Mr. Alcott then said, "that nature was not wholly sane. It was given to the celestial man alone to take from it only what was salutary, as it was the Nemesis of the demonic man to take what was hurtful. Bees gathered honey from all flowers."
James Russell Lowell asked "if bees did not sometimes secrete poisonous honey?"
Mr. Alcott said "he believed they did, but only when wholesome flowers were denied them."
Miss Littlehale suggested that "honey was not poisonous to the bees, but to men only, and Mr. Lowell allowed that it was not."
Miss Bremer now returned to the word Enthusiast. She said Mr. Alcott had defined it well as "divine intoxication."
I do not follow the order of time in what follows, but record some scattered sayings of the conversation.
Mr. Alcott spoke of "the celestial, or unfallen man, as not making choice of good; he was chosen rather; elected, deliberation presupposed a mixed will, a temptation and a lapse. Then, opening Plotinus, he read this beautiful passage:—
"Every soul is a Venus. And this, the nativity of Venus, and Love who was born at the same time with her, obscurely signify. The soul, therefore, when in a condition conformable to nature, loves God, wishing to be united to him, being, as it were, the desire of a beautiful virgin to be conjoined with a beautiful love. When, however, the soul descends into generation, then being, as it were, deceived by spurious nuptials, and associating herself with another and mortal love, she becomes petulant and insolent, through being absent from her father. But when she again hates wantonness and injustice, and becomes purified from the defilements which are here, and again returns to her father, she is affected in the most felicitous manner. And those, indeed, who are ignorant of this affection, may from worldly love form some conjecture of divine love, by considering how great a felicity the possession of a most beloved object is conceived to be; and also, by considering that those earthly objects of love are mortal and noxious; that the love of them is nothing more than the love of images, and that they lose their attractive power because they are not truly desirable, nor our real good, nor that which we investigate. In the ideal world, however, the object of love is to be found, with which we may be conjoined, which we may participate and truly possess, and which is not externally enveloped with flesh. He, however, who knows this, well knew what I say, and will be convinced that the soul has another life."
Miss Bremer seemed puzzled by this reading as questioning in her mind a distinction between virtue and innocence, or holiness, which Mr. Alcott had discriminated clearly.
Some one inquired, "How can we trust our instincts since these have been so differently educated?"