Reminiscences, 1819-1899

by Julia Ward Howe

Prior to these Latin studies, I read a good deal in Swedenborg, and was much fascinated by his theories of spiritual life. I remember "Heaven and Hell," "Divine Love and Wisdom," and "Conjugal Love" as the writings which interested me most; but the cumbrous symbolism of his Bible interpretation finally shut my mind against further entertainment of so fanciful a guest. Hegel was for some time my study among the German philosophers. After some severe struggling with hisextraordinary diction, I became convinced that the obscurity of his style was intentional, and left him in some indignation. The deep things of philosophy are difficult enough when treated by one who desires to make them clear. Where the intention is rather to mask than to unfold the meaning which is in the master's mind, interpretation is difficult and hazardous. Hegel's own saying about his lectures is well known: "One only of my pupils understood me, and he misunderstood me."

George Bancroft, the historian, spoke of Hegel as a man of weak character, and Dr. Francis Lieber, who had been under his instruction, had the same opinion of him. In the days of the Napoleonic invasion of Germany, Lieber had gone into the field, with other young men of the university. When, recovered from a severe wound, he took his place again among the students of philosophy, Hegel before beginning the day's lecture cried: "Let all those fools who went out against the French depart from this class."

I think that I must have had by nature an especial sensitiveness to language, as the following trifling narration will show. I was perhaps twelve years old when Rev. James Richmond, who had studied in Germany, dining at my father's house, spoke of one of his German professors who was wont, as the prelude to his exercise, to exclaim: "Aus, aus, ihr Fremden." These words meant nothing to me then, but when, eight years later, I mastered the German tongue, I recalled them perfectly, and understood their meaning.

One of my first efforts, after my return from Europe in 1851, was to acquaint myself with the "Philosophie Positive" of Auguste Comte. This was in accordance with the advice of my friend, Horace Wallace, who, indeed, lent me the first volume of the work. The synoptical view of the sciences therein presented revealed to me an entirely new aspect of thought.

I did not, for a moment, adopt Comte's views of religion, neither did I at all agree in his wholesale condemnation of metaphysics, which appeared to me self-contradictory, his own system involving metaphysical distinctions as much, perhaps, as any other. On the other hand, the objectivism of his point of view brought a new element into my too concentrated habit of thought. I deemed myself already too old, being about thirty years of age, to conquer the difficulties of the higher mathematics, and of the several sciences in which these play so important a part. But I had had a bird's-eye view of this wonderful region of the natural sciences, and this, I think, never passed quite out of my mind. I used to talk about the books with Parker, who read everything worth reading. They had not greatly appealed to him. I also, at this time, read Hegel's "Aesthetik," and endeavored to read his "Logik," which I borrowed from Parker, and which he pronounced "so crabbed as to be scarcely worth enucleating."

I cannot remember what it was which, soon after this time, led me to the study of Spinoza. I followed this with great interest, and became for a time almost intoxicated with the originality and beauty of his thoughts. While still under his influence I spoke of him to Mr. Bancroft as "der unentbehrliche," the indispensable Spinoza. He demurred at this, acknowledged Spinoza's analysis of the passions to be admirable, but assured me that Kant alone deserved to be called "indispensable;" and this dictum of his made me resolve to become at once a student of the "Critique of Pure Reason."

I found this at first rather dry, after the glowing and daring flights of Spinoza, but I soon learned to hold the philosopher of Königsberg in great affection and esteem. I have read extensively in his writings, even in his minor treatises, and having attained some conception of his system, was inclined to say with Romeo: "Here I set up my everlasting rest."

I devoted some of the best years of my life to these studies, and to the writings which grew out of them. I remember one summer at my Valley near Newport, in which I felt that I had read andwritten quite as much as was profitable. "I must go outside of my own thoughts, I must do something for some one," I said to myself. Just then the teacher of my sister's children broke out with malarial fever. She was staying with my sister at a farmhouse near by. The call to assist in nursing her was very welcome, and when I was thanked for my services I could truly say that I had been glad of the opportunity of rendering them for my own sake.

The Kantian volumes occupied me for many months, even years. In fact, I have never gone beyond them. A new philosophy has sometimes appeared to me like a new disease. If we have found our master, and are satisfied with him, what need have we of starting again, to make the same journey with a new guide. Once we have got there, it seems better to abide.

The early years of my married life interposed a barrier between my literary dreams and their realization. Those years brought me much to learn and much to do.