RECENT BIOGRAPHY.-II. It is yet too soon to criticise freely the influences that the sternness of Puritan dogmas had in moulding youthful character. It will be a long time before the breaking away from the Latin creeds will be sufficiently widespread to make a condemnation of their harshness seem otherwise than sacrilegious. The absolute and unreasoning terrors which the Puritans of New England set down as the basis for right living and high thinking are unfortunately still to be found in modified form in many modern creeds. But the harshest terrorist of today would scarcely justify the morbid introspection, the unhealthy self-canvassing of every thought and act for its religious bearing that characterized the discipline of the childish mind in many New England families as late as the opening years of the present century. It embittered the life and warped the character of more than one of our fathers, and to it in large extent may be ascribed the peculiar bias, the absorbing infatuation, that overthrew the intellect of one of the most remark able women that New England has ever produced. Perhaps if Delia Bacon1 had been of less fairly balanced temperament the outcome would have been different. Perhaps if she had had in childhood the tender care of her own home, she would have been more pliable in character, and less prone to rely stubbornly upon herself. But her disposition was too closely allied to genius to bend itself tamely to the discipline of New England life. She was but six years of age when financial family straits made it necessary for her to be put into the family of the friend where she remained during the years of 1 Delia Bacon: A Biographical Sketch. By Theodore Bacon. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1888. For sale in San Francisco by Samuel Carson & Co. girlhood. The influences of this home were thoroughly kindly and sympathetic, but in the repressed and unemotional way that brought small consolation to the restless, sensitive spirit of the child. Catherine Beecher, under whose teaching it was her good fortune to come, speaks of her at this period as follows: In disposition she was sensitive, impulsive, and transparent, possessing a keen longing for approbation, a morbid sensibility to criticism or blame, an honest truthfulness, and an entire freedom from all that could be called management or art. It might have been predicted that her genius, her confiding frankness, her interesting appearance, her gifts of eloquence, and her sincere aspirations after all that was good and pure would make her an object. of attention, and probably of excessive flattery. On justice, her transparency, sincerity, and impulsiveness, the other hand, her keen sensibility to blame or inthe dangerous power of keen and witty expression, and the want of the guidance and protection of parents and home, would make her an object of unjust depreciation. Possessing such traits of character, it was not an unusual result that the som ber grimness and calmness of the influences around her should have impressed her with unusual strength. She took everything too seriously, and was almost morbid in her severity of self-examination. When ten years old she wrote to her brother: has departed from me. Cease not to pray for me; I have neglected the offers of salvation; I have despised my dear Redeemer; but still there is mercy with him who is able to save. Out of struggles like these, the girlish soul shaped the foundations of its character. Self-confidence in personal can be small understanding of the opinion seems to have been a character- shocked bewilderment of the public istic of the family, and the loneliness of her position combined with these experiences to render her slow in forming an opinion, but fixed as adamant when once the opinion was formed. At the age of fifteen she went out from the Williams household and began by teaching at first in a school of her own and later in those of others- to earn a precarious living for herself. This was in those days the only way in which a woman could earn a living if she did not work with her hands. For a number of years, in spite of grave ill health and bitter disappointments, she continued to teach, and yet found time to spend in the writing of stories and plays, and on deep historical studies. Gradually, however, she drew out of the common rut of school teaching, and began that line of personal instruction that has given her reputation. Like Margaret Fuller her strength lay in her conversational powers, and the brilliancy of her style and the depth of her research drew overflowing crowds into her lecture rooms. This was the season of her triumph, and undoubtedly no woman has held a higher place than she in the opinion of her literary contemporaries. But some turn in the path of her historical studies set her feet in the way of investigation concerning the life of Shakspere and his relation to the plays that bear his name. Her interest was evidently of slow growth. But once having established in her own mind that Shakspere was not the author of the plays in question, it was beyond the power of man to convince her that she was wrong. She had in her the stuff that martyrs are made of and once convinced would have died blindly for her opinion rather than admit that it was wrong. To us of this generation, to whom the methods of Donnelly and his school are wearisomely familiar, there mind that came from Miss Bacon's attack. To us it is at worst but an unwarrantable supposition; to them it was at best a profanation. There was but one excuse for it that charity could offer, and it was generally accepted, that on this point at least Miss Bacon was more or less insane. Her family, especially, came speedily to this conclusion, and were at once ashamed of her hallucination and concerned about her future. It does not appear however that, once granting the right to challenge the authorship, there was anything particularly mad in her methods or her claims. Certainly they were rational enough to ob tain countenance from Emerson and other men of sturdy and well balanced minds. The present biographer is cautious of committing himself as to the date when the overthrow of her intellect began, but the feeling left by a thorough perusal of the book is that she was as rational as her fellows until the terrible privations, the prolonged fastings, and the long hours of sickness and over work which she experienced in England had broken down the strength of her unusually strong and original spirit. The departure of Miss Bacon for England marks the turning point in her life. She had achieved unusual success in the field of letters. Her position was assured, her life happier and more full of promise than it had ever been; and had she remained in America, even if she had continued the Shakspere controversy, it is probable that all would have been well with her to the end. But with the ocean between her and her friends, the outcome could not but be different. There are few more pitiful stories than the narrative of her life while there. The frankly avowed skepticism of her family in the sanity of her inquiry embittered her toward every one so much, that even Carlyle and Hawthorne had hard work to keep within the circle of her friendship and ward off her distrust. The simple recitation of her struggles against want, her pathetic hopes of publishing a book that should bring her not alone fame but money, her unhappy wanderings through the scenes connected with Shaksperian themes after starvation and mental anguish had made a beginning of the end, her worries and troubles with her publishers caused by the bungling good offices of friends, the momentary flash of light that came with the success of her first article in Putnam's Magazine, combine to render the history of her life at this time one of the most touching in all literature. It was poetic justice that she did not live to see the issue of her book, and know the extent and bitterness of her failure. Along with the sense of sympathetic pity, one closes the book with a feeling of resentment toward her immediate family, more especially her brother. Even the biographer admits that there was harshness in their treatment of the unfortunate woman. The brother and sister were no doubt too nearly alike to sympathize closely. He seems to have acted in strict accordance with what he considered his duty in the premises, but without considerate tenderness. The following letter to Hawthorne outlines his view exactly: The crisis at which my sister's case has arrived requires me to say plainly that in my opinion her It is not altogether to be wondered at that, knowing these views, Miss Bacon failed to consult her brother concerning the English enterprise. It was not surprising that a clergyman in limited circumstances, and with a large family of his own to provide for and educate, should have replied for a time to her own. solicitations, and later to those of her friends, that he would supply her money, with the offer to purchase her a return ticket at any time she would return to America, but that he did not feel justified in supplying the means of carrying on her madness: but when at the last, persuaded by the urgent letters of Hawthorne, he did send her funds without any condition, he took occasion to tell the shaken and unhappy woman that he considered her insane and her work a failure, and suggested: The effect of this letter on her already clouded mind was a perfect whirlwind of passionate despair. She contemptuously refused the proffered aid, and became so suspicious that she quarreled mind has been verging on insanity for the last six years. She knows that since 1851 I have habitually even with Hawthorne, whose tender distrusted the soundness of her judgment. She and patient solicitude for his stranger knows I have all along regarded her darling theory as countrywoman is one of the few bright a mere hallucination. She therefore distrusts me. spots in the tale. When she went to England she was very careful to conceal from me the object of her going, and the resources on which she depended. Indeed, none of her family friends, as I understand, had the opportunity of helping her in that enterprise. Mr. Emerson, I believe, fitted her out with some credentials and valuable letters of introduction, partly, I doubt not, in that wonderful "good nature is so prominent a feature in his character, - partly, I suspect, in the special sympathy which he has in whatever is unbelief. " which There is nothing to be gained by following out the details of the final overthrow of her mind. Suffice it to say that the end came before another brother appeared to try to rescue her from her troubles, and make comfortable her remaining days. Of her relation to her work it is difficult to speak. She was no trickster, like the later men, endeavoring to conjure up hidden meanings in the great poet by rebuses and ciphers. It was her passionate admiration for the grandeur of the work that made her skeptical of the ability of the man as pictured in history to have been the author of it. In fact, her idea seems to have been that the plays called Shakspere's were really constructed by a number of brilliant minds working in harmony to the common end. Of these the leading spirit was Francis Bacon. The life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning is so much a matter of household story, that no new version of it can expect to interest by its originality. The present volume1 is a résumé of the more extended biographies on the same subject, and is a fairly interesting account of the life of the famous English poet. In point of style, it is not so good as others of the same series, but the dissection of character is excellent, and the individuality of the woman is clearly and sympathetically depicted. The author is evidently unduly influenced by the romantic side of Mrs. Browning's poetry, and loses something of the full depth of her philosophy and erudition. It is not dull, however, and will rank favorably with other compendiums of the author's life. More than one of the devoted men who have given their lives to the spreading of the Gospel in foreign lands has found the time to jot down valuable scientific notes concerning the countries and peoples among whom he labored. Few, however, have found to their hand the wealth of material that Samuel Wells William s2 did in his peculiar field. 1 Elizabeth Barrett Browning. By John H. Ingram. Famous Women Series. Boston: Roberts Bros. 1888. For sale in San Francisco by Samuel Carson & Co. 2 The Life and Letters of Samuel Wells Williams, LL.D. By his Son, Frederick Wells Williams. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons: 1889. For sale in San Francisco by Samuel Carson & Co. He was one of the Christian pioneers in China, and not only was among the first to take note of its peculiarities, but saw it at a time when its manners and customs were as yet unchanged by the innovations of foreign peoples. He was not, however, a missionary of the regular stamp. He was sent to China as a printer, not as a preacher, and made his observations from the secular rather than the religious standpoint. Samuel Wells Williams was born with the missionary spirit in him. The majority of his family for generations had followed the religious calling, and from his earliest childhood all that he saw and felt in the home circle disposed him naturally to devote himself to the self-sacrificing life of a missionary. He was not, however, in any sense a dogmatist. His idea of religion was to act as if he were always in the presence of his Creator. For the so-called practical data of his creed he cared little or nothing, and therefore passed serenely through the petty quarrels and wordy discussions that in too many cases mar the efficiency of the missionary work. His passionate fondness for the natural sciences gave him eyes to see the thousand and one scientific details that are hidden from ordinary sight. He reached China at the time when the only residence allowed to foreigners was the fifteen-acre prison called the "Thirteen Factories," outside Canton. Here he took charge of the missionary press, and the printing of the gospels and various tracts in the Cantonese dialect, for distribution among the heathen natives. In two years he had conquered the language and was preaching to the Chinese. Four years later he accompanied the first party of whites who tried unsuccessfully to make a landing on the shores of conservative Japan. Shortly after his return came the troubles which led to the war of 1840. All this time he was constantly occupied in compiling and editing various books and periodicals, notably "Easy Lessons in Chinese," "Chinese Commercial Guide," and the "Chinese Repository," to which in all he gave nearly twenty years of loving labor. Later, he issued his "Tonic Chinese Dictionary," a piece of work that cost him over six years of uninterrupted exertion. His great work, "The Middle Kingdom," which is still the authority on all things Chinese, was also composed at this time. With Perry's expedition to Japan he performed his first important governmental work, being employed as chief interpreter; and the famous treaty which opened that island to civilization was largely due to his courtesy, tact, and skill. As a reward for this service, he was made secretary and interpreter to the American legation in China, which position he filled during the remainder of his residence in that country. There is hardly an event connected with foreign intercourse with the Middle Kingdom in which Doctor Williams did not have a part. Probably the greatest triumph of his life-at least the one in which he took he greatest pleasure was the "incorporation of an important article allowing the practice and profession of Christianity in China" in the great treaty of 1858. All the literary labor of his later years in China was devoted to the preparation and publication of his great Syllabic Dictionary." This dictionary [he writes] is a tedious work with out any refreshing passages, ― mere waste and bar renness, as if you were forced to read through a directory, with a photograph of every individual in the list, and knew none of them. There will be adequate returns, no doubt, if the job is well done, but the future rewards and usufruct do not exhilarate the one who collects the significations. However, it seemed to me to be a work I could do and which was needed; if God bless the design, the labor, and the accomplishment, I sha'n't need to look higher than His approving blessing. |