Historical pictures retouched

Front matter

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Contents

VII. The Conteibutions of

Agnodike.

Aspasia.

Part II. — Fancies

I. Long Lane pp. 267-289.

n. Pepperell House pp. 290-330.

III. How TO MAKE Children Happy pp. 331-347.

IV. A Sketch from Real Life • PP« 348-363.

V. The Country Parish pp. 364-376.

VI. Autumn Leaves pp. 377-386.

Dr. Lowell and his Ministry pp. 389-402,

PART I.

STUDIES

ASTASIA.

"Now, brither, what mair hae ye to speer? I've answers aneuch, ye need na fear. When women for answers are at a stand, The North-Sea bottom will be dry land."

Old Danish Ballad.

npHE progress of every reform depends very -*- much upon the character of those who first engage in it. William Ladd gave the impress of his own gentle spirit to the movement in behalf of peace, and Clarkson and Wilberforce stamped with unmistakable integrity and earnestness that in behalf of the African slave. Aspasia of Miletus was the first woman Avho endeavored systematically to elevate the condition of her sex ; the first, perhaps, who had it in her power, from a lofty station which she adorned with irresistible fascinations, to point out to them, clearly, new paths to usefulness, honor, and enjoyment. It becomes of importance, therefore, that the character of Aspasia should be fully understood.

Very recently, a woman wrote, that Aspasia was the creature of the corrupt institutions which man, by his superior physical strength, sensuous passions, and unjust laws, had imposed on social life. She acknowledged that the popular opinion with regard to Aspasia had been disputed ; but, in writing a book for women to read, she gives this statement no weight beyond that of a rumor. How do the facts really stand ?

The charges brought against Aspasia are, simply, that she induced Pericles to divorce his wife, and marry her ; that she brought on the PeloponnesianWar ; that she founded at Athens a school of courtesans ; and that she held impious opinions concerning the popular gods. It belongs to those who make such charges to prove them ; but they had their origin in the stupid pages of Lempriere, who saw Greek life through French glasses, and maligned by not comprehending. For a long time, his w^as the only classical dictionary within easy reach ; and we believe we are justified in saying, that it still exerts a wider popular influence than any book of its kind. There is, therefore, a continual repetition of the saying, that Aspasia was a ^^ courtesan,'^ — as if people hoped, as Gothe says, to destroy our ^^ organs of intelligence by

ASPASIA. O

compelling us to believe what we so often hear.'' A few years ago, the publication of Lander's " Aspasia and Pericles/' and Mrs. Child's exquisite romance of '^Philothea/' set English scholars to thinking upon this subject. They had more effect, at first, than the one fine chapter of Thirlwall ; because everybody reads romance, and few people study history : but, since that time, the publication of Thirlwall and Grote, of excellent translations of Plato, Aristophanes, and Xenophon, leave us no excuse for such ignorance as is displayed in the volume alluded to.

1. The first question is that of the divorce. Thirlwall, the only competent judge who enlarges upon this accusation, says, ^^We can hardly doubt that it was Aspasia who first disturbed this union ; but it was dissolved by mutual consent, and Pericles associated himself with others of her kindred in giving her away to her third husband." Grote says, ^^ The union, which had never been com/ortablej was dissolved by mutual consent." Look, now, at the facts of the case. Would Pericles have wished to divorce his wife, if Aspasia had been of the loose character generally attributed to her? and could this woman — one of the great family of the Alcmseonids, if we are not mistaken — be b ASPASIA.

put away without exasperating her relatives, especially her two sons by Pericles (Xanthippus and Paralus), — without forming a second party in the State, at the very least inimical to Aspasia ?

2. She was accused of encouraging the Peloponnesian War. By whom ? The comic poet Aristophanes, — in a broad farce, which gives us the gossip of the streets, not the sober facts of history. Thucydides never mentions her name in connection with the war; and modern historians have not thought it worth while to advert to the rumor.

3. Graver still, she was accused of depraving Athenian women to gratify the passions of Pericles. By whom? Once more, by the comic poet Hermippus, and his master and superior, Aristophanes. Hermippus was so obscure a person, that it is only Aspasia^s fame that has preserved him from oblivion ; and a competent authority speaks of him only as a man who preferred a charge of impiety against Aspasia. Plutarch and Athenseus repeat the story; the latter quoting in behalf of it the lines of Aristophanes. The reputation of an intellectual woman was thus sacrificed to the pun of a comedian ; and Grote, in speaking of this and a similar story, sayS;"This is one of the many errors, in Grecian history, arising from the practice of construing passages of comedy as if they were serious and literal facts."

The same charge was made by the same person, at the same time, against the sculptor Phidias. Nor did the hired mouthpiece of a political party pause here. It must be remembered, that the very authority which threw this cloud over the name of Aspasia, charged Socrates, also, with crimes and indecorums which his worst enemy would not now think it worth while to remember, — which no historian would disgrace himself by repeating.

The public mind has already acquitted the sculptor and the philosopher ; and, following the example of the Athenians themselves, it must at length acquit the woman. Plato says that Aspasia was the preceptress of Socrates. A few years after, the same charges were brought against her pupil ; and Plato composed for him an ^^ Apology,'' which still challenges the reverence of the world. Where shall we find the Apology of Aspasia ? If not in the pupilage of Socrates, at least in the tears of Pericles, — Pericles the noble, the history of whose administration reads like a romance ; whose stern virtue withstood every temptation, and, by irritating his worthless and unprincipled son, furnished rumor and comedy and political opposition with all the charges that were afterward brought against him. This Pericles clung to Aspasia as to his chief earthly good, the inspirer of all his greatness, the promoter of his loftiest thought. ^^ After weathering this storm," says Thirlwall, alluding to her trial, '^ he seems to have recovered his former high and firm position ; which was never again endangered, save by one very transient gust." Is it credible that this would have been the case, had the acquittal of Aspasia been a prejudiced one, and had the people at large believed her to be, in truth, the ulcer which was eating out the heart of the State ?

From the charge of impiety we do not care to defend Aspasia. It accused her of daring to believe in a purer deity than Zeus, and of following Anaxagoras in declaring that the earth moved round the sun. We hope she did both. The same charge was brought against Pericles himself, Zeno, Protagoras, and Phidias ; later, against the philosopher Socrates as well.

Aspasia came from Miletus into Greece. The freer life of the islands of the Archipelago, and the provincial cities, nurtured at that time

ASPASIA. V

many women of rare scholarship and intellectual graces. She came up to Athens to see the distinguished men with which the city swarmed, — as country girls of our time have sometimes gone up to Boston, enamoured of Orphic Alcott, the Greek Emerson, or Parker of the steady will. She found the Athenian women living in a seclusion which would have suffocated her. The sexes had not progressed in company; and at the very period when Athens shone resplendent through her philosophers, statesmen, and artists, her women were timid, inert beings, — incapable of inspiring a true affection, or exercising any mental ascendency. What wonder that the mind of Aspasia had greater charms for the men of Athens than the beauty of her person, although that was confessedly great ?

The' law of Athens recognized no legal marriage with a foreigner, and the children of such connections were declared illegitimate. Pericles married Aspasia, in such left-handed fashion as the law did permit; lived with her publicly, and with her alone. Afterward, the son of this union was legitimated by the proper tribunals.

Placed by Pericles at the head of Athenian society, Aspasia used all her influence to draw the Greek women into the society of their husbands, and to awaken in them a love for literature and art. She summoned them to her table ; she visited with them the studios of Phidias, and such other artists as Pericles was at that time employing for the glory of Athens. It was no wonder that the young yielded to the seductions of her society more readily than those whose habits were fixed : hence the scandals that the vulgar reported. It was no wonder that " fast young men about town/' then as now, railed at what they could not appreciate ; and were glad to accuse her of impiety, who only wished to find better gods for their worship than Dionysus or Aphrodite. But, in spite of all this, rich and honored citizens carried their wives to the saloons of Pericles, to catch, if they might, the fascinations of her wit. Socrates went, — although Xantippe doubtless pouted, — and was silent. When Aspasia spoke, Plato tuned the rhythmic cadence of his dialogues to the music of her words ; and the grave Anaxagoras and Zeno were glad to talk with her of God and his law, apart from irrelevant sophisms or empty myths.

Would you have the history of that immortal marriage written truly ?

Imagine the Greek ruler, married for some years to a woman of the noblest Athenian blood, — already the mother of two children, — but one who, if irreproachable in conduct, was utterly incapable of taking in the scope of his plans, or sharing his lofty, adventurous thought.

After years of weariness passed in her society, with no rest for his heart and no inspiration^ for his genius, there came to Athens a woman and a foreigner, in whom he found his peer, — a woman who gathered round her, in a moment, all that there was of free and noble in that world of poetry, statesmanship, and art.

She was from the islands of the Archipelago ; and, like the women of her country, walked the streets with her face unveiled. Hardly had she come, before Socrates and Plato, and Anaxagoras, the pure old man, became her frequent guests, and honored her with the name of friend. In such society, Pericles saw that his o\yn soul would grow : so sustained, he should be more for Athens and himself He was no Christian, to deny himself for the sake of that unhappy wife and children, — a wife whose discontent had already infected the State. The gods he knew — Zeus and Eros — smiled on the step he took. What if the laws of Athens forbade a legal marriage with a foreigner? Pericles was

Athens, and what he respected all men must honor. Aspasia had, so far as we know, a free maiden heart ; and Pericles shows us in what light he regarded her, by divorcing his wife to consolidate their union, and subsequently forcing the courts to legitimate her child. Had he omitted these proofs of his own sincerity and her honor, not a voice w^ould have been raised against either. What need to take these steps, if she were the woman Aristophanes would have us see?

This divorce created or strengthened the political opposition to Pericles. It was headed by his two sons and their forsaken mother, joined by the pure Athenian blood to which theirs was akin ; and gained its chief popularity through the wit and falsehood of Aristophanes and the players.

Follow the story as it goes; and see Aspasia, at last, summoned before the Areopagus. What are the charges against her? The very same that were preferred against her friends Socrates and Anaxagoras. ^^ She walks the streets unveiled ; she sits at the table with men ; she does not beheve in the Greek gods ; she talks about one sole Creator ; she has original ideas about the motions of the sun and moon: therefore her society corrupts youth." Not a word about vice of any sort. Is it for abandoned women that the best men of any age are wilhng to entreat before a senate ? The tears which Pericles shed then for Aspasia glitter like gems on the historic page.

. When the plague came, his first thought was for her safety ; and, after his death, her name shared the retirement of her widowed life. There was a rumor that she afterward married a rich grazier, whom she raised to eminence in the State. Not unlikely that such a rumor might grow in the minds of those who had not. forgotten the great men she made, when they saw the success of Lysicles ; but other authors assert, that his wife was the Aspasia who was also known as a midwife in Athens.

It is a noble picture, it seems to us; and when we consider the prejudices of a Christian age and country, the riot which a Bloomer skirt will attract in our own city, we need not wonder that slander followed an unveiled face in Athens.

Look at the scandal of that day ! — was it not the counterpart of this of ours ? At first, she was " odd;" then ^^bold, setting the conventions of decent society at defiance." — " Who but a courtesan would sit in the presence of men, unveiled ? '' — '' What but a sensual supremacy could explain the power of her words over Pericles V^ — ^' She was talented and ambitious : sJie managed Am." — " Yes : it was she who taught him eloquence, who composed his orations, who planned the magnificent structures he erected, and wisely turned the current of his activity into her own channels." And this was a crime, of course. A man may labor for his wife, and infold her in the beautiful drapery of his renown ; but a wife may not do this for her husband ! This charge, literally taken, had no need to be true. Pericles was a great statesman and orator before he ever saw Aspasia : he needed not her intellectual strength, — only her straightforward sympathy and pure insight.

It is only the good and pure who can inspire lasting affection ; and there is hardly such a love on record as that which Pericles bore to Aspasia. As we dwell upon it, it fills our eyes with sweet human tears ; or swells our heart with bitter indignation, that there are so few capable of inspiring it, or appreciating its power.

Aspasia and Pericles ! — inseparably united are their names in the memory of man. We cannot think of either alone ; and their forms arise before the mind's eye, as beautiful in proportion, as unsullied in integrity, as magnificent in destiny, as wedded love was ever permitted to make two human beings, before the light of Christ's presence was shed over the earth.

II. Hypatia: A Sketch

*' The gazing crowds proclaimed me fair. Ere autumn came, my green leaves fell ; And now they smile, and call me good, Perhaps I like that name as well."

Barbe de Verrue.

/~\UR defence of Aspasia may seem to many ^^ only a maladroit instance of special pleading. Dainty dames may hold their garments as they pass us by, and prudent papas may choose to hang that sheet in a strong draught for ventilation's sake. But all that is conservative and prudent, as well as all that is scholarly and pure, must reverence the name of Hypatia, — a name consecrated by the praise of her enemies, and challenging the devoted admiration of men whose learning remains a proverb to the present day. Years ago, we heard her name fall from the lips of a public lecturer."^ Scanty were the facts he gave us; but the outline was classic and bold, and

* Hon. Francis C. Gray.

its details were burnt in upon our brain witli terrible fidelity. We have never forgotten her ; and if, child that we then were^ we ransacked our cyclopedias in vain for something to sate our newly awakened thirst, we have revenged ourselves ever since by gathering every fragment that time has let fall concerning her.

Theon the younger, the father of Hypatia, was the head of the Platonic school at Alexandria at the close of the fourth centur3\ He is sometimes called a Heathen ; and it is said that his religious opinions occasioned the death of his daughter, by exciting the rage of the populace. But this word '^ Heathen^' has a certain significance in modern times, which would be out of place if applied to Theon.

We know, that, by the Athenian populace, both Plato, and Socrates his master, were considered infidels and scoff*ers. The charge made against Socrates on his trial was, that he did not believe in the State gods, and that he corrupted the Athenian youth by teaching them not to believe. Under these circumstances, a superficial observer might have supposed, that, on the first spread of Christianity, the Platonists would have fallen readily into the true church ; but it was not so, and for very sufficient reasons. Platonism became the stronghold of the old Greek faith ; for nowhere else could those who wished to defend its saving power find a fulcrum for their lever: only this was spiritual enough to confront the newer faith. As for Platonists themselves, there were two reasons for their retaining their first position: first, the amount of absolute truth which pure reason had found for them among the ruins of the popular mythology ; and, secondly, the exaggerated miracles which preceded and heralded the rising of the Star of Bethlehem. They could not forget, — when they heard that Jesus was the Son of God, that his star had risen in the east, and that far-off potentates had come to worship him, — how similar legends, told of the grand old Greeks, had degenerated into weak, corrupting myths, festering like ulcers in the warm heart of their nation.

We shall see, as we proceed, whether the character of the Christians of the fourth century, headed by Bishop Cyril, was of such a sort as to influence a man like Theon, or give him practical proof of the divine origin of the Beatitudes.

Theon is known as a commentator on Ptolemy, and the editor of ^^Euclid.'' Here and there, he has added a demonstration to ^* Euclid ; '^ and those that are known to be his do honor to his reputation. In religion, we might term him a Theist ; for, like all Platonists, he believed in one Supreme Being, the Father and Inspirer of men. These views he of course imparted to his daughter, who began at a very early age to show an aptitude for learning. He was not content with teaching her philosophy and letters : he gave her as sound a knowledge of the sciences as the period admitted. All that he knew himself he imparted to her ; and the result was, that we find Hypatia occupying a position unparalleled in ancient or modern times. She is said to have written a book ^^ On the Astronomical Canon of Diophantes ; '' and another, ^^ On the Conies of Apollonius ; ^' and all this before she reached her twenty-seventh year !

The historian Socrates, one of her enemies, tells her story with a simple candor which ought to be a lesson to historians of all ages and parties. '^ She arrived," he says, ^'at so eminent a degree of learning, that she excelled all the philosophers of her own times, succeeded her father in that Platonic school derived from Plotinus, and expounded all the precepts of philosophy to those who would hear her. Wherefore all studious persons flocked to her from all parts ; and she addressed both them and the magistrates with singular modesty.'^

At this time, her literary tastes must have led her to recoil from the representatives of the Christian Church, resident in Alexandria. The Alexandrian Library, the loss of whose treasures has occasioned one of the staple lamentations of scholars, consisted of two parts. The larger portion, termed the Royal Library and the Museum, were burned in the siege of the city by Julius Csesar, Instead of them, Antony gave to Cleopatra the Library of Pergamus. But the Library in the Temple of Jupiter Serapis, consisting of three hundred thousand volumes, remained until the reign of Theodosius the Great. During the childhood — perhaps it may have been the girlhood — of Hypatia, a crowd of fanatical Christians, headed by their archbishop, and following the orders of a Christian emperor, had rushed to the sacred portals of the Serapion to storm and destroy it. The books which she had been accustomed to read — which seemed to her the truest riches of that imperial city — were now burned or destroyed. It becomes us, also, to remember that we owe this great loss, not to Arabs under Omar, but to Christians rallying under the banner of the Prince of peace.

It were little wonder if Hypatia refused to believe on him. Day after day, as she went to the Academy, the ruins of this splendid library stared her in the face ; and, gentle as she was, she must have thought, with a grief that was all but anger, on the mistaken zealots who had destroyed it.

Hypatia was never wedded ; but she was betrothed to a person named Isidore. If this were the Isidore of Pelusium mentioned by Suidas (to whom also we owe the fact of her betrothal), — the only Isidore, known to us, who was the contemporary of Hypatia, — the populace may have been wholly at fault with regard to her religious faith. He is stated to have written three thousand letters elucidating the Holy Scriptures ; and the terrible death of his mistress could have had little tendency to convert one not of the faith before.

The highest testimony to her character is furnished in the fact, that, though surrounded by bitter enemies, not a word was ever breathed by one of them against its virgin purity.

Pleasant it is to think of this lovely woman, clothed in wisdom as in a garment, and honored by the flower of the whole civilized world. Among her pupils was that Christian Platonist,

Synesius, — afterwards Bishop of Ptolemais. He tells his brother, in a letter, to salute Hypatia, and ^^ that happy society which enjoys the blessing of her divine voice.'' His affection for her fell little short of adoration ; and he would not even publish what he wrote, without her approbation and consent.

In the height of her beauty, her fame, and her usefulness, the storm gathered over Hypatia's head. Beside other causes of tumult, Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, encouraged the bitterest persecution of the Jews in the city. Orestes, the Roman governor, was the friend of Hypatia ; and it is supposed that she interceded with him in behalf of this unhappy, unoffending people. Orestes, perhaps, felt that Hypatia's wonderful power of persuasion might find a fit field before the bishop. At all events, an intimacy grew up between them, highly displeasing to Cyril. At first, he directed the energies of his Christian mob toward the hapless Orestes ; but, when he escaped with his life, Cyril allowed the calumny to spread, that it was Hypatia who stood between the prefect and the bishop, and prevented the return of peace to the city.

So incited, a restless crowd, headed by a fanatic, beset her chariot one day as she re-

HYPATIA : A SKETCH.

turned from the Academy ; and, after dragging her at the horses^ heels through the streets of the city, carried her to a church to strip her naked, and tear her flesh with broken bits of tile, and shells, until she died ; when her limbs were torn apart, and burned in the pubHc square.

^^ This,'' continues the ecclesiastical historian Socrates, " brought no small disgrace upon the Alexandrian Church.'' And so, in truth, it should. This woman, strong in intellect, beautiful in person, and spotless in virtue, fared worse at the hands of the populace than the supposed courtesan of Athens, who was thought to minister to the basest passions of its ruler. And why? Because she was suspected of having an opinion and an influence in public aff'airs,

because she was deemed worthy to sit in the

councils of Church and State !

It is said — we know not on what authority — that the emperor would have punished the murderers, but for the interference of Orestes, who corrupted his advisers. This does not look as if the governor were spotless ; and one would think, that, having nearly lost his own life in a similar mob, his interests would have lain in another direction.

HYPATIA: A EEVIEW, npHESE volumes"^ cannot fail to be popular. -^ They are written in a brilliant, strikingstyle, by a man who, in his earlier years at least, has felt all the power of the world^s baits and lures. They are written for a special purpose, and they serve it. There is such an amount of humanity in them as must win readers ; and no man who looks at the first chapter will be willing to throw the others by.

Because this novel must be popular, it rouses our moral indignation. Because Hypatia will be henceforth as little honored in the popular thought as Aspasia, have we deemed it our duty to turn some critical glances towards these pages, wherewith admiring eyes will have only too much to do. Already newspapers, reviewers, and scholars (Heaven save the mark ! ) are singing in their praise ; already the beautiful,

* Hypatia ; or, New Foes with an Old Face. By Charles Kingsley. Boston: Crosby and Nichols. 2 vols. 1853.

pure image of Hypatia, shrined in many a maiden heart, is growing dim and discolored ; and we hear no word of remonstrance. For some critical glances, then, we hold ourselves ready — not for a thorough review ; for that would require a classical library, not to be thought of in that out-of-the-way corner of the earth where these volumes happen to find us.

And, in the first place, let us protest against historical fiction in general. True, it serves to make certain historical persons and their deeds familiar ; but it prejudices the popular mind it teaches. Men know no longer the historic persons, but only what some romancer thought them ; and not always his own honest thought, but another, which, being more efiective, will be better likely to serve his turn. Richard must go down to all posterity a hunchback, because Shakspeare's genius made him so; though a thousand commentators prove and re-prove that he had the fairest natural proportions.

The man who undertakes to turn a passage of ancient history into a modern novel ought to be sure of two things : first, that he has sufiicient historical material to justify the superstructure that he intends to raise ; second, that his aim, however pure and lofty it may be, shall not essentially falsify the character of which he makes use. Mr. Kingsley fails, w^e think, in both these particulars.

It is well known to scholars, that the bare facts of Hypatia's success and martyrdom are all that remain to us of her ancient glory. There would have been even less, had not the atrocity of the latter deed given an effective shock to the development of Christianity in Alexandria.

For many a year have we looked longingly towards the ideal of this virgin teacher, and more than once have we written her name at the head of our page. What checked us, ere the page had grown into a chapter, and the chapter to a novel ? Only the deep consciousness that whatever we built up about that name would owe its existence to our own reverent fancy, and that her pure garments might be tarnished for the common eye by our earthly touch. Whether our fears were just or not, w^e wish Mr. Kingsley had shared them. Better never done than ill done, may be safely said of every such work.

What little may be known of Hypatia, besides what is told us in the letters of Synesius, and Isidore of Pelusium, is to be found in Suidas, and Damascius the author of the Life of Isidore thePhilosopher, and inPhotius; also in scattered allusions running through literature nearly contemporaneous, and in the pages of the Christian historian Socrates. Socrates tells the plain story, without comment. Suidas — whose authority weighs little, since we do not know who he was nor where he lived — adds, that she was beautiful ; catalogues her works ; and repeats an anecdote, not worth recording. Damascius, if we remember rightly, tells us only one fact, which is not a fact ; namely, that she was betrothed to Isidore the philosopher, — a manifest anachronism, which Photius contradicts by stating again that Isidore married one Domna. Synesius, and Isidore of Pelusium, were her contemporaries, and whatever fair inference may deduce from their letters can be trusted ; but neither it, nor whatever else a scholar's toil may gather up, forms any fit basis for an historical novel.