished that some of the gentlemen who ought to know more would speak.

WILLIAM STORY thought it was because the poets wrote for popular applause, for recitation and its immediate effect. Sculptors labored more purely for their Art.

I thought too that the dramatists often had a political aim, and manœuvred Olympus to suit it!

JAMES CLARKE said that if in our time every public speaker must bend to his audience to a degree, it was still more necessary in Greece.

We were told to consider Minerva for the next conversation, and to write down our thoughts about her. For my part I don’t like using Latin names for Greek deities. It greatly confuses my ideas. Jupiter and Zeus seem very different to me.

In regard to the story that Apollo never saw a shadow, CAROLINE STURGIS asked how Apollo could destroy an alien nature if he never met it.

There was quite an unsatisfactory talk about this, which would have ended had anybody remembered how the sun solves the enigma every day. The sun never sees the shadow it destroys. When its rays fall, light is. It annihilates the alien 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 of Genius. 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, but sprang full-armed into being. Ready, agile, she was in herself the history of thought. She did not need that her life should be one of incident. Her attendant emblems are expressive: the Sphinx, the owl, the serpent, the cock, and the javelin suggest her whole story.

WILLIAM WHITE asked why Genius was masculine and Wisdom feminine.

MARGARET thought no one could find any difficulty in the fact that Genius was masculine. It presented itself to the 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, self-conscious state of the faculties. Wisdom was like woman, always ready for the fight if necessary, yet never going to it; taking reality as a basis, and classifying and arranging upon it all that Genius creates,—seeing the relations and proper values of things.

GEORGE RIPLEY objected to this definition. He might have imbibed a Hebrew idea, but the office of Wisdom was surely something more than this,—a purely mechanical and orderly tact.

MARGARET said she had not meant to give _our_ view of it, only the Greek idea as manifest in the story of Minerva. To William White she said, smiling, that she supposed he had not wondered so much that Genius should be masculine as that Wisdom should be feminine! But the Greeks were wise, and she revered their keen perception.

ELISABETH HOAR said it seemed to her that Wisdom provided _means_. A hero might be inspired by Genius, but Wisdom provided his armor, taught him to distinguish the goal, and to perceive clearly the relation to it of any onward step.

MARGARET agreed to this, and

WILLIAM STORY said that Genius was indebted to Wisdom for _means of communication_. Genius thinks words impertinent, but Wisdom apprehends its intuitions, and gives them shape.

MARGARET said further, that Wisdom must adopt instinctively 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 sagacity, but all these words about it cleared up nothing.

MARGARET then proposed that we should take up the attributes of Minerva, and so get at the facts.

MR. RIPLEY did not think it noble enough when she based Wisdom upon realities.

WILLIAM STORY said Wisdom must have something to 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.

I wanted to quote Emerson to the effect that the Ideal is more Real than the Actual.

MARGARET agreed with Mr. Wheeler, and said that by reality she understood anything incarnated,—whatever was tangible. She then went on to speak of the Sphinx. What was it?

ELISABETH HOAR seemed surprised at the question. Was it not one thing to everybody?

MARGARET called for her idea, but she would not give it.

MARGARET said that to herself it represented the development of a thought, founding itself upon the animal, until it grew upward into calm, placid power. She revered these good ancients, who did not throw away any of the gifts of God; who were neither materialists nor immaterialists, but who made matter always subservient to the highest ends of the Spirit.

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?

MARGARET thought ambrosia and nectar were proper emblems of Divine Joy. They were not to be taken literally.

“But,” persisted WHITE, “the great body of the people thought them so.”

WILLIAM STORY said, with happy grace, that the great _body_ of the people might be excused for such a thought.

MARGARET enjoyed the pun, and said that the great Greek body was sensuous and ate, but that the Greek soul knew better than to suspect the Gods of opening their mouths.

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

MARGARET said she did not know what it was!

E. P. P. said, the evolution of all things from the soul, the non-existence of matter.

JAMES P. CLARKE thought it very difficult to decide how far spirit and matter were one. A man’s identity was not in the particles which came and went every seven years, but in the spirit. Yet these particles constituted the wall of separation between himself and others. His identity was in his spirit.

GEORGE RIPLEY 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 said that if God created matter, of course it was evolved from spirit; that matter could not be antagonistic to that from which it was evolved. To express a complete idea, we had only to say, “Jehovah, I am.”

“Or,” CHARLES WHEELER added, “to be silent.”

“Yes,” said MARGARET, “and in that lies 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 in with another pun. “If Berkeley thought so, it was _no matter_!”

Some stupid person spoiled the wit by trying to explain it, and the question remained to us just as much matter as ever.

They talked about the Sphinx again, yet said little. It holds more meaning in its passive womb than talk will ever play the midwife to. It was the child of the Destructive Element and Feeling,—Typhon and Echidna,—the human heart experienced in misfortune touched by death. Thought rooted in the actual and developed by tenderness was rooted in this figure.

“Everybody knows that Wisdom stings,” said MARGARET, and so we went on to the serpent.

Somebody spoke of the Greek Tartarus.

IDA RUSSELL thought its torment was not acute, but consisted of the deprivation of comforts.

The wandering idleness of it would be intolerable to an active Greek, ELISABETH HOAR thought, but more endurable than any device of a priesthood. As for our serpent, no one seemed to know much about it.

MARGARET said that we owed it so much, that _she_ felt in duty bound to know something of it.

JAMES F. CLARKE said that the Christian serpent was quite another thing.

Everybody laughed at the idea of a _Christian_ serpent.

WILLIAM WHITE professed great admiration for the reptile. We should have had no Christianity but for its beguiling.

MARGARET agreed!—and said she supposed everybody felt that.

MRS. RUSSELL thought the casting of the skin very expressive.

JAMES F. CLARKE gave Coleridge’s exposition, to the effect that the serpent was the common understanding! It would touch and handle all things, and even sought to be as the Gods, knowing good from evil. Its undulating motion—its belly now on the ground, now off—expressed both the aspiration and the subserviency of the creature.

MARGARET asked if serpents ever swallowed their own tails?

CHARLES WHEELER said that must be an arbitrary form.

MARGARET replied, that she had been struck by the difference between the Mexican and the Greek serpent. The Mexican was folded back upon itself.

Not always, I said. Its tail is sometimes in its mouth, and the variations seem to be occasioned by the architectural necessity.

JAMES F. CLARKE spoke of a Virginia snake that moves in a circle, and asked if when Mr. Emerson talked about “coming full circle” he was not thinking of that?

MARGARET laughed, and declared that serpent must be of Yankee invention. Æsculapius bore two on his staff, Mercury two on his divining-rod, and the cock was also sacred to Æsculapius.

I asked if this did not indicate a certain subjection of these Gods to Wisdom?

Some questions written on paper were here read. One asked why Minerva was born of the stroke of Vulcan, and why she was the patroness of weavers, and what that had to do with the story of Arachne.

MARGARET replied with ill temper to the first, that it was because Vulcan held the hammer,—to the second, that she did not know.

But was there really so little meaning in the fact that Mechanic Art so ministered 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; would have nothing to do with the sooty cripple.

SOPHIA RIPLEY said, aptly enough, that Minerva had been changing her mind ever since!

IDA RUSSELL thought that when Mechanic Art was married to Beauty, it might charm even Wisdom.

GEORGE RIPLEY said she might well have despised the brute force, but as it grew into something more noble, have learned to love it. Dr. Dana[2] was the servant of the Lowell corporation. In these days no corporation could exist without its man of science. His salary was a mere pittance, and when he made a discovery with which all Europe rang, he asked for a part of the profits. “We will consider,” said the soulless corporation, and they decided that they had a legitimate right to all that could be made out of their servant!

“Thus,” I said, “Wisdom sows for the Mechanic Art to reap?”

“Exactly so,” was the reply; “and this contains the essence of the Yankee philosophy.”

The life of Wisdom was one long struggle for something beyond a merely serviceable knowledge. Bending alike to art and artisan, she still refused to love the latter till he had wooed Beauty to their common service. But Wisdom has of late married Vulcan. He no longer limps, and has washed his face in the springs of love and thought, and sits in holiday robes beside his bride.

Somebody said that the story of Arachne was an instance of the Goddess’s vindictiveness.

MARGARET hoped that the vindictiveness was a popular interpolation. If so, the story of Marsyas shows that she was malicious. She brought his misfortunes upon him. If her 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 artistic representations of Minerva, MARGARET said some beautiful things. Minerva was as tall and large as she could be, without being masculine. Her face was thoughtful and serene, without being sweet. Her eye was so full and clear that it had no need to be deep.

The talk was closed by Margaret’s reading the Essay that E. P. P. had sent in, and the criticisms upon it.

E. P. P. began by speaking of the _conservatism_ 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 difficult to believe that the Greeks would put so ugly a thing upon their temple, but the ruins showed a Vulcan with his hammer in his hand, and the form of the Goddess hovering over the cloven skull.

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, and so pushed us to decision.

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 out stoutly for the precedence of the Iliad. I said, without the least bit of real knowledge, that I should not wonder if 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 said that the best scholars seemed all of one mind. The Iliad was written first by Homer,—the Odyssey long after by another hand.

E. P. P. said that there was a gem which represented Minerva as married to a mortal, but she could tell nothing more about it.

JONES VERY said that when Wisdom falls into decay we call it Genius!

Does that mean that prophetic power fallen back from the moral nature to the intellect is dwarfed accordingly?

CAROLINE W. HEALEY.

March 27, 1841.

V.

_April 2, 1841._

The story of Venus and Cupid and Psyche was discussed.

MARGARET said that of Venus she had less to 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 of a lovely woman,—the best physical development of woman. When we have said, “It is,” we have said all. The birth of Beauty was the only ideal thing about her. She sprang from the wave, from the flux and reflux of things, from the undulating line. On this Venus, transitoriness had set its seal. As we look at her, we feel that she must change. Her loveliness is too fair to last. Her beauty would pass next moment. She could not live a year, we think, without losing something of her full grace. It was peculiarly Greek to create a beautiful symbol, and to pause in the symbol. The Greeks were very apt to do this. They did it effectually in the Goddess of Love. She was sportive in all her amours. They had no idea of an Everlasting Love. They enjoyed themselves too much to abstract themselves. Venus seemed to Margaret a merely human creature. She was not the type of Universal Beauty: the Greek eye was closed to that. Still, their own embodiment did not satisfy their own need. They filled out their ideal with Venus Urania, Hebe, and all the attendant Hours and Graces, yet were not satisfied. Then came the fable of Psyche and her three Cupids. Venus was only a pretty girl! Her cestus, her doves, her pets, her jealousies, all betray it. The Venus Urania was more. _She_ was the child of Celestial Light. Hebe was born of immortal bloom. To fill 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 more than that of Venus. It tells not only the story of human love, but represents the pilgrimage of a soul. The jealousy of Venus was that which the good must always feel toward the better which is to supersede it, and as soon as Psyche looked upon her sleeping lover she became immortal. The soul in the fulness of Love became conscious of Destiny.

JAMES CLARKE asked what was the difference between the girl-mother—the Madonna—and the Greek Venus.

MARGARET replied, with more patience than I was capable of, that the Madonna represented more than passing womanly beauty. She was prophetic, and lived again in her child.

Then, persisted JAMES F., why was Vulcan the _husband_ of Beauty, to which Margaret gave no satisfactory answer. He then gave his own thought, to which I can do no justice, although it was what I tried in vain to say at the last conversation. It amounted to this,—that in seeking for beauty we lose it, but in aiming at utility through hard labor we find perfect proportion—and consequently perfect beauty. He said that he and his sister Sarah had often spoken to each other about this, and he felt that the time would come when essays would be written about our ships, as we now write essays about the Pyramids and the 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 stern. But we know that the ship, the most beautiful object in our modern world, was the product of labor, gradually evoked, according to the law of fitness, compass, and general proportion. To bring its form into a natural relation to wind and wave, was to find perfect harmony and beauty. At first the prow was too sharp, and the water had rushed over it; the hold was too shallow, and she sat ungracefully where she now rides as mistress.

EMERSON quoted some German author to the same effect.

MR. CLARKE said there was something in one of R. W. E.’s own Essays which expressed the same thing.

EMERSON laughed and said, “Very important authority,” and would have changed the subject, when—

WILLIAM WHITE said that it did not tally well 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 if the Greeks had no symbol for natural beauty. Several were suggested that he would not accept, but he finally took Diana on Charles Wheeler’s suggestion.

WHEELER then spoke of the birth of Venus. He said many writers thought the story as late as that of Psyche, and the line of Hesiod relating to it an interpolation.

MARGARET thought she should have suspected this if she had never heard it. The thought it expressed was too comprehensive to be in keeping with the remainder of her story.

CHARLES WHEELER would not accept the criticism, but went on to talk about the marriage of Venus with Mars, which had amazed Olympus.

MARGARET said the Olympian Deities were like modern men, who talk to women forever about their softness and delicacy, until women imagine that the only good thing in man is a strong arm. The girl elopes with a red coat, and the indignant lords of creation wonder why she did not appreciate their modest merit and unobtrusive virtues. Poor Beauty _weeps out_ the crimson stain upon her escutcheon in a long age of suffering.

A laugh followed this bright sally, and then somebody said that Venus once married Mercury.

MARGARET declared that must be an interpolation, for there were no points of sympathy between the Goddess of beauty and the God of craft.

JAMES CLARKE did not know about that; he thought that the finish and completeness of the late robbery of Davis, Palmer, & Co. constituted a _kind of beauty_!

MARGARET said that affair was altogether grand; she had never heard of anything so Greek as Williamson’s exclaiming, “Gentlemen! you will not deprive me of the implements of my trade?” She could not help respecting his impudence! The Greeks ought to be respected for developing every human faculty into deity. She thought lying, stealing, and so forth only excesses of a good faculty; and so did the Greeks, for in their mistaken way they had deified Mercury. The Spartans taught their children to steal, and the Greeks universally acknowledged that to cheat was honorable if it could be concealed.

I remembered the passage in the “Republic” where Polemarchus confesses that he had learned from Homer to admire Autolycus, grand sire of Ulysses, distinguished above all men for his thefts and oaths! Thrasymachus said that the unjust were both prudent and good, if they were able to commit injustice to _perfection_! Is the immortality of Autolycus the destiny of Williamson?

WHEELER said there certainly was a well 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, Mercury was not content with stealing the divining-rod from Apollo; he took also the cestus from Venus, the voice from Neptune, the sword from Mars, the will from Zeus, and his tools from Vulcan! Sagacity compassed all the deeps of divinity to reach its end.

IDA RUSSELL asked if Venus and Astarte were not the same.

MARGARET said Astarte belonged to the stars.

Did not Venus, I wonder? But of course they are creations far asunder as the poles.

CHARLES WHEELER thought Astarte and Venus Urania were the same.

IDA said that could not be. The first statues of Astarte were rough blocks of wood, with veiled heads.

So, I said, were all first statues of Deities; so that was no argument.

When JAMES CLARKE asked Margaret to compare Venus with the Madonna, a curious talk arose between Alcott, Margaret, Charles Wheeler, and Emerson.

ALCOTT wanted to know why Christ was not as much an impersonation of a human faculty as either of the Greek Deities!

MARGARET said Jesus was not a thought. He was born on the earth, and lived out a thought. He was no abstraction to her, but a brother.

ALCOTT wanted to know whether a purer mythology, suited to the wants of coming time, might not arise from the mixed mythology of Persians, Greeks, and Christians!

A 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 it would be very impertinent to 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 was envied by Venus, who sent Eros to 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 prevailed over faith, and in looking at him as he slept she wounded and waked him. He left her in dismay; and as a punishment the three trials which are the lot of mortals 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. The birds helped her with the grain; but when she reached the banks of the Styx and stooped to fulfil the second task, she found the water too dark, too cold, and the eagle came to her aid. At the prospect of the third trial her soul sank; she refused to undertake it; but, winning from one of the Gods the secret of self-dependence, she set off for Tartarus, gave the usual sop to Cerberus, and returned with her prize. But she was “possessed” with the idea that the treasures the box contained might restore to her her husband’s love, and she opened the box as she came. The noxious vapors which issued from it deprived her of consciousness, and she fell. Eros, who had flown to seek her as soon as his wound was healed, brought her the gift of Immortality which he had begged of Jupiter.

ELISABETH HOAR asked what had become of Psyche’s sisters, whose interference was a striking point in the story.

MARGARET said she knew nothing of them, and wished Miss Hoar would tell us. Her own knowledge of the story was gained entirely from Raphael’s original studies, and his frescos 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 sisters came to bewail her death, and Psyche begged Love to let Zephyr bring them to rejoice in her happiness. For some time he refused, telling her that it was not for her good, and that she could be happy without them. This our foolish Psyche would not believe, and at last 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 away loaded with gifts. They had questioned her about her husband, and Psyche replied that he was only a lovely child. The year went round, and again the lovely bride longed for her sisters’ presence. Again the God entreated her to be patient, assuring her that if they 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, bent with years, but very kind to her. Then the envious women saw that Psyche was herself ignorant of his true nature. They told her that he was a dragon, and meant to devour her; that they had themselves seen him as he passed through the fields. They begged her to take a knife and lamp and kill him as he slept. The frightened Psyche consented.

The God was sleeping in radiant beauty at her side, and as she gazed upon him she drew an arrow from his quiver and carelessly scratched her finger. Impassioned by the wound, she bent over him, and a drop of scalding oil fell from her lamp. Angry and confused, the God awoke, and, irritated by the pain, flew away. Psyche clung to 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 did not know this, but said she remembered that Psyche tried to drown herself.

ELISABETH said that was later. She despaired, and threw herself into the river; but the river pitied her, and bore her to the shore. Venus, growing tired of 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 Beauty when Custom was sent to berate her.

This, I suppose, is a condensation of the lovely allegory of Apuleius in the second century of our era, but it seems to me Elisabeth made some additions.

MARGARET said that everybody had to contend with the meddlesome sisters. They were at the bottom of every fairy story, from that of Psyche to Beauty and the Beast.

ELISABETH HOAR said it was always with the young soul as it was with Psyche. It could give no account of the love which made it so happy.

So, I said, every human heart shrivels under a curious touch. Love is angry that we wound him, and if he ever does return it is with Immortality in his hand. When custom berates, God accepts.

JAMES CLARKE asked if there was not a celebrated statue of Cupid and Psyche.

MARGARET had only heard of Canova’s, but James said he was sure there was one older.

WILLIAM STORY asked if it were older than Apuleius, but James did not know.

IDA RUSSELL said it was wrong for Psyche to look.

Yes, MARGARET said, but her temptations were strong; and if they had not come through her sisters, they must have come through her own soul. Everything was produced by antagonism. This morning she had taken up Kreitzer, meaning to open the Greek volume, but took up the Indian. In that Mythology which William Story called deep and all-embracing there were the antagonist principles of Vishnu, or unclouded innocence, and Brahm, who could only become pure by wading through all wickedness. There seemed to be a need of sin, to work out salvation for human beings.

EMERSON said faith should work out that salvation. It was man’s privilege to resist the evil, to strive triumphantly; to recognise it—never! Good was always present to the soul,—was all the true soul took note of. It was a duty not to look!

MARGARET thought it the climax of sin to despair. She believed evil to be a good in the grand scheme of things. She would not recognize it as a blunder. She must consider its scope a noble one. In one word, she would not accept the world—for she felt within herself the power to reject it—did she not believe evil working in it for good! Man had gained more than he lost by his fall. 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 probation was what she could not comprehend. We began at the circumference, and if we fulfilled our destiny must end by being near the centre. How much better to have begun there! Why could not God have made it so?

WILLIAM STORY began to say that God must seek the best good of all his creatures; but Caroline interrupted him by saying that there was certainly more good at the centre than at the circumference.

WILLIAM WHITE thought all this good, better, and best very puzzling.

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

Are we better then, than God? asked CAROLINE.

Not better, replied MARGARET, for we cannot compare dissimilar things.

WILLIAM WHITE asked if any one could be more than good, more than pure.

WILLIAM STORY said perfection had its degrees!

WHITE said, How can you progress after you have reached your goal?

As if any live man ever _did_ reach his goal! said I.

Is there any progress for God? retorted he.

Not any, for that is a contradiction in terms, I said; but surely you conceive of it for souls in heaven?

MARGARET said something about the Gospel injunction to be perfect even as our Father in Heaven is perfect. Does not “even as” mean “after the pattern of”? Does it involve the _nature_, as well as the _degree_?

EMERSON interrupted quickly, “We are not finite.”

Everybody smiled; but the best answer to this is found in the fact, that we never conceive of ourselves as infinite and at rest,—only as reaching after the Infinite in our motion.

WHITE said to Caroline Sturgis, “If evil brings knowledge of good, is it not a gain?”

WILLIAM STORY talked nobly, something to this effect: That good and evil were related terms. If both did not exist, neither could, antagonism being the spring of most things in the universe.

MARGARET went back to Cupid, and said that in Raphael’s original studies Cupid was always a boy,—in his frescos, a youth, almost a man. She spoke of the difference of expression which he gave to his Venus and his Psyche, especially in the eye. That of Psyche was deep and thoughtful. The distinction extended to their attendant Cupids, and was most marked in the Psyche when she takes the cup of Immortality from her husband.

MARGARET wanted to pass on to Diana, but there were too many clergymen in the company. Everybody was interested in somebody nearer at hand, and views of the unchanging Providence were next presented.

MARGARET said God was the background against which all creation was thrown.

WILLIAM STORY asked if she did not think He was greater than his creatures?

“Always beyond,” was MARGARET’S reply.

Creation, STORY said, was rather the exponent of a _Love_ which _must bless_, than of an activity which must act. It was a Paternal power that _ruled_, not an autocratic 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 so on!

A good many queer things were said on various points touched by this.

EMERSON said, that to imagine it possible to fall was to _begin_ to fall.

E. P. P. got into a little maze trying to introduce Margaret and R. W. E. to each other,—a consummation which, however devoutly to be wished, will never happen!

JAMES CLARKE told her that she was just where Paul was when he said, “What then? Shall I sin, that Grace may the more abound?”

EMERSON said the woodlands could tell us most about Diana, about whom we contrived to say very little. The omission of orgies in her worship was dwelt upon. Her pure and sacred character with the Athenians was compared to that of 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!

MARGARET laughed, and said that certainly was Diana of Ephesus!

The maddening influence of moonlight was commented upon, as if it were a fable; but WILLIAM STORY said it was a fact. In tropical regions very sad consequences resulted from long gazing on the moonlight or sleeping in it. In one town he had known sixteen persons bewildered in this way.

WILLIAM WHITE said that in a late book of Nichols it was contended that the moon had some light of her own, because she shows a brazen color even under eclipse, when the dark side of the earth is 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 low voice. He laughed, and said he had been thinking of the consequences of his theory.

MARGARET asked what he was talking about.

STORY said it was an application of eclipses to his theory that love was the motive to creation. If the sun is beneficent truth shorn of its beams, it would be like the moon, no better than brass!

CAROLINE STURGIS asked why the Mahomedans bore the crescent.

WILLIAM WHITE said because of some change in the moon which occurred at the time of the Hegira.

WILLIAM STORY said that the worshippers at Mecca carried the crescent before Mahomet’s time. There is a crescent 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. She said that Charles Wheeler had seen the gem of which she then spoke, and that Neptune was the favored suitor.

WILLIAM STORY said the Greeks could not wed Neptune to Diana, for the tides were too low in the Mediterranean!