I. THE LITERARY DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND.

THE literary achievements of the Knickerbocker group of writers were practically accomplished by 1850. During the larger part of that first half century, there had been no question of the literary predominance of New York; New England had played, comparatively, an inconspicuous part in the field of national literature. A few of Longfellow's earliest poems were published previous to 1830, and some of Whittier's also; but it was really nearer 1840 than 1830 that either obtained general recognition as a poet. Emerson's first series of Essays was published in 1841, and Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse in 1846. The Scarlet Letter did not appear until 1850. It was, nevertheless, a period of intellectual activity. In Boston and Cambridge, new ideas were stirring the minds of the thinkers, and throughout the New England States, which were advancing rapidly in material prosperity by the establishment of manufacturing interests and the building up of a rich trade with the East Indies, the intellectual life of the people was feeling the stimulus of its own energy in rather remarkable degree.

The Unitarian Movement.

The first phase of this new awakening is recognized in the so-called Unitarian movement which spread over New England during the early years of the century. Opposition to the Calvinistic doctrines of the Presbyterian and other orthodox denominations had existed in the colonies even in Revolutionary times, but it was not till near the end of the eighteenth century that this opposition assumed the aspect of an important religious controversy. The arena in which John Cotton and his grandson, Cotton Mather, Roger Williams, and the many lesser controversialists of the colonial period had waged their theological battles was again the scene of an intellectual and religious agitation which in its immediate effects and subsequent influence was more far reaching even than that celebrated movement of the preceding century, -- the Great Awakening of 1734-44. In 1805, Harvard College -- the fountain-head of New England literature -- elected a Unitarian as professor of Divinity. By the end of the first decade, nearly every prominent Congregational pulpit in eastern Massachusetts was held by a preacher of Unitarian doctrine. The theological seminary at Andover was founded in 1807 to combat the new teaching. Moses Stuart (1780-1852) and Leonard Woods (1774-1854) became famous as teachers in this institution and as defenders of the orthodox creed. Lyman Beecher (1775-1863), the father of Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, was the ablest and best-known champion of orthodoxy in New England. In 1826, he was called from his church in Litchfield, Connecticut, to a prominent Boston pulpit, that he might have a position on the firing-line.

William Ellery Channing, 1780-1842.

The recognized leader of the Unitarians was William Ellery Channing, who was born at Newport, Rhode Island, and received his education at Harvard. He became the minister of a Boston parish in 1803. Cultured, eloquent, and a persuasive writer, he became famed throughout New England for his oratorical gifts and as a theologian. In seriousness of purpose and in purity of character, Channing represented the strength and virtue of the old Puritan stock. His portrait, presenting him in the conventional black gown of the clergyman with the white bands at the neck, shows a face highly intellectual and refined, with features delicate, spiritual, almost ascetic in their type. The influence of Dr. Channing was strongly felt; a sermon preached by him at an ordination in Baltimore, in 1819, is especially famous as a rallying-cry of Unitarianism. "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good," was his text; the sacredness of the individual conscience and the freedom of individual thought was his theme. While his writings are largely controversial, he was also a graceful essayist, and his literary influence was felt by contemporary writers who were stirred by his thought and passion.

Transcendentalism.

A second phase of this quickening in the intellectual life of New England appears in the development of transcendentalism. Closely allied with the religious movement just described and including many prominent Unitarians within its circle, transcendentalism, nevertheless, was not Unitarianism. The latter was a religious movement; it grew into the liberal denominations of the present day. Transcendentalism designates a school of abstract thought, a philosophy general in its application to life and conduct. It was distinctly local in its development.

Origin and Significance.

This new school of abstract ideas arose among the intellectual leaders of Boston and Cambridge during the second and third decades of the century. The teaching of German and French philosophy, the influence of Goethe, of Coleridge, and Carlyle had a part in its origin. The transcendentalists were idealists. They opposed materialism in every form. They regarded matter as an appearance and thought as the reality. The old Platonic system, the doctrine of ideas, was practically the basis of their belief. They emphasized the necessity of the individual and the free expression of the individual mind. They chose to be led by the "inner light." "The highest revelation is that God is in every man," said Emerson; "I believe in this life. I believe it continues. As long as I am here, I plainly read my duties as writ with pencil of fire." They thought and talked and wrote upon the truths which cannot be demonstrated, which lie beyond the sphere of the established, which transcend human experience and ordinary knowledge. They were deeply intent upon reform -- social, civil, and religious. They were philanthropic in purpose, and members of the group were often associated in schemes for the betterment of society, which usually proved Utopian dreams.

The Dial.

In July, 1840, a quarterly periodical was started by the transcendentalists, as the organ of their views. At first under the editorship of Margaret Fuller, a talented but visionary woman, whose name is prominently associated with the movement, and later under that of Emerson, The Dial ran its honorable course for about four years, when it was discontinued for lack of financial support. To this famous magazine, Emerson contributed essays and poems, while others of the coterie, Bronson Alcott, George Ripley, Theodore Parker, James Freeman Clarke, and Henry David Thoreau, were among its best-known writers. Carlyle's comment upon the early numbers of The Dial is probably suggestive of the general attitude of those outside the circle toward these enthusiastic idealists. "But it is all good and very good as a soul; wants only a body, which want means a great deal." Many of the new views were far from clear and many hapless failures resulted from these Utopian experiments; at the same time some practical progress was made and through this campaign of debate, in more than one direction was built the road to reform.

Brook Farm.

In 1841, an ideal community (one of several such experiments) was established by some of these enthusiasts at Brook Farm in West Roxbury, nine miles from Boston. George Ripley was the promoter and leader of the movement. It attracted some whose names were to be well known in later days. The young George William Curtis was an interested member, and so was Charles A. Dana, afterward the distinguished editor of the New YorkSun. For a time, also, Nathaniel Hawthorne was a member of the colony; and, ten years later, utilized some phases of his experience in the Blithedale Romance. Emerson was interested and an occasional visitor, although not an active Brook Farmer himself. The experiment was not altogether a failure. There were difficulties all along, but for five years the community flourished, demonstrating the possibilities of a simple, rational method of living, until, in 1846, there came a disastrous fire, and soon afterward the farm was sold.

Results of the Movement.

The general influence of the thought and labors of the transcendentalists was stimulating in high degree to the intellectual and moral growth of the period, in spite of the numerous "isms" which flourished among them. It stirred the minds of men, and in general wrought for culture and for philanthropic and progressive measures. It enlisted the eager enthusiasm of young Lowell in temperance reform and, for a brief period, in the agitation for woman suffrage; it labored with Whittier and Garrison and Phillips in the cause of abolition. It reflected the intellectual activity of Emerson; and if Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell (in maturer life) were not personally identified with the cult, their ideas were indirectly colored by the influences which transcendentalism set afoot. It was an important current in New England culture and was significant of what Mr. Barrett Wendell has appropriately called "the Renaissance of New England."

Emerson.

Of this latter phase of the movement, Ralph Waldo Emerson is the distinguished representative. A leader among these students of ideas, a preacher of moral and intellectual truths, a poet, a philosopher, a teacher, his influence upon the intellectual life of New England was stimulating in the extreme, while the effect of his writings on American thought and letters can hardly be reckoned. The Transcendental Writers.

The Alcotts.

Among the minor authors in this interesting group there are three or four that call for comment, although necessarily brief. George Ripley (1802-80) was a Harvard graduate, and in 1826 became minister of a Unitarian Society in Boston. He became conspicuous as a leader among the transcendentalists with the founding of the Brook Farm community, was active as a writer, and together with Charles A. Dana edited the New American Cyclopoedia (1857-63). Like others of the Brook Farm colonists, Ripley enjoyed the helpful friendship of Horace Greeley, and wrote, under Greeley's patronage, scholarly reviews for the New York Tribune. He made, however, no permanent contribution to literature. Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), famous for his eccentricities and for the unintelligibility of his mystical utterances, set out at fifteen as a peddler. With the design of adding to the family income he traveled through a part of the South, but returned with an empty pack and four hundred dollars in debt. This experience was typical of later ones; he was nothing if not unpractical. At twenty-six, he tried school-teaching in Connecticut, but his peculiar ideas kept him moving from place to place. It is only fair to add that many of Alcott's original methods are established principles in the school systems of to-day. In 1834, he opened a school in Boston, which lasted for five years. Attracted by Emerson's presence in Concord, Mr. Alcott removed thither. The most extreme notions of the transcendental brotherhood were pushed by him beyond the extreme. With an idea of improving upon the Brook Farm experiment, he organized a new community at "Fruitlands." His idealism was so strong that he would not permit canker-worms to be disturbed, and forbade the planting of such vegetables and roots as grow downward instead of upward into the air. After the failure of this communistic experiment, he held "select conversations" which became a settled institution in Concord. Like Emerson, he traveled to some extent in the West, holding "conversations" and expounding the transcendental ideas. To The Dial he contributed his Orphic Sayings, which aroused much ridicule from those not of the elect. In 1879, the Concord Summer School of Philosophy and Literature was established, and of this Mr. Alcott was the recognized head. Alcott's essay on Emerson and his Concord Days (1872) are his most readable remains. A more practical member of the family was Louisa May Alcott (1832-88), who struggled hard to offset her father's deficiencies on the bread and butter side of existence. She possessed talent as well as perseverance, and success came with the publication of her Little Women, in 1868. No more popular series of stories for young people has ever been produced than that which contains this book and its sequel, Little Men. Her later stories, Jo's Boys, An Old-Fashioned Girl, Eight Cousins, and Rose in Bloom, have, with their naturalness, humor and humanness, well maintained the popularity of Miss Alcott's earlier work.

Margaret Fuller, 1810-50.

Margaret Fuller, perhaps, commands more of interest than any other figure in the transcendental group. A brilliant intellect marred by a somewhat morbid egotism characterized her literary work; she shared in the erratic tendencies of her associates, but surpassed most of them in critical ability and to a certain extent in literary expression. Like Alcott, Margaret Fuller conducted "conversations" -- for the benefit of Boston ladies. She was prominent in the transcendental circle at Concord, and was warmly esteemed by Emerson. A frequent visitor at Brook Farm, Margaret Fuller is assumed to be the original of Zenobia in Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance. She, too, experienced the practical friendliness of Horace Greeley, and in 1844, became the literary critic on the Tribune. Devoted to philanthropy and reform, she was the friend of the Italian patriot Mazzini. In 1847, she visited Italy, and during her residence there was secretly and romantically married to the Marquis Ossoli. In 1850, the pair determined to come to America, and, with their infant son, set sail from Leghorn. Within sight of the American coast their vessel encountered a severe storm and was wrecked. The entire family perished. It is undoubtedly to this tragic event that the general interest in the personality of Margaret Fuller is in part due; but her place in american literary history is deserved. The most important of her works are Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1844) and Papers on Literature and Art (1846).