Ralph Waldo Emerson in Europe: Class, Race, and Revolution in the Making of an American Thinker Daniel Koch 9780755622948, 9781848859463

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To my mother and in loving memory of my father

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Emerson’s Antislavery Writings. Len Gougeon and Joel Myerson, eds. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995. The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson [Centenary Edition] with a biographical introduction and notes by Edward Waldo Emerson. 12 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903–4, London, 1904. The Correspondence of Emerson and Carlyle. Joseph Slater, ed. New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1964. The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. 9 vols. to date. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971–. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004–2007. Emerson Society Quarterly: A Journal of the American Renaissance Ralph Waldo Emerson Papers and Collections, Houghton Library, Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA. The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, William H. Gilman, Ralph H. Orth, et al., eds. 16 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960–82. The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ralph L. Rusk and Eleanor M. Tilton, eds. 10 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1939; 1990–1995.

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The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ronald A. Bosco and Joel Myerson, eds. 2 vols. Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 2001. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works, 50 vols. New York and London: International Publishers and Lawrence & Wishart, 1975–2005. Alexander Ireland Collection on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Manchester Free Public Library, Manchester, UK. New England Quarterly Emerson’s Complete Works [Riverside Edition], James Elliot Cabot, ed. 12 vols. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1883–1893, London, 1884–93.

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INTRODUCTION

Between October 1847 and June 1848 Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered some seventy-four lectures in twenty-six cities and towns throughout Northern England, Scotland, the Midlands, and in London. He was forty-four years old and was regarded by many on both sides of the Atlantic as America’s most important intellectual figure. It was his second time in England — his first trip had been made in 1833 between leaving his ministry at the Second Church in Boston and embarking on his career as a writer and lecturer. At the time of Emerson’s return in 1847, Britain was in the depths of one of the most severe economic crises in its history. Ireland was entering the darkest phase of the great potato famine, from which hundreds of thousands died and more than a million emigrated. In Paris a revolution erupted in February 1848, setting off a chain of violent insurrections in European cities from Madrid to Vienna. Much of this revolutionary activity was connected to the economic hardships and rising class consciousness of workers in industrialising Europe. Workers were on the front lines in nearly all of these struggles. It is unsurprising that many expected a major class-based insurrection to occur in what was the most advanced industrialised nation in the world at the time — Britain. From November 1847 to February 1848 Emerson completed a four-month tour of the industrialised heart of England and Scotland, speaking both to working and middle-class audiences. As the prospect of a working-class revolution in Britain became ever more perceptible, he moved to London in early March — writing and exploring the city from its centres of power and wealth to its miserable hovels and slums. Travelling throughout Britain, he came into contact with beggars and prostitutes, factory owners,

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ambassadors, proletarians, parliamentarians, students, and clerics. He rubbed shoulders with many of the most prominent literary figures of the age, including Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, and Lord Alfred Tennyson. He then spent three weeks in revolutionary Paris in May before returning to London to deliver ten lectures in June, again to class-segregated audiences. Emerson recorded his observations of British society and of revolutionary Paris in his journals, notebooks, and letters. He used them to shape lectures written during the tour and in works he produced after returning to America. Emerson’s experiences in Britain and revolutionary Europe in 1847–48 impacted his life and writing profoundly in the years and decades that followed. They recast the mind of an American philosopher. This book focuses on the immediate importance and legacy of Emerson’s experience in Britain and Europe in 1847–48. It illustrates a personal story of Emerson as an observer and a player in British society, situating him vis-à-vis a network of European intellectuals, including both the friends he made while abroad and the groups and figures who attacked him as a ‘circulating Satan.’ It tells the dramatic story of one of America’s most iconic authors trudging through the slums of Glasgow, feted by the English middle classes, descending into the conspiratorial political clubs of Paris, and returning to America with a vastly new set of ideas, just as the country began its own long descent into the abyss of the Civil War. It is the first in-depth study of Emerson’s twenty-six-city lecture tour of Great Britain and its significance in historical context. This volume also makes a substantial contribution to the Emerson canon by recovering, through detailed analysis of Emerson’s published and unpublished manuscripts, the lectures that he developed and delivered on this tour. In turn, the recovery of these important lectures makes possible, for the first time, an informed consideration of how Emerson’s philosophy and rhetoric changed as a result of his experience abroad. Perhaps most importantly, it presents new arguments about the impact of Emerson’s lecture tour on his thought and political action in the 1850s and 1860s. Like many Americans, Emerson related his understanding of the sectional crisis and the Civil War as a ‘revolution’ to those which had occurred in Europe in the 1840s. The experience

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of 1848 figured prominently in his private and public reflections on America in its most agonising national crisis. Emerson’s contribution to antislavery thought and abolitionist activity in the United States cannot be understood without reference to his experience of Great Britain and the European revolutions of 1848. By the 1860s, Emerson was regularly melding the legacies of the American revolution of 1776 and the European revolutions of 1848 in his powerful Civil War rhetoric. In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in Ralph Waldo Emerson. In academic circles, Emerson Studies is becoming a veritable subfield, attracting scholars from literature, history, and American Studies departments. In 2006, the editors of Emerson Bicentennial Essays noted that more than a thousand books and scholarly articles about Emerson had appeared in the last decade alone, and the pace of production has not slackened since.1 However, scholars have continually overlooked events in Emerson’s life that profoundly impacted his outlook on key issues during one of the most dramatic and remarkable periods of his career. Emerson’s lecture tour of Great Britain and his reactions to the revolutions of 1848 were crucial to the development of his thought and later political views. This book aims to provide for the first time a satisfying explanation of how Emerson became both a literary phenomenon in Britain and Europe, and of how his experiences there contributed to the making of a celebrated abolitionist who inspired countless thousands of Americans in the struggle against slavery. § No previous book on the importance and legacy of Emerson’s experience in Europe exists, though several works have addressed his British lecture tour and his reactions to the revolutions of 1848. A series of articles written in the 1930s by Townsend Scudder III outlined the surface features of the tour. Scudder studied the reception of Emerson’s lectures in the British press, highlighting some of the features of the heated controversy that they generated. He drew inferences about the nature of Emerson’s audiences in the Athenaeums and Mechanics’ Institutions in which he spoke and compiled a complete chronological

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list of all seventy-four British lectures and their venues. Scudder also authored a short book, The Lonely, Wayfaring Man: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Some Englishmen (1936) about some of Emerson’s British admirers and acquaintances in anecdotal style. These works, particularly the articles, still provide the best general overview of Emerson’s lecture tour to date.2 In the 1960s William Sowder expanded on Scudder’s investigation into Emerson’s reception in Britain. Sowder’s focus was on Emerson’s changing reputation in Great Britain throughout his lifetime and into the twentieth century. One of his articles, which became the first chapter of his book Emerson’s Impact on Great Britain and Canada (1966), focuses attention on Emerson’s early reception during the 1840s and contains some analysis of British press coverage of the lecture tour. Sowder arranged the material thematically, showing British reactions to Emerson’s religious messages, his philosophy, originality, and the ‘American’ aspects of his thought.3 More recently, Larry Reynolds included a chapter on Emerson’s experience in London and Paris during the spring of 1848 in his European Revolutions and the American Literary Renaissance (1988), which summarises some of Emerson’s initial reactions to the Chartist agitation in Britain and to the revolution in France. This book owes a great deal to these works, but diverges from them in a number of significant ways. First, this study’s tight chronological focus allows for a more in-depth exploration of this phase of Emerson’s career than previous studies have attempted. The seasoned works by Scudder and Sowder made important contributions to our understanding of how the British received Emerson’s lectures, but they say very little about Emerson’s reactions to what he saw or the impact it had on his thought. This book, by contrast, details how Emerson reacted to an array of different environments, each with its own unique set of characters and socio-economic landscape. It also differs from previous studies by presenting an extensive analysis of the immediate, shortterm, and long-term impacts of the experience on Emerson after his return to America. There is an attempt here to outline and analyse the content of Emerson’s British lectures with a sharp focus on the messages and

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themes of their delivery at the time. Some of these lectures were never published; others appeared years later (posthumously in several cases), often heavily altered or edited. This book conveys, as closely as possible, the essential themes of the original deliveries of the lectures using Emerson’s unpublished manuscripts, contemporary newspaper reports and recent specialist studies. Assuring that the content of the 1847–48 deliveries is distinguished from later additions or alterations is a difficult but essential task. I have been able to benefit in ways that earlier scholars could not from advances in Emerson studies and the increased availability of formerly unpublished primary material.4 This research allows for a factual analysis of what Emerson’s messages at the time were. Comparison to later texts allows for a more thorough explanation than has been offered before of how the experience of Britain and France influenced and changed Emerson’s thought. Emerson’s private and public pronouncements on a number of issues, including race, politics, revolution, and the natural order of society, changed over time, often in relation to his surroundings and to contemporary political events. Scholars have interpreted Emerson’s tour as a ‘turning point’ in a number of ways. In his classic and highly influential work on Emerson, Freedom and Fate (1953), Stephen Whicher argued that Emerson was to move from an early mystical, egocentric, rebellious stage to a dulled later phase where more conventional outlooks came to characterise his thought. In Whicher’s analysis, Emerson’s 1847–48 tour was the point of no return that ‘may be conveniently taken to mark the conclusion of the real development of his thought.’5 Philip Nicoloff referred to Emerson’s experience in England as a ‘milestone in his intellectual career,’ pointing out that Emerson returned with the ambition to write a book about English power; an intensified interest in modern science as a result of contact with geologist Charles Lyell, chemist and natural philosopher Michael Faraday, biologist Richard Owen, and others; and a new sense of ‘practicality.’ The impact of these stimuli confirmed to Emerson that the universe was in a state of constant amelioration and led to an ‘increased emphasis upon a pattern of national or racial necessity.’6 Larry Reynolds pointed out that Emerson arrived in Europe fresh after witnessing the failure of Brook Farm, making it easy for him

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to dismiss further ‘talk about socialism, communism, and Fourierism.’ The experience of revolutionary Paris, according to Reynolds, temporarily renewed Emerson’s sympathies with leftist politics, but the ultimate result was to reinforce Emerson’s conviction that ‘the student should remain aloof from the times,’ as he came to see the events in France as overblown and ‘superficial.’7 Phyllis Cole suggested that Emerson’s time in England had a double effect: on the one hand it underlined in Emerson’s thought the power of obstacles, limitation, and fate; on the other it showed him that the way to overcome modern industrial society’s soul-destroying systems was through social action and a collective ‘resistance to materialism.’8 David Robinson and Len Gougeon have echoed this idea, suggesting that Emerson returned from Europe with a heightened political consciousness, an increased orientation towards pragmatic concerns, and a new interest in social issues.9 Sacvan Bercovitch has argued that in 1848, as a reaction to the European revolutions, Emerson finally aligned himself ideologically with American liberal democracy. This was done without sacrificing his utopian vision, showing ‘the radical energies potential in American liberal ideology.’10 In some of these interpretations, Emerson became worldlier as a result of the European experience, in others more idealistic. In some he became more interested and actively engaged in social issues, in others less. By some accounts, Emerson returned to America a reverential Anglophile, in others deeply critical of England. In some he returned further entrenched in racialist thinking, in others he came back inspired and prepared to re-engage in the abolition movement (though these were not necessarily mutually exclusive). Whicher argued that in the period after 1848 Emerson finally succumbed to fatalism and limitation; Gougeon and others argue that in this same period his belief in freedom was absolute.The number of theories and lack of consensus about how the experience of 1847–48 transformed Emerson’s thought on politics, race, slavery, and other fundamental issues, suggests the need for a deeper, more detailed investigation of Emerson’s 1848 tour, what he said in his lectures, and its outcomes. One branch of Emerson criticism has undeniably attracted more interest and controversy than any other in recent decades. Extending

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from the appearance of several major biographies in the 1880s to the present, there has been a debate between those who portray Emerson as a sheltered, irresponsible, ivory-tower intellectual and others who see Emerson as an engaged, radical reformer, particularly in the antislavery movement. Oliver Wendell Holmes’s 1884 biography portrayed Emerson as conservative, barely mentioning his involvement in reform activities. This view of Emerson persisted in various forms throughout the twentieth century. Stephen Whicher’s Freedom and Fate (1953) was the most lastingly influential work in this mode.11 It is still present in some recent scholarly works and has been even more persistent in the commercial press.12 A very different Emerson comes through in works by Moncure Daniel Conway, Ralph Rusk, and more recently, Len Gougeon.13 Perhaps the most important achievement in Emerson scholarship during the last two decades has been to reveal the full extent of Emerson’s active and critical involvement in abolition and social reform, particularly in the 1850s and 1860s. Len Gougeon’s book Virtue’s Hero: Emerson, Antislavery, and Reform (1990) and a number of his scholarly articles show that Emerson became increasingly involved in campaigns for social justice in the second half of his career. These works and Emerson’s Antislavery Writings (1995), which contain a significant amount of previously unpublished material, have had a major impact on how we understand the writer and philosopher today. Since the early 1990s the idea of an active, reforming, even heroic Emerson has been reinforced by a surge of research on his involvement in antislavery and women’s rights movements and by the portrayal of him as a public intellectual in several recent biographies.14 The current volume is the first extended examination of the connection between Emerson’s reaction to 1848 and his antislavery rhetoric in the 1850s and 1860s. The writings that Emerson produced soon after his return to America and those in which he revisited similar subjects during the 1850s and 1860s conflict with one another. Part of what explains this lack of congruity is a change in Emerson’s tone on race and slavery in the United States after the passage and enforcement of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. In late 1848, Emerson vaunted the Anglo-Saxon race as one possessing ‘the best blood’ and saw the

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failed revolutions in Europe as evidence that ‘only the English race can be trusted with Freedom.’15 In later writings, however, he challenged and overturned both of these opinions. After 1850, Emerson increasingly focused on a vision of epic struggle between those who would stand for the rights of man and those who would place material satiety above humane considerations. This vision had an important effect on the book English Traits, particularly its subtle but considered rejection of racial hierarchism, and on Emerson’s reinterpretation of the revolutions of 1848 as struggles for freedom and human rights, which were similar to the intensifying conflict between supporters of abolition and of slavery in his own country. Emerson’s thought on race, reform, and revolution went through three distinct phases between 1848 and 1865. Without these chronological distinctions, quotations pulled from the various phases can be used to portray Emerson’s thought variously as racist or egalitarian, aloof or engaged, conservative or radical. With the chronology established, we can see how and for what reasons Emerson offered statements that often directly reversed his earlier positions, bringing order to the seeming chaos in Emerson’s reflections. In broad terms, the story of Emerson’s British lecture tour cannot be told without reference to some key questions and issues in nineteenth-century British historiography, including the nature of class, place of religion, and development of urban culture in Britain in the 1840s. One of the great questions that have puzzled historians is why Britain, despite widespread fear and expectation and unlike its continental neighbours, did not experience a major political revolution in 1848. In the last two decades, scholars have challenged and overturned the dominant ways of dealing with these issues.15 Historians have noted that there is a dearth in our knowledge concerning the lecture platform in nineteenth-century Britain. Martin Hewitt has recently suggested that despite (and perhaps partially due to) the ubiquitous nature of public speech in nineteenth-century life, we have an extremely limited understanding of the role the platform played in broader historical, intellectual, and cultural developments over the course of the century.16 Hewitt argues that a cultural history of public speaking is urgently needed and suggests making inquiries

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about contexts, motivations of individual speakers — not only the political orator, but also the ‘sage-intellectual’ — and audiences.17 Parts of this book will make some contribution to the cultural history of public speaking in Britain at mid-century. It provides some new sources and conclusions about Emerson’s audiences, supporters, and detractors, and the lectures themselves which may be of service if and when that history finally is written. Although my chief aim has been to assess the impact of Britain and Europe on Emerson, there is also an attempt here to view Emerson’s lecture tour through the lens of British history in order to arrive at conclusions about the impact of his presence on the United Kingdom. § The first chapter of this book exposes some of the issues and areas in Emerson’s social and political thought on which he was inconsistent in his early career, and which seem to have led to the feeling of dissatisfaction and tension he experienced after the fall of Brook Farm and the outbreak of the Mexican War in 1846. The second and third chapters are devoted to the history of Emerson’s winter tour of Britain, focusing first on the record of Emerson’s lectures in the press and then on Emerson’s own record of his observations and activities outside of the lecture hall. Attention is devoted in these chapters to the lectures themselves, reconstructed as accurately as possible through press transcripts. (The book also contains, as an appendix, an index of more than 250 British and French newspaper and journal articles about Emerson and his lectures, a significant number of which were previously unknown.) The fourth chapter summarises Emerson’s reactions to events of the spring of 1848, which were anything but straightforward, beginning with the February revolution in Paris and concluding with his series of lectures at the Marylebone Literary and Scientific Institute in June. The fifth chapter presents arguments about the impact of Emerson’s experience in 1847–48 on the second half of his career. Inspired by the social atmosphere and civil society that he experienced in London, Emerson took a new direction in his public activity. He facilitated a

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significant number of Anglo-American exchanges using his expanded network of transatlantic contacts, and became involved in the creation of an elite club culture in Boston with the goal of bringing the best minds in a variety of professions together for intellectual exchange. Emerson returned often in his private writings and public lectures to the societies he observed in 1847–48. His book English Traits (1856) grew out of new lectures on England and the ‘English race’ that he began delivering soon after his return to America. He also made frequent references to the revolutionary events in Europe and their aftermath. However, the analyses he put forward in his later works are markedly different from those presented immediately after his return. By comparing Emerson’s discourse on England and Europe to his antislavery writings it is possible to see that this shift in analysis can be understood, to a significant extent, as a result of a transformation wrought by his abolitionist experience. Emerson’s responses to his experience in Great Britain and to the revolutions of 1848 reveal aspects of his biography and of the development of his thought, which, until the present, have gone unnoticed. His period abroad was pivotal in the making of a thinker who would bring his talent powerfully to bear on the moral crisis of his nation and century. To bring to light the importance of this transatlantic experience in the life of one of America’s most influential and iconic men of letters is the object of this study.

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CHAPTER 1 PR ELUDE TO THE LECTUR E TOUR

On 5 October 1847, Emerson boarded the sailing vessel Washington Irving in Boston, bound for Liverpool. The last letter he sent before departure was to his brother William in New York, whom he had been continually helping to bail out of debt for several years, describing his ‘fuss of preparation.’ The trip to England was a major undertaking. It meant a long-term separation from his wife and three young children. Ocean travel was dangerous; each day a ship would be subject to ‘chances of squall, collision, sea-stroke, piracy, cold, thunder, & the rest.’ Within three years one of his most beloved friends, Margaret Fuller, would die in a shipwreck crossing the Atlantic. Financially it was also risky. Emerson took out a loan from the Concord bank; left detailed instructions for Henry David Thoreau, who moved out of his one-man cabin at Walden and into the Emerson household during his absence; and made arrangements granting power of attorney to his ‘mercantile friend’ Abel Adams.1 Thoreau, his family, and some friends accompanied Emerson to the wharf. He had paid $80 for what we would call a first-class ticket, which entitled him to a chamber and meals in the first cabin together with ‘three ladies with nine children, four gentlemen, and the captain,’ and privilege of access to the ‘spacious quarter-deck,’ closed off to the sixtyfive passengers in the steerage section.2 In the final days of the voyage Emerson saw the coast of Ireland, which was suffering intensely with

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the potato famine. He could see what looked to be a ‘well-cultivated & plentiful’ country, ‘but no curse.’ Approaching England, Emerson remarked: ‘As we near the land, its genius is felt. This is inevitably the English side. . . . In every man’s heart now arises a new system, English sentiments, English loves & fears, English history, & social modes.’3 The Washington Irving weighed anchor in Liverpool harbour late at night on Friday 22 October. Emerson was taxied from the ship with four other first-class passengers and the captain in a ‘little dangerous-looking dangerously dancing boat’ and set ashore. We can infer that the dock prostitutes were among his first sights. ‘When I came to Liverpool,’ he said over dinner with Charles Dickens and Thomas Carlyle six months later in London, ‘I inquired whether it was always as gross in that city as it then appeared to me? For it looked to me as if such manners betokened a fatal rottenness in the state & especially no boy could grow up safe.’ Dickens and Carlyle replied that in England ‘chastity in the male sex was as good as gone.’4 Alexander Ireland — a Manchester-based newspaper editor and Emerson’s unofficial tour manager — was unable to leave his office in Manchester to greet him, as Friday was the publication day of his newspaper, The Manchester Examiner. Emerson stayed at the Waterloo Hotel. Apart from a brief meeting with James Martineau, an influential English Unitarian minister in Liverpool, he spent the 23rd and 24th quietly alone in Liverpool recovering from the long journey.5 The adventure in Britain would begin in earnest the following day, when Emerson departed for a brief trip to London, which had abiding, unexpected results and set the tone for the rest of his time in Great Britain. What prompted Emerson to take this journey? Why did he decide to leave his home and family for a prolonged lecture tour of Great Britain? There was certainly some degree of continuity with his normal routine. In a time when lecturing was the main source of income for most authors, Emerson was used to long journeys away from home. His regular lecture tours of the United States would often be several months in duration. However, the decision to cross the Atlantic was no ordinary choice. Emerson likely saw in it some opportunity for financial gain — he was, after all, a well-known, sought-after figure in Britain and had been promised good earnings.

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Overall, however, personal reasons were more important. He had visited Britain once before, during the European tour he had taken as a young man in an attempt to deal with the loss of his beloved first wife, and benefited from it. He met interesting people, including some of his early literary heroes, and he wanted to re-connect with them. He was particularly eager to meet again with Thomas Carlyle, the prominent historian and essayist and one of the most well-known and notorious living writers in Britain. Emerson had maintained a dynamic correspondence with him for nearly fifteen years. In what seems to have been a depressing and bewildering time in Emerson’s life, he looked again to Britain as a place to escape the feelings of inadequacy, disorder, and ineffectiveness that haunted him. He was deeply interested in the English ‘race’ and in getting at the root of the English character. Emerson wanted, quite desperately, to be ‘set aglow’ and he concluded that England is where he needed to go to make it happen. § Emerson’s first and only other experience in Britain had been at a time of deep emotional anguish following the death of his first wife Ellen in 1831. At that time, Emerson was in his late twenties and had not yet embarked upon a literary career. He had led a conventional life, having followed in his father’s footsteps in attending Harvard, pursuing divinity studies, and finally becoming a Unitarian minister in 1829 in the one part of the world where Unitarianism was the religion of the mainstream — Boston.6 By 1832, Emerson was in a state of deep depression. He visited his dead wife’s grave every day, even opening her tomb on one occasion.7 His family and friends were concerned. Emerson was also in a career crisis. He no longer felt that he could administer communion in good faith, and had begun to doubt the very foundations of his ministry. He resigned formally from the Second Church in Boston in the autumn of 1832. He was already beginning to think about a new career as an editor for a new literary-philosophical journal, but recognised that he was too mired in sorrow to go forward. In order to escape, he decided, suddenly, to go to Europe. He sailed out of Boston in December 1832.8

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In Europe, Emerson followed a well-beaten path. From Malta and Sicily, he travelled north to Naples, Rome, and Florence, then on to Venice and Milan. Continuing northward, he arrived in Paris on 20 June 1833. In France, as in Italy, he was a tourist. He visited art galleries and took a particular interest in the Jardin des Plantes. With few exceptions, his contact with celebrity natives in continental Europe at this time was at a considerable distance. He wrote home with great excitement about his Fourth of July celebratory dinner in Paris with General Lafayette, which he attended in the company of ‘nearly a hundred’ other Americans.9 He also made contact with the American sculptor Horatio Greenough in Florence, who arranged for him to meet the great English poet Walter Savage Landor.10 In England and Scotland, Emerson took advantage of opportunities to meet with literary celebrities and his personal heroes. He recounted the significant events of this first visit, which began in July and ended of September 1833, in the opening chapter to English Traits (1856). He requested a meeting with the aging Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose work had heavily impacted Emerson’s struggles with his faith. The published account in English Traits hardly hides the dissatisfaction produced by Coleridge’s long-winded hour-long discourse: ‘the visit was rather a spectacle than a conversation, of no use beyond the satisfaction of my own curiosity.’11 Emerson’s long personal connection with Thomas Carlyle dated from their first meeting in August 1833, when Emerson showed up as a complete stranger at the Carlyles’ isolated home in the Scottish wilderness. He bore a letter of introduction from a French socialist and friend of Carlyle, Gustave d’Eichthal, whom Emerson had met by chance in Rome.12 At the time, Carlyle was still a relatively unknown writer in his late thirties, with nearly all of his important work still ahead of him. Emerson’s desire to meet him — and willingness to go to surprising lengths to do so — sprung from having read Carlyle’s critical work in the Edinburgh Review.13 The friendship and correspondence between Emerson and Carlyle endured until the latter’s death in 1881, though it would be severely strained at points. Finally, before his return journey, Emerson sought the poet William Wordsworth, whom he would meet again in 1848, at his home in Rydal Mount.

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Emerson gives no concluding remarks on the overall significance of his first visit to England or Europe in English Traits. His description of the four great figures whom he met on the trip, and who were so generous in giving their time to the wandering American (though obliged by his letters of invitation) — Landor, Coleridge, Carlyle, and Wordsworth — is a mixture of mild praise and sometimes less than subtle judgement. The fact that Emerson was somewhat disappointed comes through most clearly in the journal entries that he wrote while awaiting his return ship in Liverpool. He concluded that these great men were ‘all deficient.’ Each lacked ‘an insight into religious truth.’ The entries he wrote while at sea imply that the great religious truth, which he perceived each of these writers to lack, was not a traditional adherence to a denominational faith, but rather a belief that ‘God is in every man.’14 Emerson’s experience helped him to get his life back in order. He returned to Massachusetts in an improved mental state and with a new set of plans. Within months he would begin in earnest to pursue his new career in letters, aided by the modest income from the estate of his wife. He was stimulated by what he had seen at the Jardin des Plantes, and began delivering lectures on natural history to general audiences. His first great philosophical work, Nature, would be written and published soon thereafter. Personally, he was able to move on from his loss, to re-marry and start a family. He married Lidia (later Lidian) Jackson in 1835. The trip also emboldened him in his conviction that there was no unbridgeable gap separating him from the great writers of the old world in terms of moral strength, personal power, or ability. He wanted to deliver his message — his prophesy — about God’s presence in all to a wider audience than the Church could provide. Emerson’s career as a writer and lecturer on the secular circuit began immediately upon his return.15 In the fourteen years that followed Emerson became a literary phenomenon, as we shall see, on both sides of the Atlantic. When he returned to England in 1848, his great renown had preceded him. He was no longer an unknown, obscure tourist, but rather a cultural beacon belonging in the spotlight. However, the sense of despair, confusion, and melancholia that drove him to Europe in 1832 was

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not permanently eradicated. Indeed, his return in 1847 could still be attributed to it. § When Emerson arrived back in England in October 1847, he had nearly a fortnight before his lecture series was due to commence in Manchester on 3 November. During this time he sought out old friends and made some unexpected acquaintances, which were to define his experience in the year to come. The meetings are telling in a number of ways. They illustrate where Emerson was in his own life in 1847 and also explain why the social dimension of Emerson’s visit was not to go to plan. Emerson and Carlyle would fall out severely, mainly due to Carlyle’s intolerance of Emerson’s general manner and his refusal to think in absolutist terms. Considering their long-term friendship and correspondence, Emerson might reasonably have expected that his society in England would be focused on Carlyle and his circle of friends. It was not to be. Instead, Emerson’s society in England, and especially in those eventful and revolutionary months in the spring of 1848, was strongly shaped by his chance meeting with a man with whom he had his own set of ideological differences: the American ambassador to the Court of St James’s and firm Jacksonian democrat, George Bancroft. Before their disastrous encounter in October, Emerson had been eager to see Carlyle. Since their brief meeting in 1833, Emerson had worked diligently and unpaid as Carlyle’s literary agent in America. Carlyle, for his part, had written an introduction to the English edition of Emerson’s first volume of essays in 1841, lending his name and prestige to a writer yet completely unknown in Britain. Soon after his October arrival in Liverpool, Emerson received a forwarded letter from Carlyle demanding that he come to London at his first convenience. On the 25th, taking up the invitation, he travelled to London via Manchester, where he met briefly with Ireland and received a briefing on his coming lecture engagements. At ten o’clock that night, the Carlyles received a knock on their door at 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea. Emerson had just stepped out of the cab from Euston Station. Their initial meeting in 1847, however, did not go well and exposed some major disagreements.

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Carlyle had been rushing to finish an article on some unpublished letters of Oliver Cromwell to send to Fraser’s Magazine before Emerson arrived.16 The following morning they walked two miles north to Hyde Park, then via Buckingham Palace, St James’s Palace, and the Mall to Trafalgar Square, where a column bearing Admiral Nelson’s statue had recently been installed. Behind it lay another massive addition to the London cityscape, which had appeared in the interval since Emerson’s last visit: the new building into which the National Gallery had relocated in 1838. They visited the collection. Leaving, they turned left past St Martin-in-the-Fields and came into The Strand. They went into the bookshop of John Chapman, Emerson’s London publisher, at number 142. It was in this building that Emerson would reside during the spring and summer of 1848. Emerson recorded his observations of Carlyle in his journals and letters, taking particular notice of his intensity, frustration, and gloominess. He had a strong, virulent ‘religious tinge . . . coupled . . . with the utmost impatience of Christendom & Jewdom. . . . He talks like a very unhappy man, profoundly solitary, displeased & hindered by all men & things about him, & plainly biding his time, & meditating how to undermine & explode the whole world of nonsense which torments him.’17 The Carlyles began to resent Emerson’s presence nearly immediately. On the 28th Jane Carlyle wrote a backbiting letter while Emerson was still in the house to her aristocratic friend, Lady Harriet Baring. She attacked Emerson as a weak-minded concessionary who would do anything to avoid dispute and if forced into it, she claimed, Emerson ‘gives, under the most provoking contradictions, with the softness of a feather-bed.’ On that same day, she wrote another letter using almost the exact same language in discussing Emerson, this time adding that ‘I am rather satisfied that he is going away tomorrow. . . . He will return to London . . . but then I fancy he will go into lodgings.’18 At some point during the visit a dispute erupted. Emerson did not share Carlyle’s understanding of Oliver Cromwell, the puritan dictator and subject of his recent work, as the great hero of the seventeenth century. He wrote home that when he discussed his inability to appreciate Cromwell in the same way Carlyle, in response, turned ‘quite fiercely’ upon him.19 One version of the story, recorded by one of

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the Englishmen who came to know Emerson later in the year, reads: ‘he [Carlyle] rose like a great Norse giant from his chair — and, drawing a line with his finger across the table, said, with terrible fierceness, “Then sir, there is a line of separation between you and me as wide as that, and as deep as the pit!”’20 The Carlyle-Emerson friendship was never the same after this visit. Carlyle summed up his impressions of Emerson in his letters. He was ‘a rather thinner man than was expected.’ Speaking of his coming lectures in the North, Carlyle predicted failure. Emerson’s messages were ‘too airy and thin for the solid practical heads of the Lancashire region.’ Carlyle’s prediction was that Emerson would turn over no soil and have no impact in England — ‘by none such was the Thames ever burnt!’ He had come, Carlyle opined, with a ‘rake rather than a shovel.’ He wrote that Emerson was far less talented than anticipated, and finally concluded that, ‘Friends, it is clear, we can never in this world, to any real purpose, be.’21 Emerson spent Wednesday the 27th separate from the Carlyles. He was visited by Charles Lane, whom he had summoned by letter. Lane was an Englishman who had come to America in the early 1840s to found a utopia — the ill-fated Fruitlands experiment — with Emerson’s friend Amos Bronson Alcott. Lane had recently returned to England a very changed man and reinstalled himself on Ham Common in Richmond upon Thames, a London suburb. Upon the break-up of Fruitlands in 1844, financially ruined, he had joined a Shaker community in the rural town of Harvard, Massachusetts. At the time, he admired the Shaker principles of celibacy and communal property. He had had a son, William, for whom he had, upon joining the community, signed over legal guardianship to the Church Family trustees. The following year, Lane grew dissatisfied with the Shaker government and its ‘system of spiritual despotism which does not allow a man to think for himself’ and left the community and the United States altogether. He was forced to leave his son with the Shakers and was still involved in an anguishing transatlantic custody battle in October 1847, which Emerson knew about first-hand through correspondence.22 Emerson had been acting sympathetically on Lane’s behalf in effecting the sale of the Fruitlands farm and assuring that Lane, who urgently needed the money, received his due. They walked together to Baring & Bros.,

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where Emerson handed Lane the large sum of £92.17.9.23 We may presume that Lane used it to conclude his conflict with the Shakers and pay for his son’s release, which finally occurred in 1848. Emerson’s meeting with Lane was a physical reminder of the disastrous failures of utopian idealism that he had witnessed in Eastern Massachusetts in the 1840s. These failures, as we shall see, explain why Emerson had come to England. They also explain Emerson’s growing admiration for and fascination with worldly success, of which industrious, mercantile, empire-building England, and later the powerful people with whom he rubbed shoulders there, became potent symbols in his mind. Perhaps the most important meeting in London to the rest of his time in England happened by chance. Wandering alone in the National Gallery, Emerson was suddenly ‘accosted’ by a young American who recognised him and brought him to his mother, whom he already knew. Mrs Elizabeth Bancroft was born and raised in Plymouth, Massachusetts. She was a childhood friend of Lydia Jackson, the future Mrs Emerson, and had since married George Bancroft, a friend of Ralph Waldo. In 1845 the couple had moved to Washington when Bancroft became President James K. Polk’s navy secretary and de facto war secretary during the beginning stages of the Mexican War. In 1846 he was made Ambassador to the United Kingdom. In London Mrs Bancroft, a natural extrovert, moved within the highest social circles. Both were pleasantly surprised by the chance meeting.24 Also while in the gallery, Emerson met Samuel Rogers, a celebrated poet and acquaintance of Mrs Bancroft, whoinvited the entire group to breakfast the following morning. Emerson knew Rogers’s work, having first read his long poem Human Life hot off the press as a junior at Harvard, aged seventeen.25 This chance meeting had a major impact on Emerson’s time in England. When he returned to London after his lecture tour, the Bancroft connection brought him into contact with some of the most important figures in British public life. Samuel Rogers was the first in a long series of acquaintances made as a result of this encounter. The following day, Emerson reunited with George Bancroft and was introduced to Henry Hart Milman, a prominent poet and historian. He was promised, if he would return to London, ‘any number of introductions.’26

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It seems surprising, initially, that Emerson did not make contact with the Bancrofts before coming to England. George Bancroft had studied at Harvard and Göttingen and, like Emerson, kept school for some time. Like Emerson, he later entered the Unitarian ministry only to abandon his post within a few years to pursue literature. In 1822, when Bancroft was just over twenty, Emerson, then nineteen, went to hear him preach at the New South Church in Boston and thought him ‘an infant Hercules.’27 During the 1830s they established a friendship. It is likely that differences in political ideology, which had existed previously but became more glaring in the light of recent events, might have contributed to his reluctance to contact Bancroft. During the 1830s the first three volumes of Bancroft’s epic History of the United States of America appeared, covering the period up to the French and Indian War.28 In the winter of 1834–35 Bancroft became a committed member of the Democratic Party. The idea that drove his politics and his writing was that the ‘will of the people,’ would always, in the long run, show itself to have been right. To bolster this ideology, he looked to the German idealists and their English and American descendents: Coleridge, Harriet Martineau, Thomas Carlyle, and Emerson and his circle. He used their works to validate his claim that government could and should be dictated by the index of the common man. He aimed particularly to refute the then-pervasive idea that the uneducated and poor could not have the experience and education necessary to make wise choices about government. In insisting that the mind of even the commonest of men ‘could transcend experience and make contact with truth directly,’ Bancroft saw himself as fighting along a common front with Emerson and other idealists, against the Lockean theory that access to truth could come only through experience.29 Bancroft began to figure prominently in Emerson’s life in the late 1830s. In revising the first volume of his History, Bancroft made use of Emerson’s Historical Discourse at Concord. In his thank you note he told Emerson (still at work on Nature) that in the forthcoming second volume he would use the Quakers’ success in founding Pennsylvania as a practical confutation of Locke’s distrust for popular enthusiasm.30 Emerson, at the time, was eager to dethrone the deterministic and materialistic messages of Locke and Hume for philosophical

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and personal reasons, and was pleased by Bancroft’s work. Through it he saw the world coming round to the thought of George Fox and William Penn while ‘the time-honored John Locke receives kicks.’ But already he detected that Bancroft’s use of transcendental principles was less philosophically than politically motivated. Debunking Locke, the favourite of the Whig party, was not a stab against material determinism, but a ‘boyish hurra’ for Jacksonain democracy. In 1837, Emerson was already detecting a division between Bancroft the scholar and truehearted man of conscience and Bancroft the ideologue Democrat historian, reminding himself in his journal to ‘let not the author eat up the man.’31 A few years later, in his journals, Emerson lashed against Bancroft for the treatment of Native Americans in his work. His research was detailed, but ‘he [Bancroft] seeks no reason why these barren facts should be preserved in modern ink.’ He compared Bancroft’s Indians to a dead body dressed up in the finest costume being sent to its own funeral.32 The Democrats in Washington had initiated a strong Indian removal policy. In the interval between these entries, Emerson had written a powerful letter to President Martin Van Buren, Jackson’s successor in the Democratic Party, beseeching him not to carry out the Cherokee removal act, to no avail. Building on the momentum Bancroft had generated with his History, he made his entry into politics. In 1845, as mentioned above, he was given the powerful position of Navy secretary in President Polk’s cabinet. Polk had come to power promising resolution to questions of national expansion and foreign intrusion, particularly on the yetunsecured Pacific Coast. In March 1845 Bancroft became the standing secretary of war and it was he who, according to Polk’s wishes, stationed Zachary Taylor’s troops on the Rio Grande. This was the bold and highly provocative move that was the immediate cause of the Mexican War. Bancroft sent the Navy to secure American interests in California, then still part of Mexico, and also sent John Frémont on a ‘scientific’ mission with a small armed force to California and Oregon, which he feared might be snatched up by the British.33 In 1846 Polk made him ambassador to Britain, where he soon discovered that there was no longer reason to fear the British, reporting that ‘England sees

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that California must be ours.’ By May 1847, when the outcome of the war became obvious, high-ranking British cabinet members such as then Foreign Secretary Palmerston enviously observed that ‘the Americans were the lords of Mexico,’ and saw it as a determined effect of ‘the immense superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race.’34 The air clear of Anglo-American mistrust, Elizabeth Bancroft was free to engage in her vibrant social life while George could devote more time to thinking about the future volumes of his History and host weekly ‘Historical Breakfasts’ with Thomas Babington Macaulay, Henry Hart Milman, Henry Hallam, and the other great British historians of the day. This is the position in which Emerson found Bancroft in October 1847. Emerson was a strong opponent of the Mexican War and was deeply troubled by its implications, as we shall see. Although certainly not hostile to the idea of democracy, Emerson had long felt perturbed by the style and tone of the American Jacksonian Democrats. He did not share a belief in the infallibility of ‘majority rule,’ and found lamentable the Democrats’ willingness to satisfy popular demands for more land and wealth by what he and many others considered to be immoral means.35 This difference in opinion probably explains why Emerson had made no effort to contact his old friend before coming to England. Politics and the issues of the Mexican War and expansion seem to have been avoided both in this initial meeting and in the period of Emerson’s residence in London in 1848. Bancroft was, however, just the sort of man in whom Emerson was becoming increasingly interested — one who sought and achieved success in this world and who shaped events on a grand scale. One who through personal power had accomplished something tangible — so much in contrast to his circle of friends and philosophers at home, whom Emerson had come to see as effete and ineffectual drifters. As will be shown, Emerson’s fear that he was falling into the same category goes a long way in explaining both why he came to England and what he made of his experience in the years after his return. Emerson’s October meetings in London are not only interesting biographical anecdotes, but also noteworthy indicators of the directions that his thought and career were taking at that time. Emerson and Carlyle, whose names were linked in the minds of many English and American readers in 1847, were moving in irreconcilably different directions. Subsequent

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chapters will show that by the 1850s Carlyle was entrenched in authoritarian, racist, and elitist discourses while Emerson expressed opposing points of view on nearly every issue. By the 1860s Emerson would publicly denounce Carlyle for his support of the South in the American Civil War. The meeting in London and dispute over Cromwell is the first major indication of this trend. The meeting with Charles Lane indicates that the failure of utopian reform at Fruitlands was still having effects in Emerson’s life in 1847. Emerson’s highly amicable relations with Bancroft suggest that while the two Massachusettsians may have had highly divergent opinions about the Mexican War, Bancroft was nonetheless interested in securing contacts for Emerson. Emerson had complained before his departure of his friends of ‘no adventure, connexion, or wide information’; Bancroft was the opposite. This set the stage for Emerson’s remarkable experience amongst the British elite during the revolutionary ‘spring of peoples’ in 1848. § By the time of Emerson’s arrival in Liverpool in October 1847, he was already a well-known literary figure in the United Kingdom. Through publications of his work, both in legitimate and pirated editions; through press reviews by some of the most eminent British writers and public figures; and through his friendship with Thomas Carlyle, Emerson’s reputation and renown as the leading American intellect spread during the 1840s in Britain. Based on the number of cheap editions of his work produced before his return to America, it is possible to conclude that at the time of his lecture tour, Emerson was among the most widely read living authors in Britain. The first British edition of Emerson’s writing was issued by Carlyle’s publisher, James Fraser, in 1841. Essays (later subtitled the First Series) cost ten shillings — generally out of the price range of average middle-class readers.36 In Carlyle’s preface he wrote, ‘No Editor or Reprinter can expect such a Book to become popular here. . . . [It] is not suited to the great reading public, but only the small, thinking public.’ Seven hundred and fifty copies were printed.37 This prediction was proven incorrect. Within two years the First Series was pirated by W. H. Smith. Carlyle reported to Emerson: ‘a scoundrel

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interloper here has reprinted Emerson’s Essays on grayish paper, to be sold at two shillings.’38 This two-shilling edition went into a second printing in 1844. A year later, another pirated edition was released by H. G. Clarke at one shilling. American and British copyright laws did not adequately cover foreign books, resulting in incessant pirating of American books in Britain and vice versa.39 A new legitimate copy priced six shillings was released in 1847. During Bronson Alcott’s visit to England in 1842 he distributed a pamphlet version of Emerson’s ‘Man the Reformer.’ Carlyle wrote Emerson from London in November 1842: ‘Certain Radicals have reprinted your Essay in Lancashire, and it is freely circulating there, and here, as a cheap pamphlet, with excellent acceptance so far as I discern.’ The pamphlet, which cost only three pence (or 1s. 6d. per dozen), went into three editions.40 John Chapman, a young publisher and writer in London contacted Emerson the following year urging him to publish with him and hinting that he might be able to obtain a sturdier copyright. Emerson sent the proofs of Essays, Second Series and his address on ‘Emancipation in the West Indies,’ which Chapman printed as a separate pamphlet.41 Essays, Second Series appeared with an introductory notice by Carlyle stating clearly that Chapman was the one English publisher ‘appointed by the Author himself,’ and warning prospective pirates that ‘theft of any sort is abhorrent to the mind of man.’ The book’s low price, three shillings for the paperback edition or 3s. 6d. for cloth, was likely an attempt to render it affordable to middle-class readers, making them less apt to buy pirated versions.42 The low prices also meant far lower profits, however, and it is probably for this reason that despite extensive sales, Emerson had still seen no royalties from Chapman before 1848.43 Another reason for the low price might be that, while Chapman’s copyright protected the Second Series from pirates, Emerson’s other writings were easy prey. The two-shilling 1843 W. H. Smith volume referred to above contained not only Essays but also Nature and five of Emerson’s classic orations, all of which were mere reprints of volumes legitimately published in America. Within weeks after the Second Series was released in 1844, readers could buy, for only one shilling, another pirated compilation of Nature and three orations not included in

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Smith’s edition. A note in Emerson’s ledger suggests that he discovered that the print runs of Smith’s and Clarke’s editions were 2,500 and 3,000 respectively.44 In addition, two of the essays pirated in Smith’s edition were published and sold as separate pamphlets at 4d. each by C. E. Mudie in 1844. Without pirates, Second Series might have sold at a higher price and possibly, if we assume that the market for his work was already nearly saturated by the thousands of cheap volumes already available, in larger numbers. Conversely, however, had it not been for pirates, Emerson’s market and readership might have remained more or less limited to a small, wealthy elite. Though Carlyle and Emerson’s letters suggest that both authors were unhappy with the pirating, at this time almost no author could hope to live on royalties alone and had to depend on lecturing or other means of income. Carlyle remarked that pirates ‘carry you faster abroad.’45 The amount of energy that was stirred up in anticipation of Emerson’s lectures would be almost unimaginable without the widespread availability of his works in cheap editions. In the following years, Chapman published a copyrighted edition of Poems in 1846 and issued his own reprint of First Series in 1847.46 In reaction to the widespread interest aroused by Emerson’s lecture tour, two new illegitimate editions of the material already once-pirated in the Smith and Clarke volumes appeared in 1848, one of which hit the market whilst Emerson was still in Britain.47 At the time of Emerson’s arrival in 1847 only his most polished literary productions to date, Second Series and Poems, had escaped pirating and remained, at six shillings, out of the price range of most literate workingmen. The writings most cheaply priced were the orations printed as separate pamphlets. These included some of Emerson’s most iconoclastic, idealistic, even incendiary discourses. For only four pence each, one could buy Mudie’s pamphlet versions of ‘The Method of Nature’ and ‘Man Thinking’ (also known as ‘The American Scholar’). In the former Emerson attacks the degradation of the manual worker and the classification of labour into superior and inferior strata that warrants it: ‘I would not have the laborer sacrificed to the result, — I would not have the laborer sacrificed to my convenience and pride, nor that of a great class such as me. Let there be worse cotton and better men.’48 ‘The American Scholar’ is

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similar in its insistence on the common dignity of all labour and labourers. Underlining a need for regeneration in social forms, Emerson asked, ‘If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution?’49 In Chapman’s six-penny pamphlet version of ‘The Young American,’ an even more direct attack against existing systems, particularly in England, is made. Emerson imagines a society in which the best and ablest could run affairs most efficiently, where each man could be a ‘[w]orking king.’ He insists on the responsibility of government to ‘educate the poor man,’ and ‘supply the poor with work and with good guidance.’ He sees the present as an era in which old styles of government and social stratification are proving themselves insufficient in light of ‘the revolution in society wrought by trade.’ He refers to experiments in Socialism and Communism (as these concepts were known to him in 1844) as ‘friendly omen[s],’ indicators of ‘the revolution . . . on the way.’50 Two of Emerson’s publishers, Chapman and Mudie, were driven to make a difference to their public and both had an impact through their work in the book industry on the formation of intellectual culture in Victorian Britain. Both, we can infer, were interested in publishing Emerson’s works far less in the name of immediate profit than in seeing Emerson’s messages distributed amongst the largest and widest reading public possible. Chapman introduced some of the most important and controversial philosophical and religious works of the nineteenth century into the English-speaking world, including David Strauss, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Auguste Comte, and published many important Anglo-American thinkers. With such elite readership for the works he published, Chapman eventually went bankrupt in the 1850s.51 Mudie was also clearly interested in expanding the readership of authors he thought to be important. In the 1840s he created one of the largest and most important circulating libraries in London. He carefully selected his stock for quality and importance, breaking with the library tradition of supplying mostly ‘trash’ literature. Though hardly a radical in politics or religion, he was nonetheless a dissenter and had taken a strong interest in New England Transcendentalism. From the early 1840s, he sold The Dial and other works published by Emerson’s circle. In Mudie’s bookshop and library in Russell Square students from the University of London and thousands of members

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of the public at large could buy Emerson’s pamphlets and borrow his works.52 Carlyle expected that Mudie considered his unauthorised publication of Emerson’s work as ‘a mere office of untutored friendship.’53 While these numerous editions circulated throughout the United Kingdom, Emerson was also gaining a significant presence in the British press. Before any news hit of Emerson’s coming to England he had been featured in more than forty articles and reviews in a wide range of publications and by authors of broadly divergent social, political, and religious views. Though an excellent survey of the reception of Emerson’s work in the British press during the 1840s and beyond is already available, it is worth reiterating here that the harshest critiques, unsurprisingly, were in sectarian religious publications such as the Congregationalist Biblical Review; while the most enthusiastic defences appeared in radical Unitarian publications like the Prospective Review and Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine.54 This brief foray into Emerson’s publishing history brings out some important points in relation to his lecture tour. It proves that Emerson had a large reading audience in Britain and that this audience was not homogeneous and elite, but broad and mixed. Considering that the number of volumes of Emerson’s work existing in England was almost certainly greater than 10,000 and taking into account the regular custom of borrowing, both person to person and in libraries, which were multiplying rapidly in number and class-orientation in this era, it is not unreasonable to assume that the majority of literate persons in Britain had at least heard of Emerson in 1848.55 Every piece of Emerson’s writing widely available to American audiences at the time was also widely available in the United Kingdom. Second, it points to the fact that the writings with clearly reformist political messages were those which were available for the lowest prices in pamphlet form. (Complete bibliographical information about all legitimate and pirated editions discussed in this section is compiled in Appendix 3.)56 § Emerson’s decision to come to England was rooted in a growing sense of restlessness, confusion, and discontentment. In 1847, he was in a

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state of mental crisis. Interestingly, the very questions that would take on special immediacy during Emerson’s 1847–48 sojourn in Europe — questions about revolution, equality, reform, the state, and the necessity of engagement in social issues — were amongst those with which Emerson was grappling most intensely and with some measure of despondency prior to his departure. In addition, contemporary events at both national and personal levels — especially the Mexican War beginning in 1846 and the utter failure of endeavours by Emerson’s friends to create prototypes for a new, fair, and harmonious world order — shook Emerson still further and led him to question earlier conclusions. Investigating these issues helps to explain his reaction to industrial Britain and the revolutionary events of 1847– 48. It also helps to explain his decision to leave home and to embark on his lecture tour. Though Emerson could not have known it in 1847, the question of revolution would dominate both Britain and Europe the following year. Revolution is a topic to which Emerson had devoted much thought. Some revolutionaries (as will be seen in Chapter 4) later looked to his works as philosophical justification for political insurrection. Yet, the problem of revolution was not fully resolved in Emerson’s own mind in 1847, and it troubled him deeply. He was particularly distressed by the use of violence, which many saw — and which history had in some cases proven — to be a necessary accompaniment to progressive socio-political change. Revolution is a central theme in some of the writings from Emerson’s early career. In several lectures and essays Emerson conceived of a progression in modern history towards the ideal of self-government and of ‘revolution’ or rebellion against arbitrary authority as a driving force in this movement. The focus of Emerson’s idea of revolution in this period is on the achievement of greater liberty and self-reliance of the individual. When the problem of organised political rebellion arises, however, Emerson’s message become more ambiguous. Emerson’s first attempt to grapple with the problem of revolution as an historical phenomenon was in his ‘Historical Discourse at Concord’ (1835). In the early part of his career, Emerson lived in the Old Manse, a home built by his grandfather, a minister and American patriot,

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just across the Concord River from the first battleground of the War for Independence. In 1835 he was commissioned by his townsmen to deliver a commemorative speech on the second centennial anniversary of the incorporation of Concord. It was his first major piece of writing since leaving the ministry and embarking on his career as a writer and lecturer. Emerson took the occasion seriously, researched the history of Concord extensively, and, after delivering the speech, published it as a pamphlet.57 The events of 1775 are dealt with at length. This historical discourse establishes elements of a theory of revolution that remained embedded in Emerson’s thought throughout his life. Emerson saw the American Revolution as ‘the fruit of [a] principle — the devouring thirst for justice.’ Its righteousness was confirmed by the zeal of the New England clergy whose ‘deep religious sentiment sanctified the thirst for liberty.’58 Recounting the events of 19 April 1775, the day of the battle of Concord, Emerson concludes that ‘[in] all the day’s events we may discern the natural action of the people. It was not an extravagant ebullition of feeling, but might have been calculated by any one. . . . Those poor farmers . . . acted from the simplest instincts. They did not know it was a deed of fame they were doing. These men did not babble of glory. . . . They supposed they had a right to their corn and their cattle, without paying tribute to any but their own governors.’59 In this account, the revolution is viewed as a natural phenomenon — caused by an eternal principle, not ephemeral emotion, sensation, or whim — determined by history.60 Again in ‘The Method of Nature’ (1841), Emerson sees the American Revolution, like the planting of the Massachusetts colony, as the product of historical forces rather than deliberate production. These historical phenomena are considered to be the effects of the ‘prevalence and inundation of an idea.’ The source of progress, and the action that drives it, is placed in the abstract realm of ideas. The Revolution ‘was not begun in Concord, or Lexington, or Virginia, but was the overflowing sense of natural right in every clear and active spirit of the period.’61 In this and in other discourses from the early phase of his career, Emerson envisions a collective movement or tendency in modern history towards achieving ‘self-government.’62 The American Revolution is portrayed as one step in this movement.

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The means by which this progression would be carried out is of secondary concern. ‘The nature of the revolution,’ Emerson later wrote in his 1844 essay ‘Politics,’ speaking of this grand-scale movement in modern history, ‘is not affected by the vices of the revolters; for this is a purely moral force.’63 In certain instances, armed struggle is condoned. He transformed the musket fire of the farmers who fought in Concord into a symbol for a worldwide awakening to this force when he referred to it in his most famous poem, the ‘Concord Hymn’ of 1836, as ‘the shot heard round the world.’ The fighters are considered ‘heroes’ who ‘dared to die, and leave their children free.’64 Two years later Emerson delivered an oration touching on the issues of progress and violence, which eventually was given the title ‘War.’ The lecture begins with the idea that in history, war has paradoxically been the driving force in the progress of the human race away from barbarism and towards culture. In war, Emerson imagines that by general rule ‘the strong tribe . . . conquers their neighbors, and teach [sic] them their arts and virtues,’ citing Alexander’s conquests, which, he explains, carried the wisdom and philosophy of the Greeks to the ‘sluggish and barbarous nations of Persia, Assyria, and India.’65 In the sense that war is the propelling engine of progress, it is also the ‘subject of all history.’ War is linked to the idea of the progressive tendency towards individual self-determination, which Emerson previously identified with the American Revolution: ‘it covers a great and beneficent principle. . . . What is that principle? — It is self-help. Nature implants with life the instinct of self-help, perpetual struggle to be, to resist opposition, to attain to freedom, to attain to mastery, and the security of a permanent, self-defended being.’66 In the lecture (originally titled ‘The Peace Principle’), Emerson affirms that war is in decline and looks forward to a day when it will disappear and be replaced by a lasting peace maintained by ‘brave men, who have come up to the same height as the hero.’ He calls war ‘fratricide’ and declares that ‘sympathy with war is a juvenile and temporary state,’ but concedes that, even in the present age, war is better than a shallow peace that preserves ‘the safety of the luxurious and timid.’67 Despite his approbation of the historic revolution in America, Emerson’s idea of a constructive revolution in the nineteenth century,

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at least in this phase of his career, was non-violent and anti-association, or rather focused on individual and personal rebellion against the harmful conventions of society and distrustful of group action. In his 1840 editor’s address for The Dial, he referred to a continuing revolution among certain earnest people in New England, which had become internalised and individualised. This revolution is based on a trust in the ‘nature and resources of man.’ It is an expression of the ‘spirit of the times.’ Its success is seen as inevitable, marching ‘with the step of fate.’ The revolutionaries are individuals and do not submit their autonomy or personal freedom to any group agenda: they ‘have no external organization, no badge, no creed, no name. They do not vote, or print, or even meet together. They do not know each other’s faces or names.’68 Stephen Whicher argued that ‘revolution’ as a conglomeration of personal rebellions was the keynote of Emerson’s early thought.69 Emerson’s rejection of organised resistance as a means to the achievement of greater self-government in the political sphere was undoubtedly tied up with his acceptance of the ‘moral suasion’ reform paradigm advocated by his mentor William Ellery Channing, to which we will return momentarily. Another likely factor was his reading of Carlyle’s The French Revolution in 1837. In Carlyle’s narrative, the same spirit that inspired the American revolutionaries — the desire for democracy and greater self-government — also drove the spiralling violence in France.70 Carlyle’s depictions of the raging mobs misled by orators and demagogues, and the violence and insanity that followed would certainly have forced Emerson to think about the means by which democratic revolution should and should not be carried out. His distrust of group action and his unwillingness to participate in organised reform movements seems to have escalated around the time when Emerson worked as Carlyle’s agent and prepared reviews and press notices for the American edition of The French Revolution.71 Three years later in his essay ‘Compensation’ Emerson characterised the mob as ‘a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of reason . . . voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast.’72 At all points of Emerson’s career revolution is approached as both a political and a philosophical issue. His discourse on revolution in

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the early phase of his career is characterised by a number of tensions. Emerson defines the age as one in which higher forces and historical tendencies have driven progressions towards self-government and individual autonomy. The American Revolution, in which farmers and militias banded together, armed themselves, and fought off oppressors, was a major stage in this progression. On the other hand, the rugged individual is above association and does not participate in rabble-raising activity. Rebellious mobs are seen not as revolutionary or progressive, but as dangerous and retrograde. Emerson reverences the historical revolution in America, but essentially condemns in contemporary terms the means by which it was effected. The contradiction in these positions regarding violent revolution constitutes one of the tensions present in Emerson’s messages concerning the forward movement of society. In reaction to the revolutions of 1848 Emerson would at certain points deny that ‘revolutions of violence’ could be a progressive force, and at others, particularly after he came to see himself taking part in a ‘second American revolution’ against slavery, he would defend and lionise the European revolutionaries whom he saw as having fought in the name of freedom and human rights. Other tensions are apparent in his early writings on reform. Reform, like revolution, was an issue of high importance to Emerson in his early career and one to which he returned repeatedly in his early writings. A belief in the possibility of the progress and advancement of society towards a more perfect order motivated Emerson’s discussion of both of these issues. The central tensions and ambiguities in Emerson’s writings on these problems are also related. A close reading of Emerson’s early works belies Stephen Whicher’s assertion that beneath Emerson’s discussion of reform ‘we can perceive an underlying consciousness that the whole enterprise is essentially romance.’73 Emerson took reform very seriously, studied and reported on it in considerable depth, and thought hard about the way in which the individual could play a maximal role in the advancement of society. That Emerson wanted to see society rid of its worst vices — slavery, poverty, violence, and desperation — goes without saying. It is evident in nearly all of his writings.74 The means by which the reformation would take place was, however,

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an unsettled question in Emerson’s mind, particularly during the early phase of his career. Several open dialectics on the means of the reformation of society are present in his published writings from the period between 1835 and 1846. First, and most importantly, there is a conflict between passive and active engagement in social reform. On the one hand, Emerson believed that active participation in reform movements compromised the free agency of the individual. Certain texts, particularly in the earlier part of this period, suggest that Emerson believed a true reformer would go no farther than to recommend that each individual accord their life with principle by making domestic, personal changes. On the other hand, particularly after 1844, Emerson began to realise that ‘moral suasion’ was not as effective on a macrocosmic level as he had hoped and began to participate in organised movements in a more active way, but nonetheless retained some of his distaste for this group-dependent method of reform. A useful starting point for an examination of Emerson’s dialectic on reform is an 1839 lecture titled ‘The Protest’ in which he envisions a necessary conflict or dissonance between each newborn soul and the world it will encounter. Every individual is born ‘sane and true’ but eventually comes to a ‘crisis’ in his or her life at which point he or she must choose whether to ‘fulfil the demands of the soul . . . or yield . . . to the conventions of the world.’ He sees regeneration and reform as products of individual protests against the corruptions of society.75 Emerson expanded on the idea of a corrupted world that demands redress in ‘Man the Reformer,’ a lecture delivered in January 1841 and first published in the April number of The Dial.76 In the lecture Emerson affirms that the existing systems of trade and property are bound to principles of selfishness. He defines reform as an impulse to ‘revise the whole structure of society . . . [to] clean ourselves of every usage which has not its roots in our own mind.’77 However, the central message of the lecture is that the only way to ‘reform’ society truly is through the purification of the individual. He sees the ‘heavenly society’ as impossible to construct ‘out of sick, selfish’ people, but suggests that ‘by men transfigured and raised above themselves by the power of principles’ newer and better modes of living together will emerge. In

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the meantime, Emerson does not suggest a redress of the problems of property, but does declare that ‘the State must consider the poor man,’ that no child should be deprived of bread, and that the amelioration of property laws should ‘come from the concession of the rich, not from the grasping of the poor.’78 In another 1841 lecture on ‘The Times,’ Emerson describes the ‘two omnipresent parties of History, the party of the Past and the party of the Future.’79 The first stands for conservatism and the second for reform. The principle or ‘soul’ of reform is described as the conviction that slavery, war, imprisonment, and even government are unnecessary. Emerson criticises outspoken political and social ‘reformers’ for lacking faith in the private man and relying instead on schemes and multitudes to carry the reforms through, debasing them in the process. Emerson advises avoidance of excessive activity aimed at restructuring society and describes concentration on the development of private character as the true path towards reform. The ‘Reform of Reforms’ is one that must be accomplished without means.80 Similar messages are found in ‘The Conservative,’ another lecture from the same series, in which Emerson continues the discourse on the division between conservatism and reform and again describes the true reformer not as a maker of new laws and systems, but as a beacon and an example whose end good is to advance the character of the population.81 Thus, in each of these early lectures, Emerson upholds the validity of feelings of discontent with existing laws and systems even so far as demanding them, but does not advocate any reform activity with the express aim of changing laws or systems. Like other public discourses delivered in this period, such as ‘The American Scholar’ and the ‘Divinity School Address,’ the opinions expressed were viewed as bold, independent, and even threatening to certain aspects of the establishment.82 Politically, however, the lectures can be described neither as radical nor as conservative. At this phase in his career, Emerson was influenced by the writings of Channing. In 1835 Channing began to speak against the social injustice of slavery, but would not condone the use of organised resistance for effecting reform. Channing’s abolitionist writings and Emerson’s early orations reflect a belief that setting an example of high character and noble action in personal life will

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inspire others to do the same. Through this process, laws will eventually change to meet the needs of a more civilised populace.83 There is a sense that the individual has a duty or obligation to improve society, though the course of action that Emerson most powerfully advocates is to seek personal independence from conventional structures and ideologies, both spiritual and political. Emerson used his journalistic writing for The Dial as an opportunity to study contemporary reform movements for several topical articles. The July 1842 number — the first under Emerson’s editorship — contained his article ‘Fourierism and the Socialists.’ Pointing to a rapidly growing influence of Fourierist thought worldwide, the article commences with some remarks on a number of new Fourierist publications. The French philosopher Charles Fourier had postulated that humans could achieve happiness through living together in communes or ‘phalanxes’ in which work and social life which would be organised according to socialistic principles. Emerson assesses the total, all-encompassing programme of reform and societal restructuring advanced by the Fourierists, finding value, even beauty, in their goal of creating a world in which poverty, ignorance, misery, and crime would be eliminated. Ultimately, however, Emerson finds that the ‘mistake’ of the Fourierists is their insistence that ‘this particular order and series is to be imposed by force of preaching and votes on all men, and carried into rigid execution.’84 His rejection of Fourierist Socialism is based not on a disagreement with the ultimate vision, ends, or even the idea of the future workability of the proposed reformation of society, but on the means. Rather than forcing the Fourierist system upon the world, Emerson suggests that the vision of ultimate social justice and happiness in Fourier’s mind ‘lay in every mind, and the method of each associate might be trusted.’85 The following number of The Dial in October contained Emerson’s article ‘English Reformers.’ The article is based on a large collection of books, pamphlets, and periodicals by various British social reform groups that had been sent to him from England by Bronson Alcott during his British sojourn. Emerson begins by stipulating that in general, ‘there is an abundance of superficialness, of pedantry, of inflation’ in the pile of material and compiles a short list of reform schemes

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available from Communist societies, educational reformers, health unions, and others — Alists, Syncretic Associations, Hydropathic Associations — with comic effect.86 Emerson discusses two reformers, Charles Lane and William Wright, whose school at Richmond upon Thames was arranged according to Alcott’s educational theories, before turning to two Socialists, the Irishman Hugh Doherty and the Englishman Goodwyn Barmby. Doherty (also mentioned in the July article) was the editor of a London Fourierist newspaper, The Phalanx. Barmby was the editor of a Communist penny magazine called The Promethean, which promoted ‘the organization of a new order of things, totally at war with the establishment.’ Emerson described the magazine as ‘a cry of the miner and weaver for bread, for daylight, and fresh air, for space to exist in, and time to catch their breath and rest themselves in, a demand for political suffrage . . . for leisure, for learning, for arts and sciences.’87 Barmby later wrote an important review on Emerson for Howitt’s Journal during the 1847–48 tour, during which Emerson also saw Doherty and Lane.88 At the end of the article Emerson shifts focus to the worsening circumstances of the industrial worker. He points to the distress amongst the manufacturing classes, which, following the economic crisis of 1842, was ‘severe beyond any precedent.’ His summary of the reaction to this crisis seems mysteriously one-sided: ‘In the midst of all this exasperation the voice of the people is temperate and wise beyond all former example. . . . Jack Cade leaves behind him his bludgeon and torch. . . . He goes for temperance, for non-resistance, for education . . . and for association, after the doctrines either of Owen or Fourier.’89 This statement reflects either a limited understanding of the situation or a conscious decision to limit his discussion to pacifist reformers. Strangely, he makes only oblique references to Chartism and neglects to comment on violent British reformists — the ‘physical force’ wing of the Chartist movement.90 In May 1842, Chartists had submitted a petition bearing more than three million signatures to Parliament demanding universal suffrage and other reforms, which was rejected. Before the October 1842 edition of The Dial was printed strikes and violent demonstrations had erupted throughout the British industrial districts. Though Emerson’s conclusions are naive, the article

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demonstrates that he was familiar, at least through reading, with some of the conditions of the English industrial workers during the early 1840s. He expresses sympathy with the cry of the worker for daylight, humane treatment, education, and political suffrage and recognises the need for reform to address these problems. However, the procurement of the reforms demanded by the situation is not discussed apart from some general praise of nonviolence and personal improvement. Emerson continued his discourse on the nature and efficacy of reform, returning once again to his doctrine of the greater importance of private over public improvement two years later, in a new lecture titled ‘New England Reformers.’ A significant percentage of the lecture is devoted to criticism of reformers and the defects of the movement party in general. Reformers are accused of partiality and extremism. The doctrine that personal reform and refinement of character should come before involvement in public movements is insisted upon: ‘Society gains nothing whilst a man, not himself renovated, attempts to renovate things around him.’91 Similarly, expanding one of the themes in his earlier lecture on ‘The Times,’ Emerson accuses reformers of a too great reliance on numbers, parties, or ‘Association’ for achieving their goals: ‘What is the use of the concert of the false and the disunited? . . . The world is awaking to the idea of union . . . but this union must be inward, and not one of covenants.’92 In the conclusion of the lecture, Emerson again suggests that one tend to private concerns before trying to put right public affairs.93 The fairly consistent anti-associationist message of his writings throughout the early 1840s had a continued presence in his rhetoric, but became increasingly difficult to maintain after Emerson became a social activist himself.94 The year 1844 thus marks a major expansion and shift in Emerson’s public discourse on reform. He made his first decisive step into the antislavery crusade when he accepted an invitation to speak at a celebration of the eleventh anniversary of emancipation in the British West Indies. Len Gougeon has speculated that what drove Emerson to deliver his 1 August address was an understanding that, with the looming accession of Texas and the prospect of southern-led western expansion, the power of slavery in America was growing rather than declining.95 It was obvious that in this case

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private, personal reform would have no real impact on this immediate problem. Beginning in this speech, recognition of the pragmatic good of organised, goal-oriented cooperative reform action began to characterise Emerson’s rhetoric, though a non-associationist ideal continued to exist alongside it, sometimes to unsettling effect. Emerson’s lecture on ‘Emancipation in the British West Indies’ is in one sense a historical discourse in the manner of the 1835 address in Concord, and on the other a pointed political tract. The historical side of the long oration, the product of extensive research, recounts the origins of the attack on slavery in eighteenth-century England, the passage of the act abolishing the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, the terms of the 1833 Emancipation Act including its provisions for gradual transition via a period of apprenticeship and monetary compensation to slave owners, and the history of the West Indies since the day of total emancipation, 1 August 1838.96 British emancipation is described as a ‘moral revolution’ and is historicised in ways that recall Emerson’s presentation of the American Revolution in his 1835 ‘Historical Discourse.’ Like the colonists’ victory, emancipation was ‘achieved by plain means of plain men, working not under a leader, but under a sentiment,’ in this case ‘without bloody war.’97 The moral sentiment from which the abolition movement proceeded is identified with the will of the virtuous people, ‘the strong and healthy yeomen and husbands of the land, the self-sustaining class of inventive and industrious men.’98 In this sense the events are situated within a progressive force or current in history. Personal agency is minimised and the inevitability of progress seems assured. However, what is new about the ‘Emancipation in the West Indies’ speech is that it not only condones, but demands directed action as individuals and in groups for the achievement of a particular end. In studying the history of emancipation Emerson found that it was the result of concerted and focused efforts by Granville Sharp, Lord Mansfield, William Wilberforce, and the ‘geniuses of the British senate, Fox, Pitt, Burke, Grenville, Sheridan, Grey, Canning, [who] ranged themselves on its side.’99 Shifting focus from old to New England, Emerson points out that free blacks in Massachusetts employed on ships were being kidnapped, imprisoned, and sold into

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slavery during docking periods in southern ports. Emerson insists that this ‘damnable outrage’ must not continue. He demands that the elected representatives of Massachusetts come together, ‘go in a body before the Congress,’ and halt all proceedings until the issue is addressed. Congress should then instruct the president to send federal troops to southern ports, release, and indemnify the illegally enslaved free blacks, regardless of ‘dangers to the Union.’ Furthermore, if the political representatives refuse to listen, Emerson suggests that the ‘citizens . . . take up their cause on this very ground.’ They should ‘say to the government of the State, and of the Union, that government exists to defend the weak and the poor.’100 Emerson’s demand that the state take up the role of redeemer and assistant to the weak here points to another set of contradictions in his early writings. On the one hand it seems consistent with other statements in which Emerson finds that government has a duty to intervene in society. We have already made note of his declarations in ‘Man the Reformer’ about the duties of the state towards the poor. In another lecture, ‘The Young American’ (1844) Emerson speaks of a growing sentiment that ‘[g]overnment has other offices than those of banker and executioner’ and declares that the main duties of the state are, or should be, ‘to instruct the ignorant, to supply the poor with work and with good guidance.’101 He sees the spreading influence of Communist thought, particularly that of Fourier, and the Communistic societies and communities currently springing up throughout the western world as the signs of reforms and revolutions that were ‘on the way’ for society at large.102 In other statements published in the same year, however, Emerson seems to propose the opposite. In ‘New England Reformers’ for instance, Emerson writes: The country is full of rebellion; the country is full of kings. Hands off! Let there be no control and no interference in the administration of the affairs of this kingdom of me. Hence the growth of the doctrine and the party of Free Trade . . . I confess, the motto of the Globe newspaper is so attractive to me that I can seldom find much appetite to read what is below it in its columns: The world is governed too much.103

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In ‘Politics,’ published in Essays, Second Series (1844), Emerson argues that the function of the state is to ‘follow and not lead the character and progress of the citizen.’104 Undertaking the direction of others is described as the chief blunder ‘which stands in colossal ugliness in the governments of the world.’105 Taxation is portrayed as an example of government’s intrusion on personal liberty.106 Emerson concludes in the essay that ‘the less government we have the better — the fewer laws, and the less confided power.’107 As Emerson broadened the scope of his discourse on reform in 1844, he likewise considered the related issue of equality. Though Emerson had pondered the issue for years in his journal, ‘New England Reformers’ and ‘Emancipation in the British West Indies’ contain the first sustained discussions of the issue in his public work. In the former, Emerson argues against the idea that essential patterns of thought and action are biologically determined. He declares that he does not believe that ‘the differences of opinion and character in men are organic,’ and considers it ‘the conviction of the purest men that the net amount of man and man does not much vary. Each is incomparably superior to his companion in some faculty.’ In the latter, Emerson discusses first-hand testimonies to the successes of educated blacks in the West Indies as architects, physicians, lawyers, magistrates, and editors.108 He asserts that the story of West Indian emancipation marks the ‘annihilation of the old indecent nonsense about the nature of the negro’ and shows ‘that the negro race is, more than any other, susceptible of rapid civilization.’109 Citing the examples of Toussaint L’Ouverture in Haiti and the black leadership in Barbados and Jamaica, Emerson considers that blacks are capable of high conduct and heroism. The idea that a black slave could be the equal of a white Washington similarly finds its way into the essay ‘Character,’ also published in 1844.110 Emerson continued antislavery activity on a local level through 1845.111 A year after his first emancipation speech, a second was delivered on 1 August 1845. In this lecture he was even more adamant about the erroneousness of the popular belief in racial inferiority. Speaking of the twisted state of southern society in which one man enjoys hereditary privileges, wealth, and comfort on the back of shackdwelling slaves, he envisaged a ‘revolution’ coming, ‘at no distant day,

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to set these matters right.’112 The solution proposed in this discourse is to ‘elevate, enlighten, [and] civilize the semi-barbarous’ southern states, beginning with the white masters.113 The language used here presages the more militant speeches of the late 1850s and 1860s when Emerson came to see the eradication of slavery as the necessary sequel of the American Revolution. The Mexican War led Emerson into to a new period of questioning. The war was the result of Texas annexation. Congress had approved the annexation of Texas as a slave state in February 1845, just before President Polk, a strong supporter of American expansion, was inaugurated. Democrats saw the annexation as a step towards the fulfilment of America’s ‘manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.’114 Whigs and antislavery advocates were outraged and the debate continued to boil throughout the remainder of the year.115 Not unexpectedly, military conflict with Mexico began on the Rio Grande in May 1846 over a border dispute. Victory in the war would lead to the expansion of American slavery into vast new territories. Though vociferously opposed to the war, Emerson was unable to reconcile himself to any particular course of action. He became dissatisfied with himself and others. Though Emerson felt a powerful sense of anger and indignation over contemporary political issues, he did not feel ready, at this point, to engage himself completely in the type of active, revolutionary resistance that his 1845 lecture demands. There are several possible answers to the question of why this was the case, each of which leads directly to key issues from the period of Emerson’s British lecture tour. It has been argued that in the mid-1840s Emerson came to new conclusions about history and progress and that this resulted in the disintegration of his opposition to government and authority. According to this argument (initiated by Stephen Whicher in Freedom and Fate) Emerson moved from an ‘anti-historical’ point of view in which the spirit of the individual is considered to be above and beyond measures of time and linear progress, to an inverted one in which fatal forces of historical progression dictated and stood supreme over individual lives and actions. The two most important proponents of this idea have

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suggested that Emerson’s reading of evolutionary theories in the mid1840s was an important cause for this transition.116 Philip Nicoloff proposed that the point of no return in this process was Emerson’s reading of Robert Chambers’s Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation in 1845.117 This work told human history in evolutionary terms, contending that the Caucasian race had evolved farther than others. Nicoloff argued that a detectable transition in Emerson’s thought from ‘radical faith in man’s illimitable possibilities’ to a belief in constitutional or biological determinism, which ‘exalted one man over another’ and ‘sanctioned the dominion and advance of the superior types,’ hinged on his reading of the Vestiges in 1845.118 In Whicher’s narrative, as Emerson adopted a more fatalistic outlook in the 1840s, he bid a final ‘farewell to action.’ From then on ‘[p]rogress replace[d] reform,’ in Emerson’s vision; amelioration was viewed as the function of a tendency built into nature in which the individual should not interfere. Emerson lost interest in his ‘first transcendental philosophy, the potential greatness of every man,’ and posited his faith in society’s elite — the ‘natural aristocracy.’ He took up subjects of interest to middle-class readers, became the companion of the ‘solid and successful of the community,’ and acquiesced to the ‘genteel tradition.’ The 1847–48 trip to England, in Whicher’s view, was the final step in this process, after which his thought finally ceased to develop.119 Similarly, discussing Emerson’s idea of how to deal with the social problem, Nicoloff stated that ‘in his serene moods Emerson could let all things rest in the benevolent hands of time.’ With time, ‘some new order’ would eventually arise, ‘which would redress wrongs and diminish the peril.’ In terms of immediate action, however, ‘Emerson, whose ultimate social philosophy might be described as an “evolutionary fatalism” would not fret at the stars. . . . His position was one of “armed neutrality,” . . . He saw no need to advocate revolution or propose specific reforms. . . . ’120 These arguments are flawed for a number of reasons. First, there is an overemphasis on transition. I would suggest that Emerson’s drift towards, and final acceptance of, a theory of determinism and a conception of an automatic history of fated progression should not be seen as a conversion. The anti-historical and the progressive model are

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two modes of historical conceptualisation, both of which are strongly present in Emerson’s early works. Whicher and Nicoloff focused on Essays, some of which truly can be described as ‘anti-historical.’121 However, they ignore early orations such as the ‘Historical Discourse at Concord’ and ‘War,’ which show that a progressive historical model was in place even in Emerson’s early career and existed alongside the ‘anti-historical’ model of the early Essays.122 Secondly, as more recent discoveries concerning his participation in the antislavery movement in the 1850s show, Emerson’s acceptance of automatic progression did not lead to a later career definable by acquiescence. There is, however, value in the hypothesis. It would be difficult to argue against the idea that the progressive-historicist model came to dominate Emerson’s mind during the mid- to late 1840s, though the process was not a simple one. Rather than converting Emerson instantly into an acquiescent fatalist, the shift to determinism caused Emerson to grapple with a number of philosophical and practical questions about how life should be conducted. It helps to explain the internal debates in which Emerson appears embroiled during his 1847–48 lecture tour, the beginnings of which already are apparent in the mid1840s as Emerson struggled to formulate a response to the crisis created by the Mexican War. In the 1840s Emerson sensed that it was America’s destiny to continue expanding, and that this trend was determined, unalterable, and distinct from immediate moral concerns. The fact that he often found the means, motivations, and consequences of the spirit of expansion ethically reprehensible, even unacceptable, set a major inner discord, which, at the moment of Texas annexation and the Mexican War, became impossible to settle. A journal entry from March 1844 reveals the main lines of the internal conflict. On the one hand, Emerson felt certain that ‘the strong British race which have overrun so much of this continent, must also overrun [Texas], & Mexico & Oregon also, and it will in the course of ages be of small import by what particular occasions & methods it was done.’ On the other hand, however, he sensed that there must be some expression of moral protest: ‘It is quite necessary & true to our New England character that we should consider the question in its local & temporary bearings, and resist the

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annexation with tooth & nail.’123 After the annexation of Texas and the outbreak of war, Emerson criticised New Englanders in public orations for acquiescing to the government’s moral corruption.124 In his editor’s address for the Massachusetts Quarterly Review Emerson attacks the representatives of New England in Washington who, ‘clapped on the back by comfortable capitalists from all sections,’ had been persuaded to neglect their duties of justice and humanity and led the nation into ‘a bad war,’ which promised terrible consequences despite military victories.125 However, apart from denunciatory statements, Emerson’s belief in the destiny of the northern races to expand seems to have limited the dimensions of his protest. His journal entries suggest that though he continued to be troubled by the moral implications of the war, he believed that the outcome had already been determined for better or for worse.126 Emerson was unable to reconcile himself to any particular course of action. He seems to have found every response to the war displayed in the North, including his own, to be unsatisfactory. Acquiescence, general acceptance, or weak opposition were his most strongly disliked reactions. Indeed, in his journals he often demonstrates a preference for the strong, decisive style of the perpetrators of the conflict to those of the ‘snivelling opposition,’ though it is important to emphasise that he was repulsed by the actions themselves.127 Emerson experienced a similar attraction and repulsion to extremes in the opposite camp. In late July 1846 Henry David Thoreau refused to pay taxes to the US government as a public protest against the Mexican War and slavery, and was put in jail. Emerson’s personal responses to this action highlight the confusions with which he struggled at that time. He could not condone Thoreau’s course of action, at least at this point, out of a belief that it was ineffective and unsuited to a thinker as powerful and resourceful as Thoreau. He did, however, see a genius in the resolute action. He thought that abolitionists might best achieve their ends if they were to use the tactic en masse, but then noted that this would only be appropriate for narrow-minded, single-issue reformers.128 He seems to have felt that his own response was insufficient. In his journals he complained of his inability to supply the personal force necessary to alter the course of society.129 In sum, Emerson seems to indicate

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that nothing short of heroic action would be acceptable, and as he realised that it was not in the capacity of himself or his colleagues to set the situation right, his feeling of personal ineffectuality and indirection (as well as his discontent with his surroundings) appear to have become more severe. Finally, Emerson experienced a number of disappointments between 1844 and 1846, which may have contributed to his general confusion. In those years he witnessed the failure of three major projects initiated by his friends and colleagues, each begun with high hopes to improve the world and benefit mankind. First was the collapse of Bronson Alcott’s rural utopia in January 1844. Fruitlands was started in collaboration with the English reformer Charles Lane. Alcott and Lane bought a farm on which they could grow their own vegetables, abstain from all animal products, and set an example of how a healthy, abstemious, Socialistic life could be lived. Lane invested his entire savings into the purchase of the farm. They tried wholeheartedly but unsuccessfully to encourage Emerson to participate in the venture, which failed within one year of its foundation.130 More personally disappointing was the discontinuation of The Dial after the second year of Emerson’s editorship (its fourth year overall) due to low subscription. The journal, which Emerson envisioned as a point of unity for lovers of truth, social progress, and divine beauty in his original ‘Editor’s Address,’ ended with financial burdens, draining managerial duties, and finally a capitulation to the inevitable.131 Lastly, Brook Farm, another East Massachusetts utopia began to crumble after its main building burned down in March 1846. This Socialistic farm community, a ‘collective retreat by men of goodwill,’ had been started in 1841 by Emerson’s friend George Ripley and became a Fourierist commune in 1845. Emerson never joined the community and was far from convinced about its Socialistic programme, but was generally sympathetic and highly interested in the experiment and visited on numerous occasions.132 In the early summer of 1847 the Brook Farm Association was finally forced to disband. Recently, several biographers have interpreted the period preceding the British lecture tour as one of confusion, internal conflict, restlessness, even depression in Emerson’s life. It has been pointed out that Emerson

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experienced financial difficulties, dissatisfaction at various moments with his friends and even his marriage, and sensed a lack of direction and purpose.133 It is within the context of this troubled period that Emerson’s decision to leave the United States in 1847 for a lecture tour in Britain might best be understood. The suggestion of a lecture tour in England came during the autumn of 1846, coinciding with the final steps towards the publication of Emerson’s Poems in December 1846. He received a letter from Alexander Ireland, a newspaper editor in Manchester whom he had met during his first trip abroad fourteen years earlier, suggesting that he come to England to read lectures.134 In March 1847 Emerson expressed his feelings of languor and dissatisfaction in his journal: . . . if only I could be set aglow . . . Much as I hate the church, I have wished the pulpit that I might have the stimulus of a stated task. N. P. Rogers spoke more truly than he knew, perchance, when he recommended an Abolition-Campaign to me. I doubt not, a course of mobs would do me much good. . . . I converse with so few & those of no adventure, connexion, or wide information. . . . In this emergency, one advises Europe, & especially England. If I followed my own advices. . . . I should sooner go toward Canada. I should withdraw myself for a time from all domestic & accustomed relations & command an absolute leisure with books — for a time.135 Emerson seems to have been unable or unwilling to commit to an abolition or anti-war campaign and could not justify the type of secluded withdrawal from his family concerns and the world in general suggested by his fantasy of escape to Canada. In June 1847 Emerson received another letter from James William Hudson. Hudson was a central committee member of the Yorkshire Union of Mechanics’ Institutions. Having heard from Ireland that Emerson was considering a trip to England, he wrote imploring him to come and guaranteeing large crowds and at least seventy-five guineas if he would deliver fifteen lectures in Yorkshire Institutes, whose total membership, he added, was 12,000.136 By July the decision had been taken and preparations began for a departure in early October.

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The tensions described in this section contributed to Emerson’s decision to go to England. They continued to permeate his thought during the trip and influenced his understanding of what he saw there. Fate, evolution, nationality, race, natural conflicts between strong and weak, organised attempts at reform, the regeneration of society, and the right of revolution, were unsolved problems for Emerson that weighed heavily on his mind at the time of his departure for Liverpool. He had grappled with these philosophical issues up to this point with his focus on the unique circumstances of the American situation. In 1847, he was at an impasse. In Britain and in the European revolutions of 1848, Emerson would confront problems of natural rights, equalities and inequalities, reform and radicalism, race and ethnicity, democracy, and freedom in different guises. The way Emerson encountered and considered these problems in British and European contexts resonated powerfully in the turn that his thought took during and long after his experience there. When Emerson returned, his writings on reform would forever be infused with his experiences of the British Chartists, who agitated for the rights of the working class, and of the Socialist revolutionaries in Paris. His work on race and fate would be intertwined with a set of collected observations of Anglo-Saxons, Frenchmen, and Celts. His thought on class and inequality would be affected by both the ‘natural aristocracy’ that he found to be the backbone of Britain’s power, and by the impoverished beggars who lined the streets of the nation’s great cities. Though his final answers to the questions that haunted him would be some time in coming, the experience of Britain and revolutionary Europe would be a constant point of reference in his thought in the remarkably tumultuous years between Emerson’s return to America in 1848 and the victory of the Union in the American Civil War.

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CHAPTER 2 ‘EMER SON M ANIA’: EMER SON’S LECTUR ES AND BR ITISH R EACTIONS

Emerson’s four months of near-constant lecturing in northern England and Scotland between November 1847 and February 1848 found thousands of eager listeners and sparked a media sensation. An ‘Emerson mania,’ as one reviewer called it, swept Britain in the winter of 1847– 48. His presence in Britain and the lectures he delivered were a source of joy for some and intense revulsion for others. Over the course of the winter, Emerson was accused of heresy, censored, and smeared in the press. In some areas, there was an organised campaign against him accompanied by demands that he not be allowed to speak. However, Emerson also had a dedicated following of supporters who lauded his lectures and wrote in glowing terms of the strength of his ideas. Others defended his right to lecture simply out of a belief in the freedom of speech. Hundreds of articles and reviews appeared in the press throughout the nation. Why did Emerson’s messages evoke such strong responses? Why did the lectures of an American author become so much the focus of the British public in a winter of deep discontent? Powerful and divisive debates were raging throughout Britain in 1847–48 independent of Emerson’s lectures. Political, class-based, and religious disputes were causing many to feel that the very fabric of British society was being ripped apart before their eyes. Those who saw Emerson as a threat

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viewed his lectures and messages from the perspective of political and religious fears and divisions. Those who lauded him saw him as a cosmic prophet of things to come. Reading Emerson’s lectures now, one finds it difficult to see what caused such intense reactions. They hardly constitute a call for political revolution or a dramatic challenge to religious norms. Emerson delivered his lectures in a calm, cool, measured manner. When the messages of the lectures are broken down and analysed, we can see that the main themes were hardly different from those of standard discourses delivered constantly throughout Britain at the time. His identification with America and its political structure had something to do with the media sensation. So too did his personal religious nonconformity. More than anything that Emerson actually said, it was preconceptions about what he represented along with political and religious concerns within the distinct context of a volatile and divided Britain in 1847–48 that provoked such intense reactions. The newspaper and periodical press was undergoing an explosive expansion in mid-nineteenth-century Britain. The sound-bite culture of today — where words are lifted out of context, twisted, and subjectively analysed in order to glorify or demonise according to the ideological agenda of various pundits and news outlets — is no new phenomenon. A study of the British reaction to Emerson’s lectures and its coverage in the local and national press could hardly be more foretelling. In Britain, Emerson lectured at two types of institutions during his tour, which catered to two different segments of the population. Mechanics’ Institutions were designed for the education of workingclass adults. Athenaeums and Literary and Philosophical Institutions were erected exclusively by and for the middle and upper classes.1 In most of the British cities Emerson visited both types of institutions existed. Both had reading rooms and offered classes and lectures to members. They were by no means the only associations for adult learning and self-improvement in British urban areas, but they were generally the most successful and had the largest membership during the first half of the century. As opposed to the Athenaeums, which were governed and financially supported mostly by their own membership,

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the Mechanics’ Institutes were funded by donations from wealthy philanthropists of the middle (and sometimes upper) classes and run by mainly middle-class executive boards. Though the membership profile of each Institution was somewhat different from town to town, in 1847 the majority of members belonging to almost any local Mechanics’ Institute were from the relatively well-off, skilled upper levels of the working classes.2 In the mid-1840s the use of the lecture platform in these institutions came into question. Both Athenaeums and Mechanics’ Institutes were constructed as places for the diffusion of ‘useful knowledge.’ The overwhelming majority of the lectures were in physical sciences.3 Rules prohibiting lectures about religion and politics had long been in place and potentially divisive material of any sort was informally excluded. At mid-decade, however, the platform was made available to Emerson and another controversial speaker, the Birmingham minister George Dawson. There was certainly a high demand for this type of lecture. For some board members, concern for the freedom of speech and debate were also at stake. Martin Hewitt has shown how Emerson’s and Dawson’s lectures led to a rupture between radical-liberal and conservative middle-class board members in Manchester institutions, which spilled over into the local press.4 This chapter will show that these tensions and outcomes repeated themselves in various permutations throughout Britain. It will focus attention on the lectures themselves, on ways in which they compare to other types of discourse at such institutions, and on reactions to Emerson’s lectures in the various areas in which he spoke. Emerson’s winter lecture tour of Britain can be divided into four main stages. First, the entire month of November 1847 was spent in Liverpool and Manchester. He delivered three sets of lectures at three separate institutions. In Manchester he began his Representative Men series on the second of November at the Athenaeum. He used this same series at the Liverpool Mechanics’ Institute. A separate set of four discrete lectures was given at the Manchester Mechanics’ Institute. In addition Emerson delivered a speech at the highly publicised soiree of the Manchester Athenaeum on 18 November and rounded out the month by repeating his lecture on ‘Reading’ to the members of the Essay and Discussion Society of the Roscoe Club, Liverpool’s equivalent

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to the middle-class Athenaeum.5 Through November, invitations for future lectures continued to roll in. He received more than £6 per lecture on average in November (paid in guineas).6 In the second phase of the tour, Emerson delivered seventeen lectures in eight different cities in Lancashire and the Midlands during the month of December. He travelled by train, maintaining a hub in Manchester. In the third stage, he gave fifteen lectures at venues in Northern England belonging to the Yorkshire Union of Mechanics’ Institutions during the month of January 1848. This was carried out exactly according to the terms offered by James William Hudson in his letter to Emerson from the previous year. Emerson lectured every weeknight for three weeks and was paid seventy-five guineas (£78 15 s.). Hudson had promised that the 12,000 members of the Yorkshire Institutes would crowd to his lectures as ‘men who have already learned to love and now only wait to see the American poet.’7 Articles, reviews, and announcements appeared on a near-daily basis in the English press (see Appendix 2). Emerson began February, his fourth and final month of nearconstant lecturing, in Manchester working up old manuscripts and drafting new material. Beginning in Halifax, West Yorkshire on 7 February and ending in Perth, Scotland on 24 February, he spoke nearly every night, delivering fifteen lectures in eight cities. The Edinburgh Philosophical Institution and Glasgow Athenaeum were amongst the largest and most prosperous in Britain. Both were at the height of their popularity in 1848, with combined membership figures well into the thousands.8 Emerson continued to earn on average £5½ per lecture.9 These earnings would be used to finance Emerson’s three-month working holiday after the conclusion of the tour, including his trip to revolutionary Paris in May 1848. § Before delving into the British reactions to Emerson’s tour let us examine the lectures themselves. Were they really so radical, so different as to merit the vast amount of ink spilt in the press over them and, in some cases, the organised crusade against him? During the winter

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Emerson used fifteen different titles on at least one occasion each. In this section I will provide a very brief résumé of each of the six lectures in the Representative Men series and the three other most-used lectures, ‘Reading,’ ‘Eloquence,’ and ‘Domestic Life.’ New writings, which Emerson produced while in England, are discussed in later chapters.10 The Representative Men series had been used before. Emerson had written the six lectures he was to deliver in Manchester and Liverpool, plus a seventh one on Plato during the later part of 1845. The seven-lecture series was first read before the Boston Lyceum beginning on 11 December 1845 and was repeated at several institutions in the American Northeast during 1846. During that year Emerson began to think of the lectures as a future book in need of some revision work and deeper scholarly support.11 The book version of Representative Men was published in late 1850. Table 2.1: November 1847 Manchester Athenaeum

Liverpool Mechanics’ Institute

M. 2

T. 3 ‘On the Uses of Great Men’ ‘On the Uses of Great Men’

Manchester Mechanics’ Institute M. 8 ‘Eloquence’

W. 4

Sa. 6 M. 15 ‘Swedenborg; Or, the Mystic’ ‘Swedenborg; Or, the Mystic’ ‘Domestic Life’ Th. 9

W. 10

M. 22

‘Montaigne; Or, the Sceptic’

‘Montaigne; Or, the Sceptic’

‘Reading’

Th. 11

Sa. 13

M. 29

‘Shakespeare; Or, the Poet’

‘Shakespeare; Or, the Poet’

‘The Superlative’

T. 16

W. 17

‘Napoleon; Or, the Man of the World’

‘Napoleon; Or, the Man of the World’

Liverpool: Roscoe Club

Th. 18

Sa. 20

Speech at the soiree of the Manchester Athenaeum

‘Goethe; Or, the Writer’

T. 30 ‘Reading’

T. 23 ‘Goethe; Or, the Writer’

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Table 2.2: December 1847* Preston L & P W. 1

Nottingham MI Derby L & P T. 7 M. 6

‘Napoleon’

‘Napoleon’

‘Napoleon’

‘Napoleon’

W. 15

W. 8

Th. 9

Th. 23

‘Domestic Life’

‘Domestic Life’

‘Shakespeare’

‘Domestic Life’

Huddersfield MI

F. 10

Leicester MI

Worcester L & S

F. 17

‘Shakespeare’

M. 20

Th. 16

‘Shakespeare’

‘Napoleon’

T. 21

Th. 23

‘Domestic Life’

‘Domestic Life’

‘Napoleon’ Sa. 18 ‘Domestic Life’

M. 13 ‘Reading’

Birmingham PI Th. 16

Chesterfield** W. 22 ‘Domestic Life’ *Abbreviations: L&P — Literary and Philosophical Society; MI — Mechanics’ Institute; PI — Polytechnic Institute; L&S — Literary and Scientific Society. **Venue for lecture at Chesterfield unknown.

Table 2.3: January 1848 Leeds MI M. 3

Halifax MI W. 5

Ripon MI F. 7

Sheffield A & MI T. 11

‘Shakespeare’

‘Napoleon’

‘Domestic Life’

‘Domestic Life’

Th. 6

M. 7 (February)

W. 12

‘On the Uses of Great Men’

‘Domestic Life’

Driffield MI F. 21

M. 10

Beverly MI W. 19

‘Domestic Life’

‘Napoleon’

F. 14

Bridlington MI F. 21

‘Napoleon’

‘Napoleon’ M. 17 ‘The Humanity of Science’ W. 19

‘Reading’

‘Shakespeare’

‘Domestic Life’ York MI Th. 13 ‘Domestic Life’ *Abbreviations: MI — Mechanics’ Institute; A & MI — Athenaeum & Mechanics’ Institute.

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Table 2.4: February 1848 Barnard Castle MI

Dundee: Watt Institute

Perth: Anderson Institute

T. 8

M. 21

T. 22

‘National Characteristics of the Six Northern States’

‘Spirit of the Times’

‘Eloquence’

W. 23

Th. 24

Paisley Athenaeum W. 16

‘Eloquence’

‘Napoleon’

Newcastle MI W. 9 ‘Shakespeare’

Glasgow Athenaeum M. 14 ‘Napoleon’

Edinburgh PhI F. 11 ‘Natural Aristocracy’

Th. 10 ‘National Characteristics of the Six Northern States’

Th. 17 ‘Domestic Life’

T. 15 ‘Spirit of the Times’ **

‘Napoleon’

F. 18 ‘Shakespeare’ Sa. 19 ‘Eloquence’

*Abbreviations: MI — Mechanics’ Institute; PhI — Philosophical Institution. Note the lecture on 7 February in Halifax (‘Domestic Life’) is included in the diagram for January for the sake of grouping by institution. **’Spirit of the Times’ was also delivered under the title ‘Genius of the Present Age.’

Emerson’s central message in the opening lecture, ‘On the Uses of Great Men,’ is that a great man is not one who simply possesses advanced talents, but rather one who ‘is what he is from nature.’ The ‘great man’ has two uses. First, he delivers some direct service to humanity through his works and actions. Second, and more importantly, he becomes symbolic of great ideas in the intellects of others. He shows others the immortal qualities that they themselves possess and awakens them to their own access to ‘eternal truth.’ The hero brings men to their own heroism by selflessly effacing the apparatus of his ascendancy, the distinction between men and great men. This leads to Emerson’s conclusion: ‘great men — is not that word injurious?’ The idea that some certain men are great, virtuous, and worthy implies that some others must be small, vile, and cheap. Emerson asks:

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‘Is there caste? Is there fate?’ He answers that when we see the ‘central identity’ the difference between men disappears.12 The lecture on Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), a doctor and prolific writer of Christian mysticism, had landed Emerson in some trouble before. When he delivered the lecture in Boston it provoked a twenty-eight-page response, printed and distributed as a pamphlet, from a prominent biblical scholar and recent convert to Swedenborgianism named George Bush.13 Emerson’s main message is that Swedenborg failed to achieve his high aim of charting the relationship between the material and spiritual realms because his perception of nature was not ‘human and universal’ but rather ‘mystical and Hebraic.’ Emerson argues that Swedenborg’s symbolism and mindset became too characterised by strict theological thinking and lacked poetic spontaneity and freedom. He was particularly concerned over Swedenborg’s belief in evil and sin when a clearer vision would show that ‘everything is superficial and perishing but love and truth only.’14 In ‘Montaigne,’ Emerson envisions a dividing line between people of practical or material bias and idealists. The first ‘love business, politics, actual operations’; the second ‘delight in the unity of things’ but have little patience for reality. The sceptic is a member of a third class who stands in the middle and says ‘you are both wrong. . . . You both are in extremes.’ Emerson insists that the sceptic is not one who ‘believes nothing’ but rather is one who recognises the dangers of an ‘unbending spirit.’ The sceptic, Montaigne being the classic example, is able to think critically about society, to see the ‘state of folly at large’ but also to see folly in the projects of reformers: ‘He suspects that the state which claims the ardent devotion of many loud-spoken . . . adherents is not the grand object which some take her for.’ He is not quick to commit himself to ‘doubtful acts of heroism.’ Emerson describes Montaigne as ‘encrusted in his own shell’ and points out that he remained neutral in the civil wars that raged around him. Emerson’s critique of Montaigne, in the 1847 version, centred on the negative implications of his motto ‘que sais-je,’ which he read as meaning ‘all we know is that we know nothing.’ Yet he finds that a sceptical phase is one that ‘most reflective minds have to pass’ before they reach truth. It teaches the lesson that ‘one must take a world-wide view

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of things; to appeal from the moments, the hours, to the ages.’ This will show that though knaves often prosper in ‘political struggles’ and ‘deceit or violence may have temporary sway . . . in the long run, justice and truth get the supremacy.’15 Emerson’s lecture on ‘Napoleon’ begins with a statement of its central point: the reason why Bonaparte is, among all others, the preeminent person of the nineteenth century is because his character represents the spirit and aims of the ‘the middle class.’16 He then briefly leaves Napoleon to the side in order to delineate the two main classes or parties into which society divides itself: the Conservative and the Democrat. In ‘Napoleon’ Emerson describes the conservative class as consisting of men who have made (or inherited) their fortunes and wish, above all, to preserve them. Their interests are in ‘dead labor, — that is, the labor of hands long ago still in the grave, which labor is now entombed in money stocks, or in land and buildings owned by idle capitalists.’17 The Democratic class, on the other hand, is that of the masses: ‘the young and poor who have fortunes to make.’ Napoleon is the representative of this class: ‘he had their spirit or aim. That tendency is material, pointing at a sensual success . . . conversant with mechanical powers, highly intellectual, widely and accurately learned and skilful, but subordinating all intellectual and spiritual forces into means to a material success.’18 Much of the lecture is a litany of praise for Bonaparte, which is effectually a tribute to the industrious spirit Emerson thought him to embody. Napoleon, Emerson wrote, ‘showed us how much may be accomplished by the mere force of such virtues as all men possess in less degrees — punctuality, personal attention, courage, and thoroughness.’ Under his rule ‘every species of merit was sought and advanced.’ Napoleon is described as the ‘agitator, destroyer of prescription, the liberal, the radical, the inventor of means, opener of doors and markets, subverter of monopoly and abuse.’19 In certain sections the speech has the air of a panegyric for bourgeois energy and industry. However, Emerson’s Napoleon, as representative of the progressive virtues of the middle class is also described as the embodiment of their vices. Emerson declares that with his courage and unity of action, Napoleon might have been ‘the first man of the world, if his

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ends had been purely public.’20 Instead, like the class he represents, his ends were selfish and materialistic. Napoleon was ‘destitute of generous sentiments . . . a boundless liar . . . thoroughly unscrupulous. He would steal, slander, assassinate, drown and poison, as his interest dictated.’21 Emerson portrays Napoleon as a representative of an international cadre of competitive entrepreneurs — ‘the class of business men in America, in England, in France, and throughout Europe’—and as an embodiment of the spirit of the bourgeoisie.22 To finish the lecture Emerson returns to the division between Conservatives and Democrats. He identifies the two parties as essentially united: ‘These two parties differ only as young and old. The democrat is a young conservative; the conservative is an old democrat. The aristocrat is the democrat ripe and gone to seed; because both parties stand on the supreme value of property, which one endeavors to get, and the other to keep.’23 Emerson concludes that Napoleon represents both sides of this division: ‘Bonaparte may be said to represent the whole history of this [Property] party, its youth and its age; yes, and with poetic justice its fate, in his own. The counter-revolution, the counter-party, still waits for its organ and representative, in a lover of man of truly universal aims.’24 The moral of the story of Bonaparte comes at the end of the lecture: Every experiment, by multitudes or by individuals, that has a sensual and selfish aim, will fail. The pacific Fourier will be as inefficient as the pernicious Napoleon. As long as our civilization is essentially one of property . . . it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.25 ‘Shakespeare’ is a discourse on the nature of originality. The greatest genius, Emerson maintains, is not the most original but rather the most receptive. Striking a collectivist chord that also resounds in ‘Napoleon’ and ‘Goethe,’ Emerson begins his discussion of Shakespeare with the assertion that the great man is the incarnation of the ‘ideas

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and necessities of his contemporaries. . . . [Shakespeare] stood where all the eyes of men looked one way, and their hands all pointed in the direction in which he should go.’26 Shakespeare sourced inspiration in the common man: he freely appropriated or adapted old plays and popular storylines in which ‘the rude warm blood of the living England circulated.’ He ‘carried the Saxon race in him’ and drew his greatness from it. Emerson referred to the lecture on ‘Goethe, or the Writer’ as ‘the most innocent looking one.’27 Placed at the end of the series, and later as the last chapter of the book, it soothes some of the tensions created in the earlier instalments while revealing more plainly the main lesson and purpose to which the entire series points. The lecture’s central thesis is that Goethe’s great aim, the meaning of his life, was the constant pursuit of culture, or the ‘upbuilding’ of man. This makes him the great representative of the intellectual spirit and internal life of the nineteenth century, the counterbalance to Napoleon, who represents the ‘popular and external’ aspects of the modern world. He proves that ‘man exists for culture; not for what he can accomplish, but for what can be accomplished in him.’28 Of the other three lectures that formed the core of Emerson’s British repertory, ‘Reading’ was the newest. ‘Reading’ is essentially a long list of ‘books which promise to reward the time spent on them.’29 Emerson gave three rules to his audiences: ‘Never read any book that is not a year old,’ ‘Never any but famed books,’ and ‘Never any but what you like.’ He then leads a brief excursion through history, mentioning a few of the best books from each period. Homer, Herodotus, Æschylus, Plato, and Plutarch are the Greek must-reads. In the version delivered in Manchester he said, ‘[I] almost never read a foreign book in its original if I can get a translation. . . . I should as soon think of swimming over the Irwell to go to Higher Broughton as to read all the books in the original when I have them rendered in my mother tongue.’ For the period of the Roman Empire, Emerson recommends Livy but insists that the one essential author is not a Latin but an English one: Gibbon. Emerson then proceeds through Dante and the Middle Ages to Elizabethan England and into the modern age, concluding with Wordsworth and Goethe. Carlyle is not mentioned by

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name, but is alluded to.30 Finally Emerson recommends the ‘best’ class of books — the bibles of the world, the sacred books of each nation, nothing less than the sense of each people of what is the best result or sum total of their experience.’ He cites the scriptures of Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, the laws of Menu, the works of Confucius and Mencius, ‘and lastly, the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures.’ ‘Eloquence’ describes the immense power of speech to uplift and change the convictions of men. Emerson illustrates several gradations in eloquence, which correspond to various types of audience. The base level of eloquent speech, the ‘comic and — coarse,’ finds sympathy with the ‘boys and rowdies’ in any assembly. The expression of ‘graver and loftier sentiments’ appeals to the elders. The highest eloquence touches the sense of virtue in its auditors. Emerson provides a recipe for superior eloquence, the most important ingredient being a sense of conviction in speech and action: a ‘double force of reason and destiny.’ The truly eloquent person ‘is, a sane [person] . . . with a power to communicate his sanity,’ but at the same time ‘inwardly and desperately drunk with a certain belief.’ The great masters of oratory were those who ‘assumed that object for which they toiled, whether their country, or its laws, or a reformation, or liberty of speech or of the press, or letters, or morals, as above the whole world, and above themselves also.’31 Emerson struck his reviewers with the breadth of his studies in history and religion, particularly in the Middle East and Orient. One newspaper report began by remarking that the subject was ‘illustrated by rich examples from Grecian lore, excerpts from the Koran, the Talmud, and other sealed books to the million, and racy stories of the great leviathans of the art, from Plato, Socrates, and Ulysses to Burke and Coleridge.’32 ‘Domestic Life’ is a polemic built around the idea of the home. The lecture begins with a glimpse of childhood. In the home ‘the young Saxon’ learns with his toys and companions the rudiments of physical and moral law.33 Emerson’s main message is that the ‘sacred household’ should remain a place for study and learning, for ‘human culture’ in adults as well as in children. This, not fashion or convention, is the idea to which a person’s domestic economy, properties, and ornaments should conform. From this point, Emerson enters a drifting discussion

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of wealth. He seems to find fault with the idea that money is necessary to create a good home: ‘It is sufficient accusation of our ways of living . . . that our idea of domestic well-being now needs wealth to execute it.’ He argues that ‘the greatest men in history were the poorest, — Socrates, Epaminondas, Aristides, Æmilius, and Cato.’ Emerson declares that the ‘reform of the household’ is the key to the correction of the ‘whole system of our social living.’ When this is done, ‘[w]ealth and poverty will be seen for what they are; that the poor are only they who feel poor, and that amongst the rich may be found many very indigent and ragged.’ The reform of the household and the reform of social life, which Emerson envisions as its potential result, depend upon ‘dignifying and adorning life for all.’ He admits that the ‘socialism of the day’ had provided valuable hints to this end, ‘hints which will yet be ripened and executed in every society of civil men.’ Emerson’s message, however, is not in advocacy of Socialism as a means for distributing wealth. The distribution and availability of culture to all is his concern: ‘Our communities, or towns of houses, ought to yield each other more solid benefits than we have yet learned to draw from them; for example, the providing of single individuals with the means and apparatus of science and of the elegant arts.’ Emerson’s advice is to concentrate on the improvement of the mind, the home, and the community: ‘The heroism which at this day would make on us the impression of an Epaminondas or a Phocion must be that of the domestic conqueror, who should . . . show manhood enough to lead a clean, noble, handsome, moral life amidst the beggarly elements of society around him.’ The feature uniting these nine discourses is that each of them addresses, directly or indirectly, the potential of the common man to improve himself morally, intellectually, and spiritually. The lectures are democratic — it is implied that no one, regardless of class background or material condition, is excluded or unable to achieve the greatness, heroism, intellectual cultivation, and eloquence described. The lectures in the Representative Men series are not straightforward biographical essays. The figures discussed are not portrayed as Carlylean ‘great men’ or as heroes to be admired or literally imitated, but rather as men representative of universal ideas and energies that are available

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to all. ‘Reading’ is specifically directed at the amateur reader with no trace of scholarly stuffiness. ‘Domestic Life’ shows that no matter how humble, the home can be the nest in which heroic and redeeming sentiments are nurtured. The lectures are encouragements to self-help, self-culture, and the promise of progress. In this sense, Emerson’s lectures were hardly atypical of a constant stream of discourses encouraging self-help, self-improvement, and civic virtue, which characterised the public platform in nineteenth-century Britain. Anne B. Rodrick has recently pointed out that ‘exhortations to pursue the duty of self-improvement’ pervaded spiritual and secular public discourse in Victorian Britain, capturing ‘a common conviction that self-improvement was fundamentally an ethical pursuit that would raise society as a whole through sheer effort of collective will.’34 To give only one example, Samuel Smiles’s lectures on self improvement, the basis of his 1859 book Self-Help, were also given as public lectures during the 1840s.35 In other ways Emerson’s lectures seem to fit the definition of middle-class ‘moral imperialism’ that Martin Hewitt and R. J. Morris have shown was a central ideological concern to organisers of Athenaeums, Mechanics’ Institutes, and many other cultural associations formed during the first half of the nineteenth century. The desire to steer both middle- and working-class listeners towards appropriate attitudes and good habits was a major part of this discourse.36 Friedrich Engels insisted that in the Mechanics’ Institutes, workers were ‘taught to be subservient to the existing political and social order.’ All lectures delivered there, in his account, constituted ‘one long sermon on respectful and passive obedience in the station in life to which [one] has been called.’37 Though Engels’s conclusions are notoriously partial and immoderate, there is at least some truth to his analysis of the model lecture at the Mechanics’ Institutes. Some of the lectures Emerson used in Britain seem, at least superficially, to fit more closely with the type of lecture described by Engels than with any radical discourse. Messages embedded in ‘Domestic Life—that each man accept his vocation whether as ‘master or servant’ and that one work on conquering the home while awaiting the far-off ripening of the fair division of labour and wealth—could be interpreted as an admonition

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given to the workers of England to bow to authority and stay in their places. Christopher Newfield summed up the message of the lecture thus: ‘Living well means avoiding mastery and singular exertion, and letting the distant law prevail.’38 Emerson’s lectures were clearly not written with any express intent to manipulate or brainwash his listeners into passive obedience. It is true, however, that the rationale in them would, in Larry Reynolds’s words, offer ‘little solace to those suffering famine, insult, and the infernal.’39 In ‘Napoleon’ and in ‘Domestic Life’ Emerson criticises the hegemony of property interests in society, but ultimately turns away from the problem of gross material inequalities in industrial society without any controversial remarks. In ‘Napoleon’ Socialists are placed in the same category as the Conservatives and Democrats — they too are possessed by the spirit of materialism. Emerson contends in ‘Domestic Life’ that to ask for wealth is inglorious; the greatest heroes had from time immemorial known the smack of poverty. The true hero does not involve himself in questions concerning other people’s property, nor does he align himself with the ‘beggarly’ elements of society, but rather accepts his material condition and makes himself a ‘domestic conqueror.’ The most solid course of action for the higher class of men is to serve society as an example of how to live a ‘noble, handsome, moral life.’40 Whatever the implications of Emerson’s self-help message in these lectures, this unifying theme was hardly remarked upon in the flood of articles and reactions to Emerson’s lectures in the British press, perhaps because it was such a common feature in public discourse. The articles show that the lectures themselves mattered less, in many cases, than the political and religious concerns of the reviewers and their preconceptions about what Emerson represented. § Emerson’s opening lectures in Manchester and Liverpool were, for the most part, a major success. Prior to his arrival, a series of promotional articles in the press contributed to a general sense of excitement and anticipation.41 Emerson was doubtlessly aware that he was as much if not more likely to receive grand-scale national attention by beginning

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in Manchester than any other city, including London. Asa Briggs has written that ‘all roads led to Manchester in the 1840s.’ It was the ‘shock city of the age.’ Widely regarded as the most volatile and forward-looking British city, it was a continual epicentre of political and intellectual tremors that spread across the country.42 The Athenaeum was packed beyond its capacity on the 2 November — ‘every available seat and standing place was occupied before the commencement of the lecture, and long afterwards might be heard knocking for admittance, those who had not been fortunate enough to arrive before the room was filled.’ On his first lecture, ‘Uses of Great Men,’ one paper noted that Emerson was ‘enthusiastically’ applauded at the beginning and ‘several times during the delivery’ before a final ovation at the close. Another article noted that an enormous crowd had flocked to see ‘the greatest living writer of America’ and gave a list of prominent literary celebrities and notable citizens who were spotted in the audience.43 The lectures that followed continued to attract overflowing audiences. To find a place in the Athenaeum hall on the second night of the Manchester series, one critic arrived in advance to ‘wait among the crowd, three flights of stairs from the lecture-room door; and, when that was opened, to press upwards as best we might.’ The article goes on: ‘the stairs were as much and as early crowded’ for the third lecture on ‘Montaigne.’ It wasn’t until the fourth lecture that crowd sizes came under control: there was less frenzy ‘owing to the wetness of the evening.’44 The average audience size for the Athenaeum series was 770.45 Meanwhile, the Mechanics’ Institute series, held in their less conspicuous building on Cooper Street, was making waves of its own. A ‘numerous and attentive auditory’ received the lecture on ‘Domestic Life.’ A correspondent for Howitt’s Journal noted that this lecture produced ‘the most universal satisfaction (I may even use the word delight)’ of all those delivered in Manchester.46 Despite his success, Emerson was already under fire in the press within one week of the start of the tour following his lecture on Swedenborg. In the lecture, Emerson criticised Swedenborg for believing in ‘evil spirits’ and devils. Perhaps with his own emerging idea of evolutionary-determined amelioration in humanity functioning over and beyond the individual in mind, he contrasted Swedenborg’s

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‘Hebraism’ with an ‘old, and much truer philosophy’ that ‘evil is good in the making.’47 The sentence he used to illustrate this became a notorious nineteenth-century ‘sound bite,’ reproduced and discussed incessantly in the press, usually divorced from its philosophical meaning: ‘Man, wheresoever thou see’st him, in brothels, or gaols, or on gibbets, is on his way upward to all that is good and true.’ Manchester and London newspapers, which carried complete or partial transcripts of Emerson’s lecture, were amongst the most influential and widely read papers in Britain.48 By the end of November Emerson wrote home that he was ‘preached against every Sunday by the Church of England & by the Church of Swedenborg.’49 The lecture had been delivered on a Thursday evening in the Manchester Athenaeum. Within three days he was already being denounced at the New Jerusalem Swedenborgian Church, which lay a few dozen yards from the lecture hall on Peter Street. Reverend J. H. Smithson gave a sermon decrying Emerson’s message, which was printed in various Manchester newspapers. Repeating the ‘brothels, gaols, and gibbets’ clip he declared that ‘this was an awful declaration . . . the lecturer thought that man, though continually descending, was continually rising.’ Smithson then ‘deeply lamented that such a doctrine as that advanced by the lecturer should have been publicly asserted,’ and ‘declared he would rather the yoke and chain of American slavery should have been brought into this country than it should have been enunciated in this land.’50 A transcript of Smithson’s sermon was reproduced in the Manchester Guardian, which had a distribution of nearly 20,000.51 Manchester’s main conservative newspaper, the Courier, recorded voices of opposition to Emerson’s lectures, setting a trend that was continued in other cities’ conservative weeklies. The author of a letter to the editor thought there must have been some incorrect reporting. It did not seem possible that a gentleman addressing ‘a respectable and crowded audience in a Christian community’ could utter such sentiments. The ‘brothels, gaols, and gibbets’ quote is cited as evidence that the lecturer, if he was not insane, intended to be ‘abundantly mischievous.’ Emerson, in ridiculing Swedenborg’s belief in the Devil, spoke pure heresy, ‘for the belief in such a pure malignant being forms one

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of the elements of Christian faith.’ The letter concludes with two main points that would be used in several future attacks on Emerson in the English press. First, his lectures and messages encroach on ‘Christian faith and morals,’ misleading the young and inexperienced. Second, he has no business speaking at an ‘institute erected for the diffusion of useful knowledge’ — such institutions had, since their foundation, ‘discarded formally all lectures on theology and politics.’52 The Courier also recorded warnings against Emerson’s influence by the Low Anglican Canon Hugh Stowell of Christ Church, Salford.53 Nottingham’s conservative paper, the Nottinghamshire Guardian carried a warning notice the following week in a letter to the editor titled ‘Emerson as Theologian.’ The author, having learned that Emerson would be coming to deliver four lectures in Nottingham, thought it his ‘duty to call to the attention of the public a few quotations from some of his published writings so that they may judge for themselves whether it is right to support an individual who strikes at the very foundation of those principles of Christian faith and practice which are founded on eternal truth.’54 The quotes, distorted by being pulled from the context of Essays, would have appeared shocking to a conservative readership. From ‘Nominalist and Realist’ (1844) comes the sentence: ‘Fortune, Minerva, Muse, Holy Ghost, — these are quaint names . . . ’ and ‘each man, too, is a tyrant in tendency . . . Jesus would absorb the race; but Tom Paine or the coarsest blasphemer helps humanity by resisting this exuberance of power.’ Another quote is taken from ‘Experience,’ the wording of which suggests that God is a human idea. The article informed the public that Emerson’s Essays attack Jesus, God, and the Holy Ghost. It is not surprising that by early December Emerson was wondering whether his friends would succeed in convincing the institutions to allow the lectures to take place.55 At the same time, an anti-Emerson placard had been posted around Nottingham, prompting a meeting of the General Committee of the Mechanics’ Institute, which concluded that Emerson would not be permitted to breach the laws against lecturing on politics and religion.56 The incident in Nottingham was not an isolated one. When it was rumoured that Emerson would address the Mechanics’ Institute in Derby, outraged citizens wrote demanding the immediate cancellation

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of the lectures. The General Committee there issued a statement in the local press clarifying that it had never hired Emerson and that he would only be speaking at Derby’s Literary and Philosophical Society.57 The year 1848 began with the publication of a review in Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, a radical-liberal monthly, in anticipation of his February lectures in Scotland. Its author, whilst taking a favourable view of Emerson generally, concluded his article with a warning, citing once again the now infamous ‘brothels, gaols, and gibbets’ excerpt from ‘Swedenborg.’ This time in an even more distorted rendition, the author warns that ‘such escapades . . . in Scotland . . . will not be endured.’58 Emerson was meanwhile receiving direct warnings that when addressing Mechanics’ Institutions he would be expected to retain an appropriate tone. On 12 January 1848 a private letter from the General Committee of the Mechanics’ Institution in Leeds informed Emerson that many had understood his lectures as attacks against Christianity. The General Committee had procured a newspaper transcript of the lecture ‘Reading’ and could ‘not but think some of its passages are calculated to strengthen’ the idea that he intended to attack the faith. Emerson was asked to revise the lecture so as not to ‘recommend publications tainted with Infidelity.’59 Emerson may have been asked verbally on other occasions whether he would omit certain offensive passages. It seems likely that Emerson complied with demands for changes. One article in The Critic, a literary review with no overt political agenda, printed after Emerson had returned to America, attacked the lecturer as a coward: ‘We have seen him scanning an audience ere he resolved which of two lectures he should give. . . . We have heard of him, too, sacrificing to suit an audience, the principal, pith, marrow and meaning of a whole lecture. . . . Even when there was no such disingenuous concealment or subtraction, there was a game of hideand-seek, a trimming and turning and terror at the prejudices of his audience.’60 Emerson stopped using ‘Swedenborg’ after November and relied on five oft-repeated lectures for all but a few of his remaining engagements. ‘Napoleon’ was repeated thirteen times, ‘Shakespeare’ nine, and ‘Domestic Life’ fifteen. Together these three titles alone represent nearly sixty percent of the total delivered. In cases where

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Emerson delivered only one or two lectures in a locality, they were, in almost every case, selected from this list of three. Two other lectures, ‘Reading’ and ‘Eloquence,’ were delivered four and five times respectively. Emerson’s use of these five oft-repeated lectures is at least partly explicable as an attempt to evade these types of attacks. They say little or nothing about religion. Only the above mentioned section from ‘Reading’ touched upon sacred texts. Emerson was regarded suspiciously as a radical in religion in almost all quarters and it was certainly this issue that was most looked out for. This is not to say that disregard was paid to the other forbidden subject: politics. Emerson and his ideas, especially his doctrine of self-reliance, were naturally associated with American republicanism and democracy in politics.61 The reactions to Emerson and his lectures were different in Scotland than in England. Whereas in England reviews of Emerson’s lectures were almost without exception good in liberal or radical publications and bad in Conservative ones, the numerous journal articles and newspaper reports written before, during, and after the visit to Scotland are not so easily classifiable. These articles say as much about the religious preoccupations of the writers as they do about the lecturer. Scotland’s religious climate in the 1840s was extremely tense. The Established (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland suffered a major schism beginning in the early 1830s and ending in 1843 with the ‘Disruption,’ when about a third of the body reorganised itself into the Free Church.62 The Scottish articles, written from a wide range of religious perspectives, demonstrate on the whole more of a willingness to sort through and come to an awareness of religious issues in Emerson’s work and to explain how they compare and contrast to various dogmas, but also tend to make this the main subject of their critique and the basis of the opinions expressed. Some Scottish reviewers connected their conclusions concerning Emerson’s ideas on religion and progress to political themes. An earlier article on Emerson’s writings, which appeared in Lowe’s Edinburgh Magazine in 1846, begins with a lengthy prologue about the nature of revolution and the role of the intellectual in progressive change. No proper names are used in this section, but it is implied that Emerson’s thought, the subject of the article, is one of the revolutionary forces

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within the progressive historical model described, a catalyst for the ‘destruction of forms,’ which is later carried out by the masses, with violence if necessary. The author mentions the enormous popularity of philosophical writers (he mentions Emerson as well as Carlyle, Channing, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, and others) amongst an ever-expanding reading public, taking into account the ‘sixpenny’ book series, which played so important a role in creating these circumstances. From here, however, the article takes on a highly critical tone towards Emerson. The reasons for disagreement all stem from disharmonies in matters of religious doctrine. Lowe’s was organised as a non-denominational but strongly anti-Catholic Protestant magazine. It was self-confessedly liberal in economics, but opposed to all tendencies that worked against (Protestant) Christian unity.63 Emerson is cast as a worshipper of the intellect who refuses to accept the ‘necessity of salvation’ and the existence of sin. The author then announces that he will defend some of the ‘vital doctrines of Christianity . . . by showing the utter invalidity of [Emerson’s] objections.’ He takes particular issue with Emerson’s statements on the imperfections of Christ. Nevertheless, the author concludes that Emerson is carrying his readers ‘in the right direction,’ especially for his vision of harmony, rather than conflict, between science and religion.64 Two review articles were published in early 1848 with the intention of preparing Scotland for Emerson’s visit. One appeared in the radicalleaning Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, the other in Macphail’s Edinburgh Ecclesiastical Journal and Literary Review, an organ of the Church of Scotland. The former, titled ‘Ralph Waldo Emerson; Or, the “Coming Man,”’ which appeared in the January 1848 edition of Tait’s, was written by George Gilfillan, a well-known Scottish literary critic and the minister of an important church in Dundee.65 Gilfillan was one of the most important British reviewers responsible for generating critical interest in Emerson’s works in the years prior to his visit.66 In his Gallery of Literary Portraits (1845), he described Emerson as the ‘most original mind America has hitherto produced.’67 Gilfillan’s ministry was in the United Presbyterian Church, a conglomeration of various Calvinist factions that had seceded from the Church of Scotland in the eighteenth century.

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Gilfillan’s critique in ‘The Coming Man’ is almost entirely positive on issues of style and presentation in Emerson’s written works. Issue is taken, however, on certain points of theological disagreement. Gilfillan objects to the treatment of human vice in ‘Compensation,’ arguing that Emerson does not allow enough scope for divine punishment of evil. On communication with nature, which Gilfillan imagines Emerson prescribing to humanity en masse for the treatment of its ills, the author’s Calvinist streak emerges strongly. Only an extremely limited few are able to apprehend the virtue of nature and to ‘entertain a genuine love for it.’ The ‘average man’ dwells in nature as an ‘alien and enemy.’ Advising such people to seek beauty in nature is like giving ‘rocks and ruins’ to people clamouring for bread. A final major problem, for Gilfillan, is Emerson’s handling of human guilt. Emerson, the Scotsman believed, treats it too lightly; he places himself at too elevated an angle of vision and does not adequately feel the evil of depravity in his fellows. Gilfillan asks: from this perspective, where ‘there is barely room for guilt, where is there space left or required for atonement?’ In the end, however, Emerson is not condemned as a heretic or even as a threat to the faithful, but is upheld as a genius. Not only is he ‘the truest poet America has produced’; he is also, despite his abstract tendencies, ‘often the most practical of moralists,’ seeking to translate the lessons of faith, hope, charity, and self-reliance into the realm of life and action. Gilfillan points out that in the English lectures Emerson’s audiences had been both mesmerised and mystified. Of course, reference is made to the notorious ‘brothels, gaols, and gibbets’ quote from ‘Swedenborg.’ With possible allusion to the Church of Scotland and the Free Church, Emerson is warned that in Scotland, ‘such escapades as these are certain to be misunderstood by one class, and to disgust the other.’68 The anonymous author of the article in Macphail’s Edinburgh Ecclesiastical Journal and Literary Review (a Church of Scotland review) sought to defend Emerson from his detractors without condoning his religious messages.69 He points out that Emerson’s works were very well known and that the American is ‘regarded by many among us with aversion and scorn.’ The author states that he was compelled to ‘agree he is a heretic,’ and admit his ‘strong apprehensions, lest the

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visit . . . do mischief to the religious spirit of our country,’ but also calls attention to the intellectual worth of Emerson’s work. Part of the defence is based on a conversation in which Emerson reportedly ‘expressed himself as deeply grieved that Calvinism had decayed in New England.’ Nonetheless, Emerson is censured for expounding a profane doctrine of ‘universal Immanuelism, [by which] every man is God incarnate,’ and advised to harmonise his genius with Bible Christianity. One Scottish publication that did not condemn Emerson for heresy was the extremely influential Tory review Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. Unlike the liberal Scottish reviewers in Lowe’s and Tait’s, the Blackwood’s author, William Henry Smith, does not have a theological axe to grind.70 The article describes Emerson as the most original genius in the history of American literature. The author does point to weaknesses such as his ‘painful obscurity’ and ‘outrageous and fantastical style of writing,’ but these, like the assessment of his religious points of view below, are level-headed criticisms, balanced by much that is positive and laudatory.71 The author addresses Emerson’s unorthodox approach to religion: His Christianity appears rather to be of that description which certain of the Germans, one section of the Hegelians for instance, have found reconcilable with their Pantheistic philosophy. It is well for him that he writes in a tolerant age, that he did not make his appearance a generation too soon; the pilgrim fathers would certainly have burnt him at the stake. . . . And we believe — if the spirit of his writings be any test of the spirit of the man — that he would have suffered as a martyr, rather than have foregone the freedom and truthfulness of his thought.72 Whilst acknowledging the controversial religious opinions embedded in his writings, the author is able to situate Emerson’s views within a wider philosophical context, placing him above narrow religious attacks. The article seems intended to downplay the idea that Emerson represented a real threat to the nation’s religious or political structure. In contrast to the Lowe’s article, which had portrayed Emerson

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as a ‘revolutionist,’ a catalyst of change in a universe characterised by incessant progress, Blackwood’s takes the opposite tack and goes so far as to maintain that Emerson’s opinions on such matters were in fact more conservative than their own. According to this article, Emerson eschews the ‘sanguine and enthusiastic views of the future condition of society’ that one might expect from a New England philosopher: Our idealist levels the past to the present, but he levels the future to the present also. . . . He will not join in the shout that sees a new sun rising on the world. For ourselves (albeit little given to the too sanguine mood) we have more hope here than our author has expressed. We by no means subscribe to the following sentence . . . [from ‘Self-Reliance,’ Essays, First Series] ‘All men plume themselves on the improvement of society, and no man improves. Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes . . . but this change is not amelioration. . . . ’73 Many who questioned Emerson’s intentions would have found evidence in the Blackwood’s endorsement that whatever controversial opinions he held, his messages should not be perceived as threatening. A reporter for the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent wrote that, ‘Although of decided, and, in some respects, ultra-liberal opinions on politics and religion, he has been warmly welcomed by men of all parties. The Church and State, supporting Blackwood, was one of the first to speak of him candidly and praisingly.’74 Emerson arrived in Edinburgh on the evening of 11 February 1848, late and in a hurry after missing his train from Newcastle. The directors of the Philosophical Institution were holding the crowd, having been warned by telegraph of the delay.75 His four lectures, according to Alexander Ireland, ‘produced a great sensation in the Scottish metropolis.’ Reviewers suggested that Emerson omitted or consciously avoided material that would offend the religious feelings of his audiences, but that despite these efforts, his lectures ‘grieved or horrified the very orthodox.’76 In Glasgow, by far the most populous city in Scotland, the controversy over Emerson’s lectures at the Athenaeum

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(one of the largest and most prosperous middle-class institutions in Great Britain) resulted in a loss of nearly half its membership. Hudson lamented this horrendous blow in his 1851 History of Adult Education. The Athenaeum, he explained, ‘engages a celebrated American poet, who is afterwards suspected of scepticism, the Sunday school teachers become alarmed, the religious opinions of the directors are canvassed, the unorthodox are ignominiously expelled from the directory,’ and finally more than 1000 members leave in protest.77 Another incident occurred in Dundee, where Emerson was the Gilfillans’ guest. The lectures were organised through the secular Watt Institution, but were held at George’s Chapel, where Gilfillan was the preacher. Emerson’s first lecture, ‘Spirit of the Times,’ was delivered from the pulpit. In reaction, some officers of the congregation threatened to close the church to lectures. Gilfillan was obliged to work out a compromise. Emerson’s second lecture in Dundee was delivered in the same building, but from the preceptor’s desk.78 Strangely, Gilfillan himself later turned on Emerson and denounced him as a ‘circulating Satan,’ despite the support provided in 1848.79 One of the most scathing of all the newspaper reviews of Emerson’s lectures appeared in The Scottish Guardian, published in Glasgow on 3 March. The reviewer, writing under the name ‘Northern Warder,’ found Emerson’s oration exactly as he expected: full of ‘unreasonable and crude assertions, cold, uncharitable, and almost misanthropic reflections on his fellow-men, and monstrous untruths; forming altogether the rarest mélange of philosophy and folly ever presented to a Dundee or perhaps to any other audience.’ He reports that the audience regarded the speaker without admiration and that the applause was ‘scanty.’ He finds Emerson’s ideas ‘grossly heterodox and dangerous to society in its best interests,’ particularly the idea expressed in ‘Spirit of the Times’: that ‘that work in which we are most needed is that which is most desired by us.’ Northern Warder asserts that it is only the ‘path of duty’ that determines where men should toil before moving on to denounce some other ideas ‘patent to atheism’ in the lecture. Finally the conclusion is reached that Emerson’s doctrines are ‘dangerous’ in character, consisting of ‘ill-disguised infidelity,’ and forming ‘the most striking specimen of philosophy run wild, with which for

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many years we have met.’ As a final remark, the reviewer added that ‘Mr. E’s style of speech is monotonous and drawling.’80 The Scottish Guardian was liberal in economics, and affiliated with the Free Church. When Frederick Douglass had toured Scotland in 1846 denouncing the Free Church’s acceptance of money from southern slaveholders, the paper attacked the lecturer using a racial slur.81 After the Scottish leg of the tour was complete, an article appeared under the pseudonym ‘A Student’ in Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine, a Radical-Unitarian publication, reporting on the lectures and the reactions they incited among the listeners at Edinburgh.82 Like the author of the Macphail’s article, ‘A Student’ attempts to defend Emerson by reminding readers of his debt to Christianity, and Calvinism in particular, though an obvious difference in religious background exists between the two reviewers. It is stated in the first full page of text that Emerson was the son of a respected minister, that ‘he looks back with love and veneration to the faith, the zeal, the steadfastness of his fathers,’ and that he was taught for four years by the ‘wisest, loftiest, most eloquent teacher that Calvinism ever had; and saw laid in the grave the head of that burning, holy, and beloved man.’ The essay refers, almost certainly, to Ellery Channing, under whom Emerson studied at Harvard Divinity School. Channing was raised in Calvinist Congregationalism but later rejected some of its central tenets and became the key figure in the formation of New England Unitarianism. Laudation of Channing would have been heretical even among liberal Scottish Calvinists (the Macphail’s author, defending Emerson, had stressed that he makes no reference to Channing, ‘whom, we are certain, he could not idolize’) but his work was admired and respected by many British Unitarians.83 The article continues to defend Emerson from accusations of religious heresy. Emerson is referred to as ‘the consequence of Christianity,’ the ‘prophet of manliness,’ and is compared to Saint Paul. That the author felt this to be the necessary approach for Emerson’s defence can be explained at least partly as a reaction to the particular religious atmosphere of Scotland, which is referred to in the article as the ‘firmest stronghold of religious formalism, and arena of the odium theologicum.’ A final response to Emerson’s Scottish lectures was an anonymous pamphlet entitled ‘Emerson’s Orations to the Modern Athenians, or

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Pantheism. Being a Glance at the Chimera of the Oracle of the Woods,’ printed in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and London in 1848. The author was Alexander Dunlop, a Free Church Whig lawyer with a literary flair, writing under the pseudonym ‘Civis.’84 The twenty-nine-page pamphlet is speckled with Latin epigrams and references to Greek as well as Hebraic history and beliefs. It is not a fanatical rant, but is full of intelligent analysis of Emerson’s Scottish lectures. Nonetheless, the main object of the pamphlet is to denounce the lecturer as a heretic and to prove that his philosophy is a new version of ancient Pantheism. The author takes issue with Emerson’s individualism, which he interprets as a belief that each man is an isolated ‘atom’ sealed off from his fellows, ‘self-existing, absolute, supreme — and not for others.’ He sees this belief in ‘atomization’ as an impediment to what today might be called community spirit or social behaviour. Proof of Emerson’s error is provided by comparing his philosophy to that of Moses and showing them ‘at total variance.’ Moses thought systematic, group oriented religious observance to be the key to awakening the people to their duties to society. Emerson and the ‘American apostles of mystery,’ he argues, believe public religious observance ‘at variance with the nature of the “atom” [i.e. the individual]’ and thus, unlike Moses, were fighting against the forces that stood for ‘improving the condition and enhancing the happiness of social life.’85 Emerson was in Scotland between 23 and 25 February, the journées révolutionnaires of Paris, the opening scenes of the most insurrectionary two years in the history of Europe. During those days, workers and students joined together against the government, over a thousand barricades appeared in the streets (beginning in the poor neighbourhoods and expanding throughout the city of Paris), shots were fired and blood spilled, a provisional government was established, decrees signed recognising the right to work and the creation of National Workshops. In the two weeks that followed manifestations and revolutionary activity spread forcefully into Germany, whilst various governments in Italy and Austria scrambled to enact precautionary reforms. Owing to its seemingly incurable, intense poverty, fears of revolution in Scotland were strong; stronger, perhaps, than in England.86 In this context, the addendum to ‘Emerson’s Orations’ is the most interesting part of the pamphlet. It is a direct indictment of Emerson

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for his workings in the current political atmosphere. ‘Since the above was in type,’ reads the final section, ‘a dynasty has fallen, a kingdom has been annihilated, and a republic proclaimed. Such, to me, are the inevitable effects of Atheism, Deism, Socialism, — and Atomism. . . . The passions are let loose. War has raised its hideous head. . . . ’ The ultimate cause of these events was, in the author’s analysis, a pollution of minds, a poison ‘fostering dreams of delusive glory, and obliterating the maxims of the social duty of man to his fellow.’ Finally, the author advises Britain to take heed of the ‘sad and appalling example of France,’ and to ‘shun contamination, be it in the shape of visionary propagandists like Mr. Emerson, or more skilful adepts in the arts of scepticism, — the philosophers of France.’ Whilst seemingly at odds in terms of their respective philosophies, Civis places Socialism and Atomism in the same category — both are described as selfish and ultimately injurious to true social life. The threats to Christian virtue posed by the revolution in France, and those which he credits Emerson with propagandising amongst the people of England and Scotland, are bundled together by Civis in a list of dangerous elements in the current atmosphere.87 Attacks on Emerson and his dangerous influence continued to appear in the British press well after his return to America. In the aftermath of 1848, a Catholic reviewer in Dublin referred to Emerson as the ‘wildest heretic and poorest trifler,’ working under an ‘evil genius.’ He was the creator of a ‘sect whose numbers . . . are avowedly large,’ promulgating the same individualism that recently had ‘more than once been rampantly exhibited in street riots.’88 A denunciatory article titled ‘The Emerson Mania’ appeared in the English Review, a High Church Tory ecclesiastical magazine, in 1849.89 The anonymous author remarks that Emerson had been ‘belauded alike by Tory and Radical organs, by “Blackwood” and “The Westminster,” by the friends of order and disorder.’ His works had been ‘reproduced in every possible form, and at the most tempting prices, proving the wide circulation they must enjoy amongst the English public generally.’ Emerson’s Essays, the author remarked, had ‘many readers and admirers amongst the youth of our universities.’ This ‘Emerson Mania,’ it was found, must be examined; Emerson’s philosophy exposed, no

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matter what offence it may cause to ‘the idolaters of this “transatlantic star.”’ Emerson is denounced as a mere ‘imitator’ of Carlyle, as ‘one who does not recognise the existence of a God,’ and as one whose ‘mind . . . is almost incessantly occupied in inculcating self-idolatry.’90 § 1848 is a question mark in British history. Since the time of the events themselves, theories have been derived to answer for the fact that, as in 1789 and 1830, Britain, unlike its continental neighbour, did not experience a revolution. Emerson thought that it was at least partially a function of Anglo-Saxon firmness and pluck. He also believed, like many others, that the foundations of real democracy had already been established in the United Kingdom (unlike Europe) and that amelioration could best be brought about through ‘reform’ rather than ‘revolution.’91 Until recently, 1847–48 was consistently seen as the beginning of an important transition at mid-century between a period in which Britain was approaching the type of class-based revolution that Marx saw as the inevitable culmination of industrial society and an ‘age of equipoise’ — a period of temporary stability sustained by post-1848 economic recovery, which lasted until the next period of working-class mobilisation towards the end of the century.92 In the second half of the twentieth century, the historical picture of nineteenth-century Britain as a class-ridden, deeply divided, advanced industrial society in which ‘middle class’ and ‘working class’ were the two main categories became the predominant one. It was supposed by some historians that ‘revolution’ depended on alliance between oppressed classes but that in Britain the effectiveness of religion and middle-class initiatives in suppressing workers’ class consciousness (particularly those in the upper-tier of the working class, the ‘labour aristocracy’) prevented such alliances from occurring.93 When revolution did loom on the horizon — as in 1848 — state coercion, the loyalty of the middle-classes to the monarchy, and bad planning on the part of Chartist leaders combined to halt potential insurrection.94 Emerson’s lectures were delivered to what might be considered the important ‘swing’ group within the Marxist narrative. Artisans

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and various segments of the ‘labour aristocracy’ filled the halls in the Mechanics’ Institutions; clerks, intellectuals, and potential middleclass allies could also be found there or in the Athenaeums. It is very clear that Emerson did not intend to use his voice to promote popular violence on behalf of proletarian interests in response to the political situation in 1848. Even without the constraints of censorship this would not have been the case. Emerson and his self-help message, however, might have been seen as valuable tools by the middle-class elite to reinforce discourses and ideologies that they had been trying to instil in the public for decades. Emerson’s tour and his undeniably broad influence might also be seen as one factor in the process of ‘secularisation,’ which historians such as E. R. Wickham and (more recently) Alan D. Gilbert have argued characterised Britain in the nineteenth century. Though he said little about religion in his winter lectures, his insistence on the damaging aspects of uncritical conformity to church orthodoxy was felt in his written works. The number of religiously slanted, acerbic attacks that he received in both ecclesiastical and secular publications indicates a perception on the part of orthodox factions in several Christian denominations of a serious threat to traditional values.95 Today it is no longer possible to work within these frameworks without acknowledging the challenge presented by the now-famous ‘linguistic turn’ in British historiography.96 Gareth Stedman Jones’s landmark 1983 book Languages of Class put into question the dominant idea that from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to the 1840s ‘class’ and class-consciousness developed in Britain roughly according to the historicist pattern presented by Marx and Engels. It was shown through discourse analysis — a process of sifting through language for signs and signifiers — that Chartism was not necessarily the proletarian (by the Marxist definition) movement it was often understood to have been.97 Patrick Joyce began a serious iconoclastic assault in 1991 with Visions of the People, and the first in a series of disputatious articles advocating the use of methodologies associated with postmodernism in history. Joyce argued that the place of ‘class’ in history was exaggerated. He examined nineteenth-century ‘voices’ and discovered ‘a set of discourses and identities which are extra-economic in character, and

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inclusive and universalizing in their social remit in contrast to the exclusive categories of class.’98 He found common ground, common ideas, goals, beliefs, loves, and fears amongst members of different economic classes, which were often presented by Marx-influenced commentators as separated and divided by class and material concerns. In his next book, Democratic Subjects, originally subtitled The Fall of Class, Joyce used responses to Emerson as further evidence to support these claims. In the Manchester Central Library Joyce discovered the journal of Edin Waugh, a Lancashire worker who attended at least one of Emerson’s lectures at the Manchester Mechanics’ Institution. Waugh quoted Emerson frequently and saw him as a guide and companion to his own spiritual strivings. Joyce noted that both Waugh, an autodidact worker, and the middle-class Bright family saw Emerson in similar ways; they were all engaged in a characteristic ‘battle for the self’ — for self-culture, self-improvement — and that the spirit that united their two worlds cannot be explained within a reductive class narrative.99 In addition to the primacy of ‘class,’ other parts of the old narrative have come under attack from a variety of angles. The previously perceived importance of 1848 seems less obvious now. The idea that Chartism was not a real revolutionary threat in 1848, and that, whatever fears abounded, a European-style revolution could not have occurred in that year, now seems all but established fact.100 Both the idea of a ‘mid-century watershed’ (after which Chartism faded and class antagonisms mellowed) and the religious ‘secularisation’ hypothesis are up against formidable adversaries and will most likely never recover their previous stature, if they are not demolished completely.101 It is beyond the scope of this work to find whether the old or the new interpretations of British history are more correct, though it is interesting to note how different Emerson’s tour appears in each of these historical frameworks. In this chapter, I have tried to present Emerson’s orations and reactions to them as historical texts and discourses, which express a range of differing opinions and identities. In studying the responses to Emerson’s lectures, some patterns emerge. First, the record of Emerson’s tour illustrates that there were significant and controversial changes in the use and conventions of the

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British lecture platform not only in Manchester, but throughout the United Kingdom.102 Debates over these changes pitted friends versus opponents of free speech and opinion, with members of various classes and religious persuasions on both sides. It is possible to say that in England, Emerson was generally supported by liberals and the liberal press, freethinkers, rationalists, and radical Unitarians and opposed, for the most part, by conservatives and writers with strong orthodox religious views in nearly any denomination. In Scotland, the pattern was different. Emerson was subject to pointed, heavily theological criticism from writers with an assortment of religious backgrounds and was condemned for heresy by most. Political persuasion appears to have been far less an important factor in Scottish criticism at that time than religious denomination. Writers associated with the Free Church, including Whigs like Alexander Dunlop, were amongst the strongest condemnatory voices whilst Blackwood’s, a Tory publication, showed support and understanding. Third and most importantly, Emerson was certainly famous throughout Britain. His writings and lectures reached and touched thousands of people, including countless workers and clerks, men and women whose voices have not formed a part of the historical record. Emerson also came into contact with hundreds of people from nearly all parts of the social spectrum during his tour outside of the lecture hall. It is to this aspect of the tour that the next chapter is devoted.

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CHAPTER 3 EMER SON’S R ECOR D OF NORTHER N ENGL AND AND SCOTL AND

During Emerson’s first two months in England, as his fame as a lecturer and pervasive presence in the British press expanded, so too did the breadth of his social intercourse. As Phyllis Cole has pointed out, Emerson conceived of his purpose in England not only as a lecturer but also, and perhaps more importantly, as an observer.1 Over the course of the winter Emerson came into contact with merchants, industrialists, engineers, admirers, independent women, poets, preachers, celebrities, scientists, aristocrats, skilled and unskilled workers, even paupers. His observations of Britain and the account of his meetings, as recorded in his journals and letters, are interesting in their own right, showing a uniquely broad cross-section of provincial British society in the winter of 1847–48. On a basic level, this chapter is intended simply to tell the personal side of the story of Emerson’s lecture tour, rounding out Emerson’s own record by incorporating biographical and historical information on the characters, figures, and cities that Emerson described. On an analytical level, it poses and suggests answers to questions about social milieu and ideological affinities. What does Emerson’s record of the tour say about Britain? What does it say about Emerson? A number of important themes emerged in Emerson’s thought and writing during this time, some of which profoundly impacted his discourse in the

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1850s and 1860s. How do these relate to the flesh-and-blood reality of his experience, his observations, and personal encounters in England and Scotland? Finally, this chapter also adds another dimension to the issue of Emerson’s fame and notoriety in, and impact on, Britain. The previous chapter examined how the tour was captured in the British press. Here we see how it played out in human terms: how Emerson’s presence in Britain affected lives, generated friendships, and how it changed Emerson the man. A number of biographers have touched upon this part of the tour anecdotally but few have attempted to draw any inference about its larger significance to Emerson’s philosophy. The work of three scholars suggests that this period needs greater scrutiny. Phyllis Cole focused on the impression of mechanised, industrial England in Emerson’s thought during the 1850s, arguing convincingly that Emerson’s sense of fate and limitation was intertwined with the hemmed-in machine-world of Birmingham and the industrial areas, but focused little attention on Emerson’s original impressions during his time there. This chapter will problematise Cole’s account by showing that Emerson’s own immediate perceptions were of a different nature.2 Larry Reynolds points out that a heightened elitism and individualism characterised Emerson’s thought in the period preceding the outbreak of the 1848 French Revolution and affected his reactions to it and to other events in the spring of 1848. He linked this to his enthrallment with ‘English power, wealth and character’ but, taking February as his starting point, said little about his experience during the winter tour.3 Sacvan Bercovitch may have had the most to gain from looking at this period in contending that Emerson completed a return to his ‘ideological home’ in radical-liberal political culture (finally shaking off the remnants of his earlier flirtation with Socialist idealism) as a reaction to the European Forty-Eight.4 Bercovitch made this argument with few references to the events of 1848 themselves or to the milieus in which Emerson found himself during this period. One of these was a milieu that, in a sense, defined the word ‘liberal’ in the 1840s. Far from trying to overturn the majority of these arguments, this chapter will provide context and substance to support their conclusions. What emerges from a detailed look at this period of Emerson’s tour is

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a fascinating picture of a society that Emerson found at once enticing and revolting; one that haunted his thought and writing on the question of human equality in the years to come. § During the first week of November, Emerson took up lodgings at 2 Fenny Place, in a well-kept residential district in Higher Broughton about a half-hour walk from the centre of Manchester. By 5 November, Emerson called himself ‘some sort of citizen of Manchester,’ ready to be drawn into the ‘social heart of this English world.’5 In Liverpool, he moved into a boarding house at 56 Stafford Street in the city centre.6 During November he volleyed between the two cities on what, less than two decades before, had been the world’s only intercity rail line. He quickly became surrounded on all sides by friends and admirers. On 4 November he was occupied in writing letters of introduction for the Glasgow astronomer John Pringle Nichol who was about to embark on an American lecture tour. He mentioned in a letter to Carlyle that he was receiving an ‘alarming penny correspondence.’ Letters rolled in at a massive rate over the followings months. He wrote that ‘welcomes, invitations to lecture, proffers of hospitality; suggestions from good Swedenborgists . . . all requiring answers, threaten to eat up a day like a cherry.’ More letters came from artists, merchants, manufacturers, struggling young poets, scholars, old acquaintances, and benevolent societies ‘hourly from all parts of the kingdom.’7 Emerson accepted a number of the lecture invitations. On his arrival to England, the only engagements set in stone were the Manchester and Liverpool series and fifteen lectures at the Yorkshire Mechanics’ Institutes. Emerson planned to be back in London within a few weeks. By 23 November he had agreed to lecture in Nottingham, where he had so many invitations to stay at private homes that he was forced to turn some down.8 With the help of Alexander Ireland he took on engagements in seven other cities for the month of December. In Manchester, his connection to Carlyle brought him into contact with some important figures. Geraldine Jewsbury was a frequent visitor to 5 Cheyne Row. She had become notorious throughout England

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for her historical novel Zoe: The History of Two Lives (1845). The book — a story of a woman who excels both as a mother and as an intelligent and independent socialite — was considered shocking by many. It was kept in a cupboard in the Manchester library to keep its injurious moral influence to a minimum.9 Jewsbury smoked, swore, remained unmarried, and actively flaunted the conventions of womanly behaviour both in her own life and through the heroines of her novels. Her home was a hub of Manchester intellectual life.10 She wrote after reading Emerson’s Essays that all that was good in them he owed to Carlyle and the rest was the work of a ‘dry, cold, sententious Yankee, who spiritualizes profit and loss, and lived soberly because he saw that it paid well.’11 Nevertheless, she attended all of Emerson’s lectures in Manchester and hosted him at her home at 30 Carlton Terrace, Green Heys on the outskirts of the city on 9 November.12 Another female player in the Carlyle drama was Elizabeth Paulet, the wife of a Swiss merchant and friend of Jewsbury. In contrast to the latter’s lavish, emotional bearing, Paulet was calm, sane, and conventionally well-behaved. Carlyle noted that she was ingenious and artistic as well. She had collaborated with Jewsbury in writing Zoe.13 Paulet hosted Emerson at Seaforth House, a grand chateau rented from the Gladstone family outside of Liverpool, in November with Jewsbury present.14 Paulet, though married and less outspokenly radical than Jewsbury, was still very much her own woman. Emerson described her in a letter as ‘a kind of sovereign dame among the best people here.’15 Both Paulet and Jewsbury travelled to revolutionary Paris, where Emerson rejoined them in May 1848. Several days after his trip to Seaforth, Emerson was the guest of Richard Rathbone and his wife at his villa, Greenbank House, near Liverpool. Rathbone, a cotton merchant, was an English acquaintance of Emerson’s friend Samuel Ward. During November and December, he met several admirers with whom he remained in contact during his time in England and, in some cases, long afterwards. He was most impressed by a poor, unemployed writer named John Cameron. Emerson invited him to Christmas dinner and later saw him deliver a lecture of his own in Manchester.16 In mid-December, he met Henry Sutton, ‘the pride of Nottingham,’ a

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promising poet who had recently published a book of mystical and philosophical speculations titled The Evangel of Love, which used a quote from Essays on its title page and refers to Emerson as ‘a newborn bard of the Holy Ghost.’17 On 17 November he met George Searle Phillips, the editor of the Leeds Times who had negotiated Emerson’s Huddersfield lectures. Phillips, under the pseudonym January Searle, would in 1855 become the first Englishman to write a book on Emerson. In the book he wrote that it was impossible to estimate the impact of Emerson’s pre-1847 works ‘on the minds of the young and thoughtful in England. . . . For a long time it was customary to swear . . . by him who lives at Concord.’18 In Derby Emerson was introduced to Herbert Spencer, a young Emerson enthusiast who went on to become an important philosopher of science and sociology. In Birmingham he was impressed with a young hymn-writer named Thomas Hornblower Gill.19 Meanwhile he was hearing of other admirers, some of whom he met later in his travels, through correspondence. He received a letter of invitation to Newcastle from a twenty-six-year old industrialist named George Crawshay who, several years earlier, had refused his examinations at Cambridge after reading Emerson’s Essays.20 Emerson also entered into correspondence with a young poet in Ireland named William Allingham at this time. In November in Liverpool, he met the sister of Arthur Hugh Clough. He listened to some passages from Clough’s recent political pamphlet, an appeal for relief for the famine in Ireland, and soon received a letter from Clough himself with an invitation to Oxford.21 By the end of December, Emerson wrote in letters home that he was beginning to understand what effects his work had had on a generation of young Englishmen.22 Emerson also came into contact with writers whose reputations had already been established. In Nottingham, at the home of Joseph Neuberg, he met Philip James Bailey, the author of Festus, one of the most-read works of poetry of the decade.23 In Liverpool he had been the guest of Reverend David Thom of the Bold Street Chapel, an author of several controversial theological discourses. Emerson was struck by his generosity and kindness.24 Finally, his friendship with Carlyle continued tenuously by correspondence. Carlyle wrote to Emerson twice in November to congratulate him on his ‘success with the Northern

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populations.’ The main impression in Carlyle’s letter, however, is of a deep dissatisfaction with work and life. In a letter of 13 November Carlyle wrote: ‘I am sunk deep here, in effete Manuscripts, in abstruse Meditations, in confusions old and new; sinking, as I may describe myself, thro’ stratum after stratum of the Inane, — down to I know now what depth!’ Echoing with irony one of his lines from Hero-Worship (1841) he wrote: ‘I . . . am in a minority of one.’25 That Carlyle was slipping ever farther into a dangerous absolutism was evident in his Fraser’s article, ‘Thirty-five New Letters of Oliver Cromwell,’ which appeared in December. Carlyle compiled some of his favourite lines from the letters in his introduction: ‘[Cromwell] rushes direct to his point: “If resistance is made, pistol him; . . . Hang him out of hand. . . . God and man will be well pleased to see him punished!”’26 It was already suspected (and later proved) that the Cromwell letters were forgeries.27 Emerson commented on the reaction to the article in a letter to Elizabeth Hoar: ‘everybody suspects some mystification, some people fancying that Carlyle himself is trying his hand that way.’28 Emerson seems to have been concerned about Carlyle’s rage: in his final letter of 1847, he wrote that he thought it would be best for Carlyle (presumably as an outlet for his energies) that he go into Parliament.29 Emerson began recording observations about England and the English at the end of October in Liverpool and continued to fill notebooks, journals, and letters with them throughout his visit. Many of his comments spilled over into new public works beginning with his short speech at the soiree of the Manchester Athenaeum in midNovember. From the beginning of his tour, he emphasised in his journal his impression of the English as ‘physiognomically & constitutionally distinct,’ not only from other nations and races, but also from their descendents in the United States. He found them to be stockier and burlier than Americans. After some days in Liverpool he concluded that ‘the only girth or belt that can enable one to face these Patagonians of beef & beer, is an absorbing work of your own.’30 The immense poverty of England was another immediately striking feature. A father of three young children, he found English boys and girls of the same age as his own in such a state of neglect and beggary that he was prompted to give up some of the pennies much needed at

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home. In a letter home he wrote explaining ‘I cannot go up the street but I shall see some woman in rags with a little creature just of Edie’s age & size, but in coarsest ragged clothes, & barefooted, stepping beside her, and I look curiously into her Edie’s face . . . and the far-off Edie wins from me the halfpence for this near one.’31 Several weeks later he remarked on the ‘tragic spectacles of the Manchester and Liverpool streets,’ the ‘ravaged population’ that surrounded in such squalor and immorality was denied any ‘safety of dignity & opportunity.’ Children went barefoot. But all this ‘is only the beginning & the sign of sorrow & evil here,’ he wrote home, advising his young daughter to thank God she was born in New England.32 Despite these problems, Emerson’s overall tone in public and private discourses about England during the winter of 1847–48 was distinctly reverential and tinged with a racialist ‘Saxonism.’33 On 2 November Emerson prefaced his opening speech in the Representative Men series by saying that it had been his design to ‘give expression to those thoughts which my voyage to, and arrival in England might naturally suggest,’ and to present his audiences with ‘the respectful expression of an American in England.’ The project, he said, had been ‘postponed, not abandoned.’34 This object was fulfilled when he made his speech at the great soiree of the Manchester Athenaeum on the 18 November. This annual ball was an important fundraising event for the institution. For five shillings members and their wives (plus extra ladies at three shillings and ‘strangers’ residing outside Manchester at six shillings each) were admitted to the massive Free Trade Hall, which held 8,000. They were treated to music and dancing, dinner, wine, jellies, ice-creams, and finally speeches by the celebrity guests of honour. The master of ceremonies was the well-known historian Archibald Alison.35 The Manchester Athenaeum Gazette advertised the names of fifteen ‘distinguished guests’ whom ticket holders would be able to see at the speakers’ table. Of them, nine were MPs. Dickens was listed as a speaker, but cancelled. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Esq. was the sole foreigner.36 To begin his speech, Emerson cited the impressiveness, splendor, wealth, and population of the English cities and compared his sensation on arriving to what he imagined that a deputation of western ‘red

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men’ experienced coming for the first time into Boston. He paid homage to the other gentlemen at the speakers’ table before swiftly arriving at his main point: ‘That which draws the solitary American to see England . . . is the moral peculiarity of the Saxon race.’ Emerson defined the two main elements of this moral Englishness to be conscience and loyalty. In this speech, the former is called the ‘imperial trait’: it gives the Englishman a ‘commanding sense of right and wrong,’ and therefore, the right to hold the ‘sceptre of the globe.’37 Saxon conscience also accounts for an ‘honesty of performance,’ a ‘thoroughness and solidness of work which is a national characteristic.’ The second element that he ascribed to the English moral constitution, loyalty, assures, he opined, a social cohesion through the society from top to middle to bottom, a ‘homage of man to man, running through all classes.’ In response to the current economic crisis, Emerson imagined the awakening of the ‘secret vigor’, which he perceived to lie dormant in the English race. Amidst adversity, he found England ‘still daring to believe in her power of endurance and expansion.’ Near the end of the speech he exclaimed: ‘All Hail! Mother of nations, — Mother of heroes . . . truly a home to the thoughtful and generous who are born in the soil.’ The final note presented a challenge to England, but upheld the Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism: ‘If the courage of England goes with the chances of a commercial crisis, I will go back to the capes of Massachusetts . . . and say to my countrymen, The old race are all gone . . . the hope of mankind must henceforth remain on the Allegany ranges, or nowhere.’38 A similar tone characterises ‘The Superlative,’ a lecture that was written in England during November 1847. The lecture is about modes in language. Emerson contrasts the exaggeratory ‘superlative degree’ to the plain and simple ‘positive degree.’ This lecture, however, is equally about caste, race, and difference. Emerson begins with the premise that individuals are inextricably different from one another and that the differences between large racial groups are analogous magnifications of this same fact: ‘People of the same stock are kept apart by antipathetic power; they are not attuned to each other. . . . Across the globe, in widely sundered races, these differences become extreme.’39 He contrasts French and English idioms as evidence. The French use the superlative degree: they are ‘either “enchanted” or “desolate”

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because you have or haven’t got a shoestring.’ The use of the superlative indicates ‘superficial cultivation’ or ‘superficial temperament.’ The English, by contrast, are ‘in all countries a solid people . . . violence and extremes are once and for all distasteful to us.’ The ‘genius of the northern nations’ is in exactness of perception and description. Robert Richardson has recently pointed out that ‘The Superlative,’ as it was delivered in 1847, was about ‘ecstasy’ and was the product of Emerson’s reading in Islamic literature.40 In the middle part of the 1840s Emerson became deeply interested in Persian and Arabian poetry. Emerson reached the conclusion that the superlative degree should be avoided as it runs ‘contrary to the genius of the northern nations’ but also found use of the superlative ‘at the same time native and beautiful in the genius of other nations nearer the sun.’ Citing the Koran, the customs of Arabia, and Persian poetry he concludes that where the weather is hot and intemperate, life itself becomes a ‘constant superlative.’ Emerson concludes that this literature is refreshing to the ‘northern races’. However, with an edge reflective of the racialist strain of his thought at this time, he also adds that when it comes to the matter of ‘intellectual superiority [there is] no question that the strength of that empire rules in the west; that the sons of the east [must] bend the neck under the yoke of the more exact understanding of the westerly races.’ 41 A litany of praises for the common Englishman flowed in his letters and journals. In various letters home he wrote, ‘My admiration & my love of the English rise day by day’; they are ‘a sensible handsome powerful race’; it is a ‘population of lords, &, if one king should die, there are a thousand in the street quite fit to succeed him.’42 Again to Carlyle he wrote that the English were ‘a very handsome & satisfactory race of men, and, in the point of material performance, altogether incomparable.’43 The impression made by English advances in mechanisation grew stronger through the final months of 1847 as Emerson crisscrossed the country on the new extensive rail network.44 Emerson remarked, ‘I ride everywhere as on a cannonball . . . high & low over rivers & towns through mountains in tunnels of 3 miles & more at twice the speed & with half the motion of our cars. . . . ’45 In December The Times newspaper, to which he later devoted an entire chapter in English Traits, became one of Emerson’s major centres of attention.

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It became a symbol of modern England’s commanding position in Emerson’s thought. The Times, he wrote, ‘seems to have mechanized the world, for my occasions,’ allowing him to see into all corners of the globe. In another letter, he reported that he read The Times every day, finding it a ‘fair transcript of England, & a chief product of modern civilization.’46 Finally, Emerson’s observations and interpretations of certain elements of the political atmosphere in England during the final month of 1847 were significantly affected by his ideas about the vitality of the English race. In December he predicted twice, once in his journal and once in a letter to Elizabeth Hoar, that England would experience no revolution despite the economic difficulties. In both cases he insists that England’s immunity to upheaval is a result of English energy. The first prediction is a journal entry, probably made at mid-month: ‘The English will not break up, or arrive at any strange revolution, for they have as much energy as they ever had. They are not suffering a history but enacting it.’47 The same idea is expressed in his letter of the 28 December: ‘England will stand many a day & year yet, and ‘tis all idle the talk of revolution & decay, for they have the energy now which made all these things.’48 Emerson’s new acquaintances in November and December were solidly middle-class. On Christmas Emerson wrote to his wife that though he was meeting England’s best people — its merchants, manufacturers, scholars, and thinkers — he had hitherto met none of the ‘proper aristocracy,’ which remained ‘a stratum of society quite out of sight & out of mind here on all ordinary occasions.’49 At the beginning of December, he had announced plans to give a lecture on ‘Natural Aristocracy,’ which he possibly already had begun writing and continued working on through December and January before delivering it for the first time in Edinburgh.50 In December, he gathered material for this lecture during his travels. In Derby Emerson was the guest of R. W. Birch, a lawyer and supporter of the school in Ham Common who had met with Alcott during his visit in 1842.51 On 11 December, he brought Emerson to Kedleston Hall outside the city limits. The next day he visited Wollaton Hall, just southwest of Nottingham. On the 13 December

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he visited Newstead Abbey. Wollaton, an Elizabethan era mansion at the centre of a sprawling estate full of gardens, swans, and grazing deer, was, in Emerson’s words, ‘beautiful to see, but lonely as the deserted palaces of the Arabian Nights.’52 Nearly the same feelings were produced by the visit to Kedleston Hall. Emerson and Birch were able to tour this eighteenth-century palace, the seat of Lord Scarsdale. He was greatly impressed and wrote at length in a letter home about the grandeur of the entry hall, the neatly carved columns, and the collection of paintings and sculpture on display. Scarsdale, he remarked, ‘has never spent a night in the house, has no children . . . and never or very rarely comes here.’ He was shown around by the housekeeper, who inhabited the only warmed room in the palace. Emerson called these sprawling aristocratic manors ‘beautiful desolations.’53 This mood was further reinforced by the visit to Newstead Abbey, the former home of Lord Byron. The massive palace later became the property of Colonel Wildman, who similarly kept his grounds closed.54 These strange scenes of sprawling emptiness, of beautiful resource unused, unappreciated, and tied up under the dead hand of a negligent aristocracy were enough to startle Emerson. In the autumn and winter months, Emerson recorded information about the current state of some members of England’s hereditary aristocracy gleaned through discussion. He learned somewhere, perhaps amongst the Alexander Ireland’s reform-minded colleagues at the Examiner, that attendance at the House of Lords was extremely small. Twenty or thirty take their places even in a time of national emergency, whilst the rest of the nobility, ‘with such an immense stake . . . are utterly negligent and are quietly at home devoured by ennui.’ Others, he noted, were in exile for debt.55 Emerson’s lecture on ‘Natural Aristocracy,’ to which we will return, was undoubtedly influenced by these experiences. § In January and early February Emerson was in Yorkshire. Between lectures in Leeds, Halifax, Ripon, Sheffield, York, Newcastle, and several smaller cities, Emerson continued to keep an active social calendar. In Sheffield he made the acquaintance of James Montgomery, the famous

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poet of that city. He also spent time with Charlotte Saunders Cushman, an American actress on tour. Cushman came from very humble beginnings in Boston where she had been a part of the congregation at Emerson’s Unitarian church during his days as a minister. Since then she had become extremely successful and by 1848 she was on her way to becoming one of the most acclaimed actresses of the Atlantic world.56 The most noteworthy aspect of this phase of Emerson’s tour is his interest in and observations of industrial life in Yorkshire. Emerson was invited to stay in private homes in nearly every city he visited. His hosts were primarily manufacturers. Sheffield, Leeds, Halifax, and Newcastle were home to some of England’s largest factories. Emerson had already met a number of merchants and industrialists since arriving in England. In Liverpool, Paulet and Rathbone were both wealthy merchants, as was Neuberg, his host in Nottingham. In Leicester, Emerson had been the guest of Joseph Biggs, a part-owner of one of the largest hosieries in England. The Unitarian Biggs family was known for its radicalism, supporting causes from popular franchise to Italian independence, and for its model treatment of employees.57 Biggs was also the chairman of the Leicester Mechanics’ Institute.58 In a letter written at the end of December, Emerson observed that in England there existed ‘a sort of people whom we hardly have the like of in New England, great manufacturers who exercise a paternal patronage & providence over their district.’59 He cites the Schwann family in Huddersfield and the Brights of Rochdale. Like Neuberg, John Frederic Schwann was of Jewish background, was born on the continent, and had been an important founding contributor and first president of the Huddersfield Mechanics’ Institute, one of the most successful in Britain.60 The Quaker Bright family had begun its rise to prominence in Lancashire when Jacob Bright set up his cotton spinning factory in 1809. He became well known for his humane treatment of workers, refusing to have the child employees beaten as punishment for misbehaviour, seeing that they received a rudimentary education, and ensuring that workers received a salary commensurate with the costs of supporting a family.61 These values were instilled in his sons, who took over the business in 1839. Emerson reported that he visited the

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Brights in Rochdale in December but gives no account of what he did or saw there. It is likely that he was invited by John Bright himself, whom he would have met amongst the distinguished guests at the soiree of the Manchester Athenaeum in November. In January he saw Bright in the Free Trade Hall again, this time from the audience at a banquet staged in honour of the return to Parliament of several ‘distinguished advocates of commercial freedom’ and members of Britain’s most prominent free-trade advocacy group, the Anti-CornLaw League.62 In the meantime, Emerson was the guest of other merchants, manufacturers, and factory owners and toured a number of mills and factories. Emerson’s first stop in January was Leeds. There he was the guest of the mayor, Francis Carbutt, a merchant and Quaker convert to unitarianism who had become an important political player in the Liberal-Whig party.63 Leeds was a major industrial centre with the fifth largest population in England, its number of inhabitants having more than tripled since the beginning of the century.64 It was home to the largest flax mill in the world, which had been started by John Marshall, a dissenter and philanthropist. Part of his fortune was used to found the Leeds Mechanics’ Institution at which Emerson lectured.65 From Leeds, Emerson travelled to Halifax. He was the guest of the James Stansfeld, a Unitarian local solicitor and judge.66 He visited two factories there. One was the carpet mill of John Crossley. The mill was started by Crossley’s father and run by himself and his wife Martha until his sons were able to take over the business. It came to prosper — by the end of the 1830s it had already generated enormous fortunes and was the fourth largest mill in the country — and within a few more decades Crossley and Sons would become the largest carpet manufacturing firm in the world.67 When Emerson visited in 1848, Crossley and Sons was sending patterns and creating textiles and carpets for Queen Victoria. Touring the factory, he thought the ‘vista made by the looms resembled a church aisle.’68 The Crossleys were Congregationalists. When the mills were being built, Martha, who was still alive when Emerson visited, had said ‘If the Lord does bless us at this place, the poor shall taste of it.’69 The younger John Crossley,

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who before the end of 1848 would begin his four-term period as mayor of Halifax, was one of the most energetic philanthropists in Britain. He contributed thousands of pounds for urban revitalisation projects, including the construction of an almshouse, an orphanage, a chapel, a school building, and a hospital in Halifax, and many other charitable enterprises. In some of these projects he was joined by Edward Akroyd, the part-owner of a major worsted manufactory in Halifax. Akroyd, like Crossley, had inherited the business from his father as well as his dissenting religion, in this case New Connexion Methodism. Akroyd was also an energetic philanthropist. In the 1840s he was already developing allotment schemes for his employees. In 1845, he became involved in the creation of the Halifax Union, a building society and savings bank that was designed to help workers (quite literally) to save their pennies and increase the number of citizens meeting the property qualification to vote in Halifax.70 Emerson recorded the impression of his visit to his factory in January 1848: ‘Mr Acroyd’s [sic] stuff mills employ 5 or 6000 operatives. In one hall I saw 800 looms. In many, they were making ponchos. Here was a school spaciously built & well furnished for the children.’71 In the early years of the 1850s Akroyd developed massive house-and-garden communities to try to improve living standards for his workers. Emerson rounded out his factory visits with a tour of the Watts warehouses in Manchester and finally a visit to the largest iron works in the Northeast at Newcastle upon Tyne, where he was given a demonstration by George Crawshay, the owner and manager, of his powerful new Nasmyth steam hammer.72 Crawshay was a non-conformist in religion, a devotee of several social and political causes aimed at increasing the voting power and standard of living for workers, and an active participant in local and national political affairs.73 As noted above, Crawshay had previously studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, where it was mandatory to swear allegiance to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. Crawshay told Emerson that he had refused the examinations after reading his Essays and left without a degree.74 Another mill-owner, William Rathbone Greg, hosted Emerson in Ambleside.75

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Emerson had limited contact with working-class people in England. His only recorded observations of the lives of English workers are in his January journals. The passages are brief but significant; they are meaningful illustrations of what vast ideological (not to mention material) differences existed between different sections of the working classes in 1848. The first encounter took place in Rawdon, a village some seven miles northwest of Leeds. Emerson was there visiting William Edward Forster, the young Quaker owner of a wool and worsted mill in Bradford whom Emerson most likely met as a result of their mutual friendship with Carlyle.76 Emerson recorded: At Rawdon, I inquired, how much the men earned who were breaking stone in the road; & was told Twenty pence; but they can only have work three days in the week, unless they are married; then they can have it four days. . . . The Chartists, if you treat them civilly, & show any goodwill to their cause, suspect you, think you are going to do them.77 It seems more likely that Emerson gathered this information by inquiring with Forster rather than with the workers themselves. The second encounter, recorded later in the month, is of a very different nature: In Bridlington, I was received one evening at the house of Mr Potter, sad[d]ler, with a very cordial hospitality. And the next day he accompanied me to Flamborough Head, to show me the cave, the ‘Dane’s Dyke,’ the castle, the Light House, &c. All the objects interest me, but my conductor more. He had waited on me in the morning at my hotel with his apron tucked up under his coat, & very likely it was on still, under his surtout; but he told so well the story of his life, and that he saves 200 pounds every year, and means by & by to devote himself principally to the care of the Mechanics’ Institute & of the Temperance Society, of both of which he is the ardent friend; He is sent however by these institutions to wait on Yarborough Graeme, Esq., on Sir Prickett, & other gentlemen of the county families, & is always kindly received by these gentlemen.78

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Much can be gathered about these two very different types of workers and even more can be inferred. The first man (or men) whom Emerson encountered breaking stones in Rawdon were unskilled labourers. At the rate mentioned, maximum salary for hard labour was between 60 and 80 pence per week (three to four shillings), or between £13 and £17 4s per annum. Emerson was most likely aware that these were, or were not far above, starvation wages.79 If these workers were lucky they may have supplemented their income by working the other three or four days per week at an equally demanding and low-paying job, though in the economic crisis of 1847–48 they would have been hardpressed to find work.80 If they were married, the wife would certainly have to work, and if there were children, they too would need jobs at the earliest possible age. Mr Potter, on the contrary, was skilled: he was a maker of saddles, an artisan. He had intellectual interests and guided Emerson on a sight-seeing tour. He was able to bank £200 per year. He practised temperance. Mr Potter is still strongly identifiable as a working-class man — Emerson suspected that he wore his saddler’s apron throughout the day. Emerson’s association with Mr Potter was instantly easy and amicable. Emerson’s concluding sentence in his entry about the stonebreakers of Rawdon, however, indicates that suspicion and mistrust existed between this type of worker and more well-off sympathisers. Few were as sympathetic as William Forster. The future MP had just returned from a tour of famine-stricken Ireland and published a narrative of his visit warning that ‘blood . . . will be at the doors of all of us who, being able, are unwilling to help.’81 In England he favoured universal suffrage, state welfare initiatives, and invited Chartist leaders to his home. Soon after Emerson’s visit, he gathered the signatures of more than 500 vote-holders from his constituency on a petition expressing sympathy with the just demands of the working classes for political reform.82 In May he was one of Emerson’s companions in revolutionary Paris. The animosity that Emerson either sensed directly from the stonebreakers or had been informed of by Forster is a sign of these workers’ class consciousness. To them, Emerson and Forster, despite their sympathies, might have been seen as members of a class that they

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had come to believe were their natural enemies and oppressors.83 In spring and summer 1848, the Chartists in the very areas Emerson visited in January became some of the country’s most militant. In and around Bradford, Leeds, and Halifax ‘physical force’ Chartists drilled and marched, bought guns or pikes if they were able to, made serious plans for a full-scale insurrection, and engaged the police and even the military in pitched battles during the early summer.84 At the same time that Emerson was in Rawdon, Ernest Jones, a Chartist leader and personal friend of Marx and Engels who had recently lost an election for a parliamentary seat in Halifax was giving fiery speeches, which were reprinted in the Chartist press. His language was blunt, classconscious, and militant. He condemned Lord John Russell, the Whig prime minister: ‘Under feudalism, the people were fat slaves; under your rule, Sir defender of the middle class, they are lean slaves.’ He spoke of organising resistance, of putting the old guard of Chartism back in the field, of saving money needed for the militia. Another speech in January by George Julian Harney, editor of the Red Republican, contained a phrase that Emerson, perhaps having read a press report of the oration, recorded in his March journal: ‘The land for the people, every man a home, every man a vote, and every man a musket!’85 Despite his glimpses of the downtrodden victims of the economic crisis, Emerson’s letters and journals from the winter part of the tour bespeak a middle-class frame of mind. In his oft-repeated lecture ‘Napoleon’ he showed admiration for the energy and industry of the international business-oriented middle class, but also criticised its selfishness and obsession with wealth. In Northern England in 1848, however, he saw good progress in the factories and towns he visited administered by model employers. The merchants, industrialists, and factory owners with whom Emerson associated were all part of what might be referred to as a liberal pubic.86 Without pushing a strict categorisation, it is safe to say that Greg, Schwann, Biggs, Forster, Crawshay, Akroyd, Crossley, Bright, Neuberg, and others shared so much in common that they would be considered, by almost any historian, to belong in the same class. All were manufacturers or merchants. All were non-conformists in religion — Quakers, Congregationalists, Methodists, Jews, Unitarians — groups that had traditionally been

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poor, oppressed, and/or excluded from Anglican or aristocratically dominated institutions and privileges. They shared, to some extent we can assume, what H. J. Perkin defined as one of the four major standpoints in the ‘struggle between ideals’: ‘the entrepreneurial middleclass belief in free competition and the virtues of the self-made man against the corruption of aristocratic government.’87 Generally speaking they also shared commitments to free speech, free trade, and to improvement of the individual and of society through education, rational recreation, and personal example. Most, perhaps all, of the men listed above were active associates in the AntiCorn-Law League.88 Each made visible efforts to increase the quality of life and help the workers and the poor in the communities in which they lived. They built schools, churches, reading rooms, hospitals, city halls, orphanages, libraries, and parks; they contributed to improvements in sanitation, created greater efficiency in food distribution, reduced crime, and tried to instil a spirit of public-mindedness, community spirit, and social responsibility into their own class and serve as an example to those below.89 Mr Potter, the Bridlington saddler, was an example of a worker who had taken advantage of opportunities for self-help and self-culture available to him partly as a result of these initiatives, hence Emerson’s fascination. In Northern England, Emerson concentrated on the positive aspects of the industrial society he surveyed. He was not blind to the fact that the environmental conditions created by the mills were hardly natural, healthy, or desirable, whatever beautiful vistas he saw within the factories. Coming into the industrial districts Emerson observed that ‘the sheep were black, & fancied they were black sheep,’ but soon realised they were in fact begrimed by smoke — so too were the trees, the clothes, and even the ‘human expectoration.’90 However, in social terms, his letters convey a sense that progress had been made in industrial regions, partly as a result of warnings in ‘Condition of England’ literature. Carlyle’s Past and Present (1842) prophesied that as long as greed and base utilitarianism degrade the inherent nobility of work, Britain will ‘dwindle in horrid suicidal convulsion,’ until, if need be, a second French Revolution and Reign of Terror will erupt on English soil to fulfil society’s natural destiny.91 Emerson wrote in

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January, ‘I hear it said, that the sense which the manufacturers have of their duties to the operatives, & the exertions they have made in establishing schools & Mechanics’ Institutions for them, is recent, & is, in great part, owing to Carlyle.’92 As a result of this optimism, Emerson appears biased towards the social vision espoused by his middle-class hosts, which was clearly different from the leftist, ‘physical force’ followers of Jones and Harney. There are certainly few if any signs in the winter notebook of the image of ‘England as an imprisoning technological society,’ which, as Phyllis Cole has shown, developed during the 1850s and became intertwined with the concept of ‘fate’ in Emerson’s later writings.93 From another perspective, it would appear that Emerson was duped. In some ways, the story of his factory visits seems to match perfectly to Friedrich Engels’s description of the standard tour given to the well-meaning but gullible traveller in Condition of the Working Class in England (1845): [Y]ou wish to make yourself acquainted with the state of affairs in England. You naturally have good introductions to respectable people. . . . You are made acquainted with a couple of the first Liberal manufacturers. . . . The manufacturer understands you, knows what he has to do. . . . He leads you through a superb, admirably arranged building, perhaps supplied with ventilators, he calls your attention to the lofty, airy rooms, the fine machinery, here and there a healthy-looking operative. He gives you an excellent lunch. . . . The presence of the employer keeps you from asking indiscreet questions; you find every one well-paid, comfortable . . . you begin to be converted from your exaggerated ideas of misery and starvation. . . . That the people hate the manufacturer, this they do not point out to you, because he is present. He has built a school, church, reading-room, etc. That he uses the school to train children to subordination, that he tolerates in the reading-room such prints only as represent the interests of the bourgeoisie, that he dismisses his employees if they read Chartist or Socialist papers or books, this is all concealed from you. You see an easy, patriarchal relation, you see the

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life of the overlookers, you see what the bourgeoisie promises the workers if they become its slaves, mentally and morally. . . .94 Engels wrote, ‘I have never seen so demoralised a social class as the English middle classes. They are so degraded by selfishness and moral depravity as to be quite incapable of salvation. And here I refer to the bourgeoisie proper . . . and in particular to the “Liberal” section of the English middle classes which supports the repeal of the Corn Laws.’95 Engels, whether right or wrong, permits us to view Emerson’s social milieu from a different angle. He argued that middle-class attempts at philanthropy were in fact merely intended to ‘hide [their] selfish greed in the most hypocritical manner. . . . There is no limit to the hypocritical “humanity” of the middle classes. But their humanity is always subordinated to their own interests.’96 Of the Free-Trade and AntiCorn-Law movements, he wrote that the true aim of the bourgeoisie was to create a society where ‘free competition should be absolutely unchecked . . . where everybody can exploit everybody else to their heart’s content.’97 These ideas were not held by Engels alone. Some Chartists had shown strong and severe opposition to Corn Law repeal in the early 1840s for these very reasons.98 It was also well known and publicised that most of the captains of industry involved in the Free Trade Movement, Bright and Greg for instance, opposed Tory-backed factory legislation such as the Ten-Hours Act. Many, like Cobden, may have supported more working-class people gaining suffrage by rising into the ranks of the one in six Britons in possession of the required amount of property, but vigorously opposed the Chartist demand for universal male suffrage without a property qualification.99 Whether the industrialists who hosted Emerson in the winter of 1847–48 were heroes or villains, it seems clear that the overall experience of the northern industrial towns, if anything, reinforced an already-present democratic liberalism with an important emphasis on elite leadership in Emerson’s politico-economic thought, which matched in most respects and in many ways the opinions of this elite middle-class cadre.100 Before arriving in England Emerson listed ‘the fear of manufacturing interests’ as one of six great superstitions of the age.101 He believed that the repeal of the Corn Laws, and free

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trade in general would be no panacea for the world’s ills, but nonetheless believed in the justice of the cause.102 While Emerson was never unsympathetic to the ultimate goals of the Chartists, his experience in the North made the Chartist mass meetings, intimidation tactics, and violence they employed odious to him. In Leeds he recorded an anecdote he heard about John Marshall. On the evening of a banquet, which the Chartists had threatened to disrupt and attack, ‘Mr M. had a waterpipe under his chair which was supplied by a steam engine, & which he was ready to direct on the mob, if they had ventured to disturb him.’103 It is obvious whose side Emerson takes in these conflicts — he later incorporated the story of Mr Marshall’s hosepipe solution into his essay ‘Resources’ as an example of cool, ‘superior manhood’ holding its own against a misguided mob.104 More immediately, the Northern experience would certainly have been on Emerson’s mind when producing the lectures ‘Natural Aristocracy’ and ‘Spirit of the Times,’ which were delivered for the first time in Scotland. In the former, Emerson argues that personal quality, merit, and virtue are the only true marks of superiority. Perhaps with the ‘beautiful desolations’ and the tales of the deficiencies of the hereditary aristocracy in mind, Emerson’s lecture undermined the validity of the ancient aristocracy. It was not, however, a populist or even an egalitarian oration. According to one report, the lecture, as it was given in Scotland, was a review of the ‘extent to which men of power, genius, or sentiment could command homage from their inferiors in these attributes.’105 Indeed, the right of a superior class to rule and direct the others is upheld. ‘Spirit of the Times’ also had elitist and individualist overtones. We have remarked upon Civis’s difficulties with the ‘atomization’ of the individual. Other reviewers seized upon Emerson’s idea that ‘while spoons and skimmers might lie together in one dish, vases and statues must have each its own pedestal to stand upon.’106 Neal Dolan has recently echoed this in his forceful presentation of Emerson as a lifelong ‘preacher of liberal culture’ who had a great deal in common with British and European liberals — including their qualms about the coarseness of the masses and deep reservations about popular democracy.107 Emerson’s initial coolness towards the French Revolution, the Chartist movement, and

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the Socialist-influenced programmes of the Second Republic, as Larry Reynolds has suggested, were not unrelated to these somewhat detranscendentalised strains of individualism and elitism that characterised his thought during the winter.108 § On 6 February Emerson hosted a leaving party at his lodgings in the Manchester suburb of Lower Broughton before leaving to Scotland to complete the final leg of his winter lecture tour. The guests included the merchant Joseph Neuberg and the writer and poet Henry Sutton, both of whom Emerson had come to know in Nottingham. From Manchester came Emerson’s friend and agent Alexander Ireland along with Francis Espinasse and Thomas Ballantyne, his colleagues from The Examiner. Also present were John Cameron, the young writer whom Emerson had met in November and had recently heard give a lecture in Manchester, and William B. Hodgson, a young intellectual who later devoted himself to educational and other reform movements.109 From Birmingham came George Dawson, the famous, electrifying Baptist preacher whose controversial 1846–47 Manchester lectures set the stage for Emerson’s own. In mid-1847 Dawson had established his Church of the Saviour in central Birmingham.110 With him came the Birmingham hymn-writer Thomas Hornblower Gill. William Maccall, a Scot who, like Emerson, resigned his ministry from the Unitarian church for a secular career in writing and lecturing, was another guest. His most famous work, The Elements of Individualism, written as lectures while still in the service of the church, had been published the previous year.111 George Searle Phillips walked twentyfive miles to be present.112 Besides the record in Emerson’s letters, three of those present — Ireland, Espinasse, and Phillips, later published versions of what happened during the evening.113 Phillips portrayed the gathering as a convention of dreamers, kooks, and newspapermen who shared nothing in common but a respect (or rather reverence — he satirised it as a Last Supper in which Sutton was St John and Dawson, Judas) for Emerson. Ireland responded decades later, prefacing his account of the

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party by noting that a ridiculous version had already been printed and that the author — he does not mention Phillips by name — had since ‘died in a lunatic asylum in New York.’114 The importance of the story should be sought in the strengths, not the weaknesses of the company. Of the eleven guests, seven are given entries in the most recent edition of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004). It is also useful to think of the party as an encapsulation of the type of company Emerson kept during his stay in the Midlands and North of England. The men were all of the middle class and almost all deeply involved in the education of public opinion whether via the Mechanics’ Institution, the chapel, or the newspaper. This party marked the end of an important phase in the tour. In Scotland and London Emerson’s company would become more strongly characterised by its old-elite nature — career scientists, high literary celebrities, and aristocrats — the majority of whom were Tories in politics. Despite his earnings (and increasingly well-off company), Emerson was still dealing with financial difficulties at this time. In January Emerson learned that at home his wife was in serious need of money. Before leaving Concord he had paid off a thousand dollars of his debts, but a forgotten coal bill arrived, forcing Lidian to ask Ralph Waldo’s brother William, himself in financial difficulties, for fluid funds. Emerson wrote on 9 February saying that he would try to get money from his London publisher, John Chapman, but indicating that there was little hope: ‘Nothing has ever come thence, & though my books sell here quite actively, it is a pirate edition issued since I came.’115 He refers to William S. Orr’s three-shilling edition of Emerson’s Essays, Lectures, and Orations, the first of two pirated compilations of his work to appear in 1848.116 The letters Emerson sent home in mid-February have an impersonal feel. They are dominated by lists of important figures whom Emerson met at this time, reading like a Who’s Who of Scotland in the 1840s. On his arrival in Edinburgh, he was met by Dr. Samuel Brown, a chemist, essayist, and lecturer, and was his guest for each of the seven nights that he stayed in the city. Emerson wrote in several letters of the very high esteem he had for Brown: ‘he is a head & heart of the chiefest interest to me . . . a person from whom everything is

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yet to be expected.’ He called him ‘the new Paracelsus,’ referring to the great Swiss chemist and physician who revolutionised medicine in the sixteenth century, and speaks of the confidence and respect he inspired with his ‘grand designs.’117 Two of these grand designs were to discover a universal, fundamental building-block in the construction of the universe via the study of the atom, and to help humanity progress into an era in which faith and science would be united.118 The design was similar to Emerson’s grand-scale plan for a ‘Natural History of the Intellect.’ Brown introduced Emerson to a highly imaginative painter named David Scott. Scott ‘insisted’ that Emerson sit for a portrait on 14 February and again on 20 February, which he did. In Scott’s portrait Emerson, elegantly dressed and well-kempt, neglects the gaze of the viewer, staring instead into an undefined distance, into the world of abstract ideas from which the fuel of his fire is drawn. Emerson’s upward-facing fist, signalling power and virulence, is offset by a spectral streak of light above. This was one of the few gestures that Emerson was actually known to have made during his lectures. The clenched lips and deep shadows heighten the dramatic effect. Emerson is portrayed as a man who insists upon his visions with a sense of high urgency.119 Emerson was perhaps more impressed by Scott than the artist was by him, judging by the written records left by both men.120 Scott reminded Emerson of Alcott, though he thought that the melancholic streak was much stronger and more destructive in the Scottish painter, who died young in 1849. Emerson made the acquaintance of John Wilson, a well-known literary figure in Edinburgh most famous for his regular contributions to Blackwood’s under the pseudonym Christopher North. He had, more for political than intellectual reasons (Wilson was a Tory), been given the professorship of moral philosophy and political economy at the University of Edinburgh. Emerson seemed to prefer North to Wilson himself, whom he heard deliver ‘a very dull sermon’ of a lecture at the University on 15 February.121 He was more impressed by Catherine Ann Crowe, a famous female novelist whose work Emerson knew. At the time of Emerson’s visit she was reaching the crest of her career.122

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Figure 3.1: David Scott, Portrait of Emerson, 1848 (Concord Free Public Library)

Crowe hosted Emerson, Brown, and Scott on 12 February. Thomas De Quincey, one of Britain’s most famous and notorious literary figures, was in attendance. De Quincey, sixty-three, had walked the entire ten miles from his home in Lass Wade and arrived soaking wet, but was nonetheless in high spirits and made a deeply favourable impression on Emerson.123 De Quincey had long been famous, in America especially, for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822), which detailed his addiction and experiences in London’s underworld. A Tory, he contributed numerous political and economic articles to Blackwood’s and other Tory reviews, but in times of debt (of which there were many) would also send autobiographical writings to liberal publications like Tait’s. Emerson was also aware of De Quincey’s numerous important translations of German literature and philosophy into English and his connections with Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Carlyle. De Quincey hosted

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Emerson to dinner at his home in Lass Wade on 18 February, joined him again at Mrs Crowe’s the following day, and was among those who saw him off at the train station. Emerson’s excitement at making the acquaintance of De Quincey — the only man on his list of the ‘three or four’ literary geniuses of Britain whom he had failed to meet on his first trip to England — can be imagined. 124 The language of his letter home betrays the pride and excitement he felt when, after dinner at Lass Wade, ‘we carried our host with us to Edin[burgh] in the carriage to Mrs Crowe’s & to my lecture! De Q at lecture!’125 In Edinburgh, Samuel Brown introduced him to a number of his friends and colleagues, several of whom (like Brown himself) were among the most important scientific figures of the nineteenth century. Nichol, the astronomer whom Emerson had met in Manchester, had already embarked on his American tour, but Emerson was allowed to spend a night in his observatory near Glasgow.126 Emerson met Chambers, author of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1845), twice — first in the company of Alexander Ireland’s father and again with Chapman, his publisher. Emerson also made the acquaintance, and dined at the home of George Combe, the world-famous leading figure in phrenology. Though he said nearly nothing about his impression of Chambers, his conclusion after describing his time with Combe and his circle was that ‘Scotch sense . . . is calculating & precise, but has no future.’127 Other figures with whom Emerson came into contact included Lord Jeffrey, the eminent barrister and founder of the influential Whig journal The Edinburgh Review, which Emerson had greatly admired as a young man;128 the famed actress Helen Faucit; several important members of the bar; and a half dozen other Scottish notables. By the time he left Edinburgh Emerson felt satisfied that he had seen ‘all the Scottish Olympus.’129 Scottish writers and intellectuals had had an enormous impact on Emerson’s early formation. Scottish commonsense philosophy had been the dominant school of thought in the Boston and Cambridge of Emerson’s youth.130 At the end of the visit, however, his main impression was that the country was ‘incurably provincial.’ He was largely unimpressed by the celebrities he made contact with, which led him to conclude that Scotland was past its prime as a centre of literary and philosophical genius.131

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Highly visible poverty and suffering also impacted Emerson’s impressions. Coming into Scotland, he was struck by the bleakness of the country. Some unpublished notes give an indication of the feeling produced: ‘As soon as you cross the border & enter Scotland, the face of things changes. The grass is less green. The country has an irongray look. It is cold & poor.’132 He noted that every month Glasgow added another thousand to its already overcrowded, undernourished population. He wrote home that in the Saltmarket of Glasgow many of the women and children walked ‘barefooted, barelegged, on this cold 18th of February in the streets.’133 It has been argued that the Scottish elite lived in constant fear of class war during the 1840s. Some of the men whom Emerson met saw future violence as a foregone conclusion. Miserable slums like Glasgow’s Saltmarket, which over the course of one generation ‘grew like cancer’ in once-affluent sections of Scottish city centres, were a cause of anxiety and fear in the upper classes.134 Scotland, like Ireland, was also suffering from a potato blight and famine in the Highlands in 1848. Emerson left Glasgow and Scotland on 26 February. One week later, according to The Times correspondent, a mob of ‘many thousands’ formed and proceeded ‘as if by a common understanding,’ to smash gaslamps and windows, attack ‘all the principal shops in their way, particularly those of gunmakers, jewellers, provision merchants, boot and shoemakers, clothiers, &c., and pillage them of their contents.’ The next day crowds threw stones on various police forces and were shot at in return. At least one man, a collier or weaver named Carruth, was killed instantly and many gravely wounded. The mob hoisted Carruth’s dead body on their shoulders and paraded him through the streets of Glasgow shouting ‘blood for blood!’ The outbreak, according to The Times, originated ‘among the unemployed operatives — of whom there is a considerable number at present — whose feelings, since the recent occurrences in France, have been worked upon by the stimulating harangues of certain Chartist demagogues.’ One of these demagogues was Ernest Jones, the physical-force Chartist who spoke of the attainment of political goals as a ‘bread and cheese issue’ and called for a war on capital. Just before the violence began, a relief committee ‘made an

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attempt to pacify them by the promise of an abundant supply of soup,’ but learned that the crowd ‘wanted something more substantial.’135 Emerson’s own record of his winter lecture tour of Northern England and Scotland highlights several key features of the overall importance of the tour, both to Emerson and to Britain. A number of themes are discernible in his writings from this period, which were not present, or at least far less prominent, in his Representative Men series and in other lectures that he brought with him from America. The strident Anglo-Saxonism of the Manchester soiree speech and ‘The Superlative’ is a racialised counterpart and precursor to the heightened elitism expressed in ‘Natural Aristocracy’ and ‘Spirit of the Times.’ Nicoloff’s argument that reading Vestiges of Creation in 1845 led Emerson to believe in naturally superior and inferior types seems particularly persuasive in light of these discourses. Without pushing the impact of social milieu too far, it is worth considering whether Emerson’s ‘elitism’ in this period may also have been influenced by his company. The English professionals and Yorkshire industrialists who hosted Emerson were the elite leaders of what R. J. Morris called an ‘elite-led class.’ Their values — individualism, hierarchical social relations, and an ‘open acceptance of inequality’— were institutionalised through the press and through exclusively middle-class organisations such as Athenaeums and Philosophical and Literary Societies. These institutions in turn moulded and united the ascendant British middle class during the 1830s and 1840s.136 The following chapters will show that this ‘elitism’ became less consistent in Emerson’s writing after 1848 and faded drastically in the 1850s. Both ‘Natural Aristocracy’ and ‘Spirit of the Times’ were eventually discarded for reasons that, I will argue, were tied with the experience of 1848. The themes of leadership and civic duty, however, remained strong. The record of Emerson’s company is also significant in terms of Emerson’s political thought. Emerson’s final ‘homecoming’ to radical-liberalism may have been one reaction to the European Forty-Eight, but Emerson was perhaps never so steeped in a liberal milieu as he was in the months immediately prior to it. The record is another testament to Emerson’s fame and welcome in Britain at the time of his visit, particularly amongst young intellectuals

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and liberal, reform-minded industrialists and entrepreneurs. This sense of welcome is certainly explicable in part as a result of ideological affinities and a shared set of cultural and, at least to some extent, political priorities. Young men looked to Emerson as a secular prophet in the late 1840s in ways similar to those in which Carlyle was attended to a decade or so earlier. As Carlyle shifted further towards absolutism, racism, and intolerance — a trend clearly detectable in Emerson’s correspondence with him in the late 1840s — young liberals and free thinkers like Henry Sutton, George Searle Phillips, and students whom he met during the spring, elevated Emerson to sage status.137 The young and idealistic people Emerson met also influenced him and impacted his immediate and long-term reactions to the British experience and to the revolutions of 1848.

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CHAPTER 4 LONDON AND PAR IS

Emerson was still in Glasgow when revolution broke out in France in late February 1848. By the end of the month he began recording observations and opinions about the February Revolution, beginning a process that continued throughout the rest of his time in Britain and beyond. What were Emerson’s initial responses to the events in France and the spread of revolution to other parts of Europe during the spring of 1848? During March and April Emerson resided in London, walking amongst exclusive social circles whilst at the same grappling with news of the sweeping changes in France, the mass meetings of Chartists, the poverty of London, and the potential of revolution in England. Emerson spent most of the month of May in Paris where he witnessed a newly elected republican government attempting to establish itself amidst militant political clubs and coup attempts. In June Emerson delivered two series of lectures, one of which was given to an elite audience at the Marylebone Literary and Scientific Institute. The most thorough examination of this period in Emerson’s life is in the second chapter of Larry Reynolds’s European Revolutions and the American Renaissance (1988). In Reynolds’s account the question of state Socialism advocated by many in France challenged Emerson’s ‘belief in individualism,’ which had been growing over the course of his winter in England, when his attraction to the ‘power, wealth, and character’ of that country had veered his opinions in a more conservative direction. In March and April, Reynolds argued, Emerson had little to no sympathy

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for Chartism and denounced events in France as ‘a mere scramble for property and money.’ Emerson’s view of mass political action in Britain and France was influenced by the ‘colored lens of the London Times,’ which Margaret Fuller described as ‘violently opposed to the cause of freedom.’1 During his trip to revolutionary Paris in May, however, he was greatly impressed by the earnest radicals working to find solutions to poverty and to other social problems and by the sense of camaraderie he experienced during a national fete on the Champs de Mars. This, Reynolds argued, ‘shifted his outlook back toward the left,’ led him to look at England more critically than before, thawed the winter’s ‘icy elitism,’ and caused him to berate himself for recoiling from the Chartists.2 In the lectures he wrote and delivered after his return to London he turned decidedly away from practical and political issues and concentrated instead on advocating the ‘ideal.’ In the lectures he ‘drew upon contemporary political events but used them to argue that the scholar should remain aloof from the times.’3 A more detailed investigation of this period than Reynolds was permitted in his short chapter shows that whilst some of his conclusions are remarkably revealing, others are somewhat oversimplified. Emerson’s responses to Chartism and to Socialism in March and April were certainly conditioned by The Times but also by other factors, including his heterogeneous company in London. In some of his letters and journal passages the ‘elitism’ Reynolds refers to seems uncharacteristically trenchant. Others, however, show that Emerson was not exclusively dismissive towards the French Republic and seems to have breathed in a sense of revolutionary optimism in advance of his trip to Paris. Emerson’s London lectures were, as Reynolds suggests, metaphysical and idealistic, but also contained a sustained demand for the scholar to engage in social issues through writings and moral support. My primary concern in retelling the story of Emerson in London and Paris, however, is by no means to upend Reynolds’s well written account but rather to build on and add depth to it whilst further demonstrating the persistent relevance of 1848 to Emerson’s thought during the period leading to the Civil War. §

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Emerson left Scotland on 26 February. Rather than take a direct course to the capital, he took up an invitation to the Lake District, where he stayed for three nights. The invitation came from Harriet Martineau, one of the most prominent female intellectuals in Britain, to stay in the lakeside village of Ambleside. Emerson had known Martineau for more than a decade. During the tour of America that resulted in her twin volumes Society in America (1837) and Retrospect of Western Travel (1838) she spoke to the Female Antislavery Society in Boston. Her statements generated a ‘furor,’ which led to a concern for her bodily safety. Charles Emerson, the poet’s brother, saw to it that she was removed from Boston and housed safely outside of the city at Ralph Waldo’s home in Concord. After this meeting, Martineau became one of the first to promote Emerson’s works in Britain.4 In Ambleside, Emerson dined with the Arnold family at the home of the industrialist William Rathbone Greg and met with the aging William Wordsworth for a second time (the first, which he later described in the opening chapter of English Traits, had occurred in August 1833). Emerson thought Wordsworth’s talk to be that of a ‘bitter old Englishman.’ He left the Lake District on 1 March, spent one night in Manchester, and resumed travel the next morning. He wrote to Margaret Fuller with news about his trip and to report that ‘through all th[is] wondrous French news which all tongues & telegraphs discuss, I go to London.’5 What had happened in Paris was still registering upon the rest of Europe and the world, though by the beginning of March it had become clear that the uprising known as the February Revolution had been successful. It was a time of conversation, speculation, and wonder. Even Wordsworth was ‘full of talk on French news.’6 The events themselves began on 22 February in Paris. A major Reform Banquet scheduled for that day had been prohibited by the government. The French banquets were organised and attended almost exclusively by various members of the opposition to the Guizot ministry, including both Bourbon legitimists and republicans, with a mutual interest in electoral reform. The banquet planned for 22 February was to be a culminating, grand-scale affair organised by the Twelfth Arrondissement of Paris, an already volatile and radicalised section of the city.7 Guizot

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declared the banquet illegal, which caused the editor of the opposition newspaper Le National to call for demonstrations. On the 22 February, crowds of protestors, ‘gathering strength and courage as they rolled along chanting the “Marseillaise,”’ converged on the Place de la Madeleine.8 The following day King Louis-Philippe dismissed Guizot, causing celebrations that came abruptly to an end the same night when a gunshot was heard, prompting guards to open fire on a crowd gathered around the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, killing more than fifty. During the night hundreds of barricades were built in the streets; the military began mobilisation at five o’clock on the morning of 24 February. Over the course of the morning, fatal skirmishes occurred including a battle between crowds and the Municipal Guard at the Château d’Eau. Some (mainly middle-class) National Guard regiments refused to obey orders. A rebel National Guard captain, accompanied by a body of students from the École Polytechnique, invaded and took control of the Hôtel de Ville at eleven o’clock that same morning without a shot fired.9 Louis-Philippe abdicated the throne and fled Paris in disguise. In the afternoon the July Monarchy’s equivalent of the House of Commons, the Chambre des Députés, convened at the Palais Bourbon. They heard an appeal for the establishment of a regency with Louis-Philippe’s ten-year-old grandson as the new monarch. Crowds poured into the chamber in the middle of the proceedings. Alphonse de Lamartine — a poet, historian, and moderate representative — took the floor and argued that a regency would not function under the present circumstances and that a new provisional government should be created. The crowd, Lamartine, and the radical republican representative Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin then proceeded to the Hôtel de Ville and declared France a republic under a provisional government headed by eleven deputies plus one member of the working class, a button-factory operative referred to as Albert the Worker.10 Emerson’s primary source of information on all of these matters was the British press and, most specifically, The Times of London. Reports of the Republic’s 25 February pledge to guarantee a living wage and the right to work to all French citizens, and its decree abolishing capital punishments, were discussed incessantly in the newspapers. The

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full roll-call of the provisional government, including the names Louis Blanc, a well-known Socialist writer and theoretician, and Albert the Worker was printed in the 29 February edition of the The Times.11 Within the week a ten-hour working day was made law in Paris, all restrictions on freedom of the press and right to assemble were removed, and a commitment to universal suffrage was established by the provisional government. In early March Emerson made plans to stay in London for two months and then go to Paris in early May ‘if bullets have ceased to sing on the Boulevards.’12 Several aspects of Emerson’s initial reactions to, and thoughts about, the French Revolution of 1848 seem to be closely intertwined with the reactions of those with whom he was in contact in London, and with what he was reading. In general, the British were sceptical about the revolution, but few regretted the end of Louis-Philippe’s reign and most hoped for a stabilisation of the new French Republic.13 In a letter from London dated 8 March Emerson wrote that ‘every one is full of this astounding French Revolution, and I read the Times newspaper through day by day. The Times, since the first days, has taken the best tone on the subject, & professes no sympathy or respect for poor Louis Philippe.’14 Emerson’s arrival in London combined with the rapid-fire of current events turned his already established interest in the The Times into an obsession. In his journals, he compiled a list of reporters (Times articles were generally anonymous), recorded data on its circulation, and wrote down anecdotes pertaining to the paper and its production, which he considered a chief monument of the modern world.15 Many, though not all, of Emerson’s notes and opinions recorded during his first residence in London parallel those expressed in its editorials. In the final days of February, The Times offered little speculation on the events taking place across the Channel. On 1 March an editorial appeared with an analysis of the events in France that set the tone the paper was to take over the coming months. In it, the author makes no argument for or against the overthrow of the monarchy. In seeking out the ‘leading principle’ of the current revolution, he concludes that, ‘The change in the form of Government, the extinction of the monarchy, the expulsion of the Bourbons . . . are events of perhaps

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less significance than the social changes which the present leaders have sought to commence.’ There follows a harsh, sustained criticism of the new government’s initiatives to better the lives of the French workers, which are described as ‘more or less effects of what are called Communist doctrines.’ The creation of National Workshops, in which unemployed workers were provided with food and a salary, often in exchange for little or no actual labour, was already underway. The article argues that whilst the government affected to deliver a service to the working classes by taking ‘large bodies of these destitute heroes into the pay of the state’ and converting the Tuileries Palace into ‘an asylum for destitute workmen,’ all at the expense of the tax-paying classes, it was in effect setting itself up for a disaster that will destroy the entire economy and result in greater suffering for all. The promises the government offered to the workers were, according to the author, ‘absolutely contrary to the laws of nature itself.’16 By the middle of March the established tone of The Times was merciless towards the French Republic. In an editorial that Emerson cut out and sent home, the author argues that the only imaginable outcome for France was ‘ruin the most hideous, total, and universal.’ France is portrayed as being governed by a mob dictatorship. The Socialistic measures are described as little more than a conspiracy against the bourgeoisie, which the revolution robbed, ruined, and imprisoned.17 Emerson’s March and April journals contain many statements that echo the sentiments and arguments in The Times. He remarked that unlike the American Revolution, which was ‘political merely,’ the new French Revolution had a ‘feature new to history, that of socialism.’18 Ruminations on the workability of Socialism began to crop up frequently in his notebooks. In several passages he seems to denounce it wholeheartedly: ‘You shall not arrange property as to remove the motive for industry. If you refuse rent & interest, you make all men idle & immoral. As to the poor, a vast proportion have made themselves so, and in any new arrangement would only prove a burden to the state.’ In one entry he illustrated that an individual’s motive to industry is bound up with private gains: ‘Now we will work, because we can have it all to our snug selves; tomorrow we will not, because it goes to the community, & we all stand on the pauper’s footing.’19 In

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other passages he concludes that even if a working Socialist state did exist — if men no longer needed to worry that they might someday be without bread — that it would not allow the development of heroic individuals. He speculates that a true education in the ‘University of Nature’ demands both ‘famine & plenty, insult & rapture, wisdom & tragedy, infernal & supernal society.’20 Some months later he wrote that the ‘better races’ would perish if the whole world were under the safety of a ‘right Socialism.’21 Given the importance of heroic individuals to the process of historical progress within Emerson’s framework, any system that would endanger their formation is rejected. Other journal entries from this time seem strangely misanthropic in tone. He remarked how, when walking through the street, many people’s faces reminded one of ‘visages in the forest; they have not quite escaped from the lower form.’22 Emerson spent part of March acquainting himself with London, its people, its ‘suburbs & straggling houses on each end.’ He saw scenes of terrible depravity, people ‘searching the filth of the sewers for rings, shillings, teaspoons, & c. which have been washed out of the sinks.’ It was an illiterate population. Forty percent of Englishmen, he noted, could not write their own names.23 One cannot help but wonder if Emerson was in a mood of serious despair and mistrust in humanity when he wrote the bizarre fragment of a poem that appeared in his March journal, or whether he was simply recording what he had heard or read elsewhere: Rags & curds The whole marrow Are not worth the devil Widemouth laughing Haggling & gaping Gaping & buying Heaps of beasts Children & brats Monkeys & cats24 Emerson’s thought naturally returned to the problem of revolution at this time. In his journals he denied any faith in popular revolution that

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does not have its origins in superior society. At one point he wrote: ‘As certainly as water falls in rain on the tops of mountains and runs down into valleys, plains, & pits, so does thought fall first on the best minds, & run down from class to class until it reaches the masses, & works revolutions.’25 In another passage he admitted that though a popular uprising might occur in England, there would be no revolution. It would be merely a ‘scramble for money,’ motivated primarily by desires for material wealth, not characterised by higher goals. Another verdict denies the entire idea of redemptive revolution. Because superior persons, those with ‘spiritual or real power,’ will always make their own place in society, ‘[r]evolutions of violence then are scrambles merely.’26 These statements imply that Emerson believed that a ‘revolution’ is effected when it enters the superior minds. Popular violence is a mere after-effect, and most often is of such an impure and materialistic nature that it cannot, in and of itself, be considered truly revolutionary. Though these were merely journal entries and not definitive public statements, they do show a side to Emerson’s initial response to 1848 that corresponded strongly with the anti-revolutionary tone adopted by The Times. Another factor that may have influenced Emerson’s thinking at this time was his active social life. Emerson’s surroundings in March and April were far from ordinary. The world in which he lived while revolution spread throughout Europe was inhabited, even more than in previous months, nearly exclusively by the wealthy, privileged, and educated elite. The Bancrofts and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Carlyle, made efforts to introduce Emerson to as many of the leading men and women of the age as possible.27 On 14 March Bancroft held a dinner in Emerson’s honour, which was attended by an array of highly influential scholars, scientists, politicians, and diplomats including Thomas Macaulay, Lord Morpeth, and Richard Monckton Milnes. From this point on, the record of Emerson’s residence in London is one of relentless meetings, dinners, and parties. His letters home are punctuated by the scores of names and titles of the people with whom he associated. In March and April alone he became personally acquainted with more than forty men and women listed in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. These have been listed on page 121 simply as a small sampling and indication of the company in which Emerson found himself

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during this time. The list includes aristocrats, literary figures, politicians, and scientists. It also includes socialists, students, and radicals. If one were to add the number of figures Emerson mentions having seen or spoken to briefly, the list would double. To cite only one example, over the course of two gatherings that Emerson attended on 1 April, he saw Prince Albert, the crown prince of Prussia, the prince of Syracuse, the Turkish ambassador, Lord Rothschild, Benjamin Disraeli (who was certain at this time that the ‘complete dissolution of European civilization’ would be the result of the revolutions), and British Foreign Secretary (and future Prime Minister) Lord Palmerston.28 The journal entries described above, which seem marked by elitist, anti-socialist, and anti-revolutionary thinking, were perhaps not uniquely the product of his preoccupation with The Times. Amongst the wealthy elite, fear and anxiety over the potential spread of revolution and violence to England existed. On 24 March, the day after a party at the home of Lord and Lady Ashburton attended by several members of the aristocracy and literary elite, Emerson wrote that ‘French politics are incessantly discussed. . . . Besides the intrinsic interest of the spectacle and the intimate acquaintance which all these people have with all the eminent persons in France, there is evidently a certain anxiety to know whether our days also are not numbered, and whether the splendid privileges of these English palaces . . . are not in too dreadful contrast to famine & ignorance at the door, to last.’29 Later, in June, Emerson recorded being summoned by the duchess of Sutherland to her estate at Stafford House — ‘the best house in England, the Queen’s not excepted’ — where he was given a tour of the galleries and art collections by the duke of Argyll. He concluded: ‘One would so gladly forget that there was anything else in England than these golden chambers & the high & gentle people who walk in them! May the grim Revolution, with his iron hand, if come he must, come slowly & late to Stafford House & deal softly with its inmates!’30 Whilst it would be erroneous to say that Emerson took on a reactionary point of view as the result of his time in high society, it is clear that it contributed to his misgivings about the events in France. However, despite the elite nature of Emerson’s company in March, some of his acquaintances were optimistic about the new French

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Republic. MP Richard Monckton Milnes whose range of acquaintance, Emerson noted, extended ‘from the Chartist to the Lord Chancellor,’ was one example.31 Emerson wrote home that Bancroft and Carlyle shared an enthusiasm for the French.32 Bancroft sent a ninety-page dispatch to Washington about the events in France, which he believed were inspired first and foremost by the example of American republicanism.33 Carlyle’s feelings were characteristically complicated, though he was delighted to see the downfall of the July monarchy.34 Emerson’s connection with Milnes was significant. Before taking up politics, Milnes had authored one of the first reviews of Emerson’s works in Britain. In 1848 he went to great lengths on Emerson’s behalf. He helped to secure him a visiting membership to the Athenaeum Club, later invited Emerson to Lord Palmerston’s in London, and gave a speech ‘full of praises’ at the conclusion of Emerson’s Exeter Hall lecture series in June.35 Emerson recalled that in 1848 he was addressed as ‘Citoyen Milnes’ and spoken of as ‘one who might play, one day, the part of Lamartine, in England.’36 That Milnes was deeply interested in the events in France is attested to by his visit to revolutionary Paris in May, which coincided with Emerson’s. Another new friend of Emerson who shared an enthusiasm for the revolution in France was Arthur Hugh Clough, whom Emerson visited in Oxford in March. Clough was one of a set of Oxford fellows and tutors who had gained reputations as political radicals. Two years previously, he had delivered speeches and published letters and pamphlets demanding sympathy for the working classes and the suffering in Ireland, developing a critique of capitalism and laissez-faire economics of a semi-revolutionary character. His critique of traditional capitalism was harsh and seemed to demand immediate economic and political transformations.37 Clough also took aim against Oxford. He referred to it as an ‘obsolete seat of learning’ in letters and in his ‘Retrenchment’ pamphlet, criticised the university directly for its conspicuous consumption, its ‘over-eating, overdrinking, and over-enjoying . . . frippery [and] dandyism’ as the Irish starved. Emerson had heard passages from the pamphlet read aloud while in Manchester.38 Socialists in London took advantage of the interest aroused by the French events to forward their own utopian visions. Emerson met and dined with

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John Minter Morgan on several occasions in April. Morgan was a Christian Socialist, writer, and social reformer whose salon was famous for its paintings and models of utopia, and as a meeting place for people interested in the possibilities of communal association.39 Alexander Ireland wrote that he visited Morgan in Emerson’s company where he found: . . . an extraordinary assembly, consisting of many of the leading socialists in London. The first part of the evening was spent in the contemplation of a huge coloured revolving view of a series of associated villages and homes, with the most enchanting representations of churches for the cultivation of the universal religion, elegant concert rooms, and theatres, — of ladies and gentlemen walking about in the healthy costumes of the future, their children playing about them, and over all, a sky of unclouded blue.40 In his journal, Emerson noted that Morgan’s vice was to ‘exaggerate the formalities’; Ireland remarked that Emerson often ‘humourously alluded’ to this incident later on.41 Nevertheless, the enthusiasm of Morgan and others for a brighter future for society via sweeping renovation seems not to have been lost on Emerson entirely. Amidst the disparaging, seemingly misanthropic entries of Emerson’s journal are several that, in stark contrast, resemble in tone the utopian optimism of the scene in Morgan’s salon and suggest that already in March, recent events had reawakened Emerson’s sense of a higher civilisation to come: Yes, there will be a new church founded on moral science . . . and it will fast enough gather beauty, music, picture, poetry. It was necessary that this roaring Babylon should fall flat, before the whisper that commands the world could be heard. . . .42 The objection, the loud denial not less proves the reality & conquests of an idea, than the friends & advocates it finds. Thus communism is now eagerly attacked, and all its weak points acutely pointed out by British writers & talkers; which is all so much homage to the Idea, whose first inadequate expressions interest them so deeply, & with which they feel their fate to be mingled.43

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The second passage seems to be aimed against the same Times articles that he admired. A division in Emerson’s outlook on political economy began to present itself in the March and April journals. A severely critical strain against English industrial capitalism appeared. The disparity between rich and poor was never more apparent than in London. In some conversations the conclusion was reached that ‘pauperism,’ or the existence of an impoverished lower class dependent on public relief, was inherent and ineffaceable within English economic arrangements.44 In one entry Emerson asked: ‘What wrong road have we taken that all the improvements of machinery have helped every body but the operative? Him they have incurably hurt.’45 In the spring of 1848, Emerson began to reconsider a number of issues. His journal entries concerning politics and social arrangements are inconsistent, and often contradictory, which suggests that his opinions were unsettled and that he was considering a number of divergent points of view. From early March Emerson’s journals show that two identifiably separate strains of thought existed alongside one another. One was a belief that British-style liberal capitalism was the best and most workable system for the present age. The other was a belief in a better, fairer arrangement that, some time in the future, will come into its own. Emerson seemed to halfbelieve at least that the revolutions of 1848 and the introduction of Socialism into revolutionary politics were omens of this coming arrangement. Also at this time, Emerson commenced a friendship with J. J. Garth Wilkinson, a physician and the most important British expert on Swedenborg. Emerson greatly admired Wilkinson, who, he discovered, was a Fourierist Socialist.46 John Chapman, at whose bookstore he resided during his stay in London, may also have contributed somewhat to this idealism. Chapman, as we have already noted, was a broad-minded political radical who, in spring 1848, was arranging lectures for Emerson in London. He was eagerly hoping to create a new journal for the best young writers of England and America on the plan of The Dial.47 Emerson also re-established contact with Charles Lane, whom he visited at his model school, Alcott House, in Richmond on 19 March.48

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These two strains are early indicators of Emerson’s overall reaction to the revolutions of 1848. On the one hand he held himself at a distance. He believed that society and humanity, as they were in 1848, had not evolved into a state of compatibility with the utopian arrangements of the future, and that any violent revolutions that occurred towards that end would certainly fail. This might help to explain why the sight of the hopeless, destitute, and illiterate caused such turbulent reactions in his journals. The future utopia, the ‘inevitable civilization’ as he called it in conversation with Clough, depended on the perfection of man.49 Emerson wrote that people who expected a revolution would be disappointed, that none deserving the name would occur. However, he did believe that men were changing, that the force of progress was slowly turning mankind into a superior race, which was an omen of true revolution.50 He saw the French Revolution of 1848 as a step in this progression, especially after his visit to revolutionary Paris in May, and felt that the duty of the scholar was to side with the movement rather than against it.51 Table 4.1: Emerson’s Acquaintances between March and April 1848 who Figure in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Arnold, Matthew Poet, writer, and inspector of schools Ashburton, Lady Harriet Mary Baring Literary hostess Auckland, Lord (Robert John Eden) Bishop of Bath and Wells Austin, Charles Barrister Bates, Joshua Merchant and banker Buckland, William Geologist and dean of Westminster Bunsen, Christian Karl Josias von Diplomatist and scholar Carlyle, Thomas Author, biographer, and historian

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Jacobson, William Bishop of Chester and theologian Jameson, Anna Brownell Murphy Writer and art historian Kinglake, Alexander William Historian and travel writer Lockhart, John Gibson Writer and literary editor Lyell, Sir Charles Geologist Macaulay, Thomas Babington Historian, essayist, and poet Milman, Henry Hart Historian and dean of St Paul’s Milnes, Richard Monckton Author and politician

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Carpenter, William Benjamin Biologist and university administrator Chapman, John Publisher and physician Clough, Arthur Hugh Poet Cobden, Richard Manufacturer and politician Cornwall, Barry (Byran Waller Proctor) Poet and lawyer Croker, John Wilson Politician and writer Dickens, Charles Novelist Daubeny, Charles Giles Bridle Chemist and botanist Fellows, Charles Traveller and archaeologist Field, Edwin Wilkins Law reformer and promoter of art Forbes, Edward Natural historian Forster, John Writer and literary adviser Froude, James Anthony Historian and man of letters Hallam, Henry Historian

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Molesworth, Sir William Politician Monteagle, Baron (Thomas Spring Rice) Politician Morgan, John Minter Educationist and socialist Morpeth, Viscount (G. W. F. Howard) Earl of Carlisle, politician Northampton, Marquis (S. J. A. Compton) Patron of science and the arts Owen, Sir Richard Anatomist and palaeontologist Palgrave, Francis Turner Anthologist and art critic Panizzi, Sir Anthony Librarian Patmore, Coventry Poet and essayist Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn Dean of Westminster Swanwick, Anna Translator, writer, and social reformer Thackeray, William Makepeace Novelist Wilberforce, Samuel Bishop of Oxford and of Winchester Wilkinson, J. J. G. Swedenborgian writer and homeopath

It is important to take note of three other aspects of Emerson’s time in London during March and April 1848: his trip to Oxford at the end of March, his exposure to scientific debates, and his reaction to the Chartist agitation, which culminated in the 10 April mass meeting.

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Emerson came to Oxford as a tourist and observer. He went sightseeing, was given tours of some of the university buildings and libraries, and recorded many anecdotes that later found their way into the chapter ‘Universities’ in English Traits. Though he said little to the effect, it is not unreasonable to conjecture that Emerson was interested in observing how students were reacting to the revolutions abroad. By late March, revolutions had spread from Paris to all corners of Europe. The press at the time of Emerson’s visit reported revolts in Lombardy, Hungary, Milan, Parma, Modena, Padua, and Venice; open conflicts were noted in Prussia and Poland; collapsed governments were seen in Bavaria and Denmark; and Klemens von Metternich was reported to have fled from Austria.52 In nearly all of these revolts and revolutions, students played a major role. In Vienna especially, students had been the driving force demanding reform, and were among the first to die when troops opened fire on demonstrators on 13 March.53 Clough, Emerson’s host at Oxford, and some of the students he met while he was there were staging their own rebellions. The university, in 1848, was a stronghold of the Church Establishment. The number of undergraduates ordained into the priesthood at mid-century hovered around fifty percent.54 Dissenters and Catholics were naturally excluded and all students, as was also the case in Cambridge, were obliged to swear allegiance to the 39 Articles of the Church of England. The University had recently been severely shaken by the decision of J. H. Newman and fifty others associated with the ‘Oxford Movement’ to leave the Church of England and convert to Roman Catholicism, thereby forfeiting their posts at Oxford in 1845 after a series of headto-head conflicts within the university.55 As a tutor, Newman was extremely influential. His departure left a void in inspired leadership, which may help to explain Emerson’s appeal to this generation. Clough noted that many in Oxford thought Emerson to be very much like Newman in manner.56 One result of Newman’s energies and attentions as a teacher was a crop of morally conscious, earnest, and inspired youth, which retained a sense of duty and habit of moral interrogation. Many students, like Clough, felt called to reject the 39 Articles even without switching over to a different traditional religious programme. Emerson recalled that in Oxford he saw ‘several faithful, high-minded

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young men, some of them in the mood of making sacrifices for peace of mind.’57 Clough had recently given up his post as tutor at Oriel and, within a few months, would renounce his fellowship.58 Emerson visited Oxford between 30 March and 1 April. Clough had written in his invitation: ‘Your name is not a thing unknown to us.. . . I do not say it would be a passport in a society fenced about by Church Articles. But amongst the juniors there are many that have read and studied your books, and not a few that have largely learned from them.’59 Forty years later, Matthew Arnold remembered the morally beleaguered young men of Oxford in the 1840s ‘listening for voices’ of guidance. Newman and Carlyle had novel things to say to them, but it was Emerson, he concluded, who could provide the ‘forward-looking hope,’ most needed at that time.60 Arnold relates that Oxford students had been reading his works as early as 1840, even before they had been published in Britain.61 During his visit to Oxford Emerson came into direct contact with several dons and students who shaped the cultural life of Britain in the ensuing decades. Besides Arnold and Clough, Emerson mentions having been introduced to James Anthony Froude (with whom he remained in contact throughout the ensuing decades), William Jacobson, the theologian set to replace Renn Dickson Hampden as Regius Professor of Divinity; Charles Daubeny, professor of botany and educational reformer; and a number of young men whose major accomplishments lay yet in the future including Francis Palgrave, the future critic and minister, and Arthur Stanley, the future dean of Westminster. In London, Emerson was also exposed to various viewpoints in the widening scientific debates on the origins of life, species, and races. He met on numerous occasions with the prominent anatomist Richard Owen, who guided Emerson on a tour of the Hunterian Museum, provided him with tickets to his lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons, and later took him to the private gallery of his friend J. M. W. Turner. In March and April 1848 Emerson was invited to several meetings of London’s Geological Society, where he met many of the foremost men of science in Britain.62 Emerson’s recorded notes from this time reflect the unsettled state of science in Britain. He found Owen in the habit of ‘abusing without mercy’ the transmutationists — those who, like Robert Chambers and later Charles Darwin, believed that one species

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could change or develop into another.63 By this time a divide had come to exist between monogenists, who held that all humans descended from a single pair of common ancestors, and polygenists, who believed that human beings came into being in different regions of the world at different times, and therefore did not all share the same origins. Polygenists argued that the differences between racial types could not simply have evolved since the creation and therefore must be traced to separate original types whose traits persisted in their descendents. This theory had dangerous consequences: it could be used to justify the idea of superiorities and inferiorities inherent in each man’s blood, based on who his ancestors were. It negated the idea of a single human family in which all were equal as descendents of Adam and Eve. Many leading scientists of the day, including Owen and Louis Agassiz, the Swiss-born naturalist who is credited with carrying the hypothesis to America, used the results of their research to reject the validity of monogenism.64 Emerson was also exposed to the opposite argument. He recorded in his journal that at one meeting of the Geological Society he sat between the Society President Henry De La Beche and Lord Selkirk. ‘When I remarked, that I understood the accepted view of the creation of races to be, that many individuals appeared simultaneously, & not one pair only, Lord S. replied, that there was no geological fact which is at variance with the Mosaic History.’65 Emerson’s exposure to these scientific debates is important to note in relation to the lectures that he wrote around this time and delivered in June, and to his thought on race and equality during the 1850s. The students he met in Oxford gained prominence as intellectuals in ensuing decades. As we will see, Emerson felt a sharp sense of betrayal when Arnold and others refused to support the North during the Civil War. § Witnessing the fate of the Chartist movement in 1848 played an important role in shaping Emerson’s response to the revolutions of 1848 in general and continued to weigh on his mind throughout the 1850s. Chartism was a nationwide worker’s movement with a national

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organ, the Northern Star, and a leadership council of representatives from all parts of Britain. They rallied around a programme of six points for governmental reform known as the People’s Charter, which called for universal male suffrage, secret ballot style voting, paid parliaments elected annually, equal electoral districts, and the abolition of the property qualification for representatives in the House of Commons.66 We have already noted several aspects of the movement: the sheer size of its support base, the division between ‘moral force’ and ‘physical force’ Chartists, the connection between certain Chartist leaders and continental revolutionists, the tension that existed between certain Chartists and the middle classes, and the riots that occurred throughout Britain upon the rejection of the Charter in 1842. Radical Chartism had long been perceived as the biggest threat to the security of the British government outside Ireland and as the movement that held the largest revolutionary potential. In the charged atmosphere of spring 1848, the threat appeared to loom larger than ever.67 When Emerson arrived in London on 3 March the situation was heating up. After February, Chartist delegations were making overtures to insurrectionists in Ireland and France, to the terror of the British authorities.68 A mass meeting at Trafalgar Square was called for 6 March. A law on the books prohibited political meetings within one mile of Westminster Hall, but the ban came too late and 8,000 to 10,000 people arrived that Monday. Chartist leaders delivered speeches and by evening unplanned looting and rioting took place and continued over three days.69 At the same time the riots in Glasgow described in the last chapter received national attention. The Times described the rioters in London and Glasgow variously as ‘drunkards shouting “Down with the Queen”’ as a ‘Chartist mob,’ or as unemployed operatives stirred by the events of France and by the speeches of certain ‘Chartist demagogues.’70 In a letter written on 8 March Emerson reported on the mob activity and looting in London and Scotland. He concluded that despite the ‘vast population of hungry operatives,’ the peace of Britain would not be disturbed; that the rioters ‘will only, in the coming months, give body & terror to the demands made by the Cobdens & Brights, who agitate for the Middle Class; when these are satisfied, the universal

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suffrage & the Republic will come in.’71 The previous evening he had attended a Chartist meeting at the National Hall in Holborn. The assembly was called to welcome the Chartist leaders who had been sent to offer congratulations to the French Republic and who had recently returned to London. Emerson was probably unaware that the three leaders sent—George Julian Harney, Ernest Jones, and Philip McGrath—were among the most visionary advocates of revolution within the movement. Harney and Jones were Socialists and personal friends and colleagues of Marx and Engels.72 At this point, however, even the most radical Chartist leaders had an interest in restraining violent impulses. The hooligan rioting occurring simultaneously would put off possible supporters. Signatures were still being collected and plans still being made for a big move, a third presentation of the People’s Charter to Parliament — this time with more than five million signatures of support — and until then order was of the highest priority. Taking the scene at face value, Emerson recorded in his journal: ‘The leaders appeared to be grave men, intent on keeping a character for the order & moral tone in their proceedings, but the great body of the meeting liked best the sentiment, “Every man a ballot & every man a musket.”’73 By the end of March Emerson appears in his letters much less certain that England would remain peaceful. He envisioned the conflict that might occur as one of poor against rich, of haves against have-nots. In the same letter of 23 March in which he described the apprehensions of his wealthy hosts, he wrote that ‘if the peace of England should be broken up, the aristocracy here, — or, should I say, the rich, — are stouthearted, & as ready to fight for their own, as the poor; and are not very likely to run away.’74 His faith in the Chartist leadership, as we shall see, also deteriorated completely over the course of the spring. In Britain, suspicion of the Chartists’ intentions to stage a revolution, using violence if necessary, grew throughout the month. The blame for the Glasgow riots was placed on Chartist mobs and demagogues; The Times noted on 10 March that the events had ‘created a very uneasy feeling here, as heralding the occurrence of similar outbreaks in other parts of the United Kingdom.’75 A Chartist mass meeting was held at

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Kennington Common on 13 March. The Times reported that the police would take ‘all necessary measures’ to prevent an assault on the public peace and noted that the gunsmiths of London had been asked to unscrew the barrels of their firearms. The following day, reporting on the makeup of the crowd and the speakers an article read: ‘None of the more respectable Chartists (if we may use the term) were present. There were no decent-looking tradesmen or hard-working mechanics.’76 At that meeting it was proclaimed that the third presentation of the National Charter would occur on 10 April, bearing millions of signatures and accompanied by a procession of 200,000 to the House of Commons. This began a month-long buildup to what many expected would be a day of violence and attempted revolution if the Charter were rejected. Meanwhile, the press onslaught grew worse as Chartists, Irish radicals, and foreign rioters were increasingly cast into the same category as revolutionists and portrayed as threats to public order and stability.77 By early April, all eyes, including Emerson’s, were fixed on the Chartists and many expected 10 April to be the possible date of a revolution in Britain.78 This revolution, it was clear, would not be like February in Paris. It would be an almost entirely working-class affair. The upper and middle classes of London braced themselves. More than 8,000 enrolled as special constables, encouraged by notices in The Times. Some Chartist leaders were seriously planning for violent action. Tentative plans were made to declare a provisional government composed of representatives in the Chartist Convention and some, Ernest Jones, for instance, felt assured that Chartist militias from the northern counties could be called upon for reinforcement.79 No revolution occurred on 10 April. The government informed the Chartists that their meeting could take place at Kennington Common, south of the Thames, but that no procession would be allowed to Parliament and that carrying arms was strictly forbidden. It was made clear that enforcement would be used if any of the rules were broken. The Chartist leader Feargus O’Connor agreed to the conditions. The meeting took place as scheduled. O’Connor and the petition went to Parliament in a cab. The crowds dispersed without incident. The petition, bearing nearly six million signatures according to O’Connor, was examined by a committee, which concluded that

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fewer than two million were genuine, the majority being forgeries.80 Under such circumstances, the motion to vote on the points of the Charter in Parliament was not made. From this point, the cooperation between ‘physical’ and ‘moral force’ Chartists dwindled. In May and June Chartist demonstrations continued, often ending in violence. Mass meetings were suppressed and scores of arrests were made.81 The immediate impact of all this on Emerson was to force him to consider what stance he should take on the Chartist challenge. As was typical for him, Emerson converted this question into a broader one about revolution, history, politics, and the place and duties of the scholar. A journal entry, probably written a month after the major demonstration in London, is illustrative enough of Emerson’s understanding of, and reactions to, the Chartists’ failure to be quoted at length. The English writers, he asserts, are ‘bold and democratic.’ However: The moment revolution comes, are they Chartists & Montagnards? No, but they talk & sit with the rich & sympathize with them. Should they go with the Chartist? Alas they cannot: These have such gross & bloody chiefs to mislead them, and are so full of hatred & murder, that the scholar recoils; — and joins the rich. That he should not do. He should accept as necessary the crimes of the Chartist, yet more abhorring the oppression & hopeless selfishness of the rich, &, still writing the truth, say, the time will come when these poor enfans perdus [sic] of revolution will have instructed their party, if only by their fate, & wiser counsels will prevail, & the music & the dance of liberty will take me in also. Then I shall have not forfeited my right to speak & act for the Movement party. Shame to the fop of philosophy who suffers a little vulgarity of speech & character to hide from him the true current of Tendency, & who abandons his true position of being priest & poet of those impious & unpoetic doers of God’s work.82 In this passage several points arise that foreshadow Emerson’s future as a politically engaged public intellectual and suggest the philosophical foundations upon which his engagement would rest. First,

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Emerson silently admits to the general right of the Chartists’ demands. Despite their ‘crimes,’ the goals of the Chartists are associated with ‘movement’ and in line with the ‘true current of Tendency.’ Secondly, Emerson begins to ask the question that was to take centre stage in the London lectures: within this historical framework, what does the scholar do; what are his duties? In April he had written in his journal that ‘when I heard the times were anxious & political, that there is to be a Chartist revolution on Monday next, and an Irish revolution the following week that the right scholar would feel, — now was the hour to test his genius.’83 Yet what he witnessed was a general retreat from the political arena on the part of the British intellectual classes at a time of crisis. At this point, the illusion produced at the National Hall meeting had faded; he saw the Chartist leaders as ‘gross and bloody chiefs’; they had been left to lead, presumably, because the true intellects of England were unable to handle the rougher elements of the movement. Emerson had spent the evening of 9 April, the eve of the major Chartist demonstration, in the company of Wilkinson and Thomas Cooper, a poet and former Chartist leader who had separated himself from the movement. Emerson found Cooper, O’Connor, and other Chartist leaders uninspiring and judged them likely to mislead or even to ‘betray’ the people.84 The conclusion reached in this passage is that in times of conflict, the scholar has a duty not only to observe, support, and sympathise with the side that represents the progressive tendency, no matter how vulgar its base-level adherents may appear, but also to be a leader, a ‘priest or poet’ to them. The idea of the duty of the scholar in actively forwarding the progressive historical revolution took stronger hold over Emerson during his visit to France and became a major issue in his London lectures. Witnessing the complete failure of the Chartists to see any of their proposed reforms passed through Parliament due to what he saw as a forfeit of duty on the part of England’s men of thought left a lasting impact on Emerson. It contributed to his sense of duty to engage himself in political and social causes during the 1850s and 1860s. §

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After rounding out the most intensely social two months of his career in London, Emerson travelled overnight to Paris on 6–7 May 1848.85 He took up residence at 15 rue des Petits Augustins (renamed rue Bonaparte in 1852) on the Left Bank, across the Seine from the Louvre, near the western tip of the Île de la Cité.86 Unlike in England, he was still relatively little-known in Paris at this time. No major translations of his work had appeared yet, though a series of critical articles in well-known reviews had been released. As early as 1844 Philarète Chasles lauded Emerson above all other American writers in the influential Revue des Deux Mondes.87 In July 1846 the first major article on Emerson appeared in La Revue Indépendante. In a lengthy appraisal, the concepts of self-reliance and non-conformity in Emerson’s Essays are summarised. Emerson is described as ‘the personification of American genius, genius impatient of all authority and disdainful of all traditions.’88 The author was Marie de Flauvigny, the comtesse d’Agoult, writing under the penname Daniel Stern. The comtesse, whom Emerson would meet in Paris, was a highly regarded critic and historian with strong republican views. Later she wrote one of the most important early histories of the 1848 revolution.89 Interestingly, speaking of Emerson’s work in her 1846 article she concluded: ‘here is a prophetic signal . . . the United States owe their origin to revolt . . . after having been the soldiers of independence it will be given them to become the poets of it.’90 On the eve of Emerson’s departure another major article in the Revue des Deux Mondes was published. The author was Émile Montégut, a conservative liberal. Unsurprisingly, Montégut said little about Emerson as a descendent of the American revolutionaries, but lauded him as a defender of the ‘droits de l’individu.’91 Emerson’s most thorough impact was on a group of professors at the Collège de France. Adam Mickiewicz, an exiled republican and still the most renowned poet of the Polish language (generally known as the Shakespeare of Polish literature) was reading Emerson’s Nature as early as 1838. He recommended and loaned his copy to his colleague Edgar Quinet.92 Quinet was a prolific historian and translator and well-known republican. He later procured a copy of Fraser’s edition of Emerson’s Essays, made extensive notes on it in his journal, and cited

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his ideas repeatedly in lectures composed in 1844, referring to him as ‘the most idealistic writer of our time.’93 Mickiewicz spoke of Emerson at length in his 1843–44 lecture series on Slavic literature, stressing his spiritual qualities, idealism, and parallels in his work to the ‘Polish idea of nationality.’94 Mickiewicz and Quinet were dismissed or forced to resign from the Collège de France for their political proselytising in 1845. Both went on to support the revolutions in 1848 through their writings and actions. Quinet provided guns to his students, fought in the barricades, and later lived in exile during the Second Empire; Mickiewicz, to whom we will return, went on to fight in Italy in 1848 before returning to Paris to edit a revolutionary daily in 1849, which ran the first translation of Emerson’s ‘Man the Reformer’ in 1849.95 When Emerson arrived in May 1848 Mickiewicz was already in Italy. Quinet had just taken up his elected post as a radical deputy from the department of Ain (his place of birth) in the National Constituent Assembly and, though there had been an attempt to set up a meeting, it was not possible before Emerson’s return to London.96 Emerson allowed his interest in the political and social life of the unsettled capital to shape his time there. He spent most of it in Paris amongst Britons and Americans who had come to witness the historic events taking place on a daily basis. Since the establishment of the provisional government on 25 February the world watched as nearly every day new laws, decrees, and initiatives were passed by the government. On 26 February the death penalty for political crime was abolished. On 28 February the National Workshops were authorised and the Luxembourg Labour Commission, headed by the Socialist theoretician Louis Blanc was established. On 2 March adherence to the principle of universal suffrage and a ten-hour work day in Paris (eleven in the provinces) were announced; on 4 March complete liberty of press and assembly were granted and commitment to slave emancipation made official;97 on 8 March a property qualification for entry in the National Guard was abolished leading to mass demonstrations and counterdemonstrations on the 16 and 17 March for and against disbanding elite companies, causing a postponement of the general election. It was feared that a new Socialist-driven insurrection might erupt on 16 April when workers assembled to elect staff officers

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for the National Guard (labour organisations had been allotted fourteen representatives in the corps) on the Champ de Mars. After the election a procession of 40,000 marched to the Hôtel de Ville and presented the government with a petition demanding a ‘more socially oriented policy’ of the provisional government; no shots were fired.98 On 20 April a successful public ‘Feast of Fraternity’ was held in Paris. Three days later a 900-member Constituent National Assembly was chosen by universal male suffrage. This ended the tenure of the provisional government and also dashed the hopes of radicals and Socialists due to the relatively conservative returns — 500 of the chosen deputies were moderate, anti-Socialist republicans; 300 royalists (200 Orléanists and 100 Bourbon legitimists). Only 80 were ‘progressive’ republicans, and of them only 34 were members of the working class. Of the five members elected to the Executive Commission four (François Arago, Louis-Antoine Garnier-Pagès, Pierre Marie de SaintGeorges, Alphonse de Lamartine) were moderates; only Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin represented the Left. The first meeting was held on 4 May at the Palais Bourbon. A number of Emerson’s friends and acquaintances were already in Paris at the time of his arrival. W. E. Forster had arrived in France with Geraldine Jewsbury and the Paulets on 30 April.99 Arthur Hugh Clough came on 3 May, taking up residence at 4 rue Mont Thabor.100 The entire group was engaged in what might be described as revolutionary tourism — visiting the sites of the recent street battles and investigating the political landscape in the new Republic. The day before Emerson’s arrival the group had visited Versailles and the site of the 24 February burning of the royal throne.101 Emerson began visiting Parisian political clubs immediately after arriving in Paris. More than 200 clubs representing all areas in the professional and political spectra were established in Paris between the February revolution and Emerson’s visit, each trying to make its voice heard through publications, posters, and demonstrations.102 Emerson went to several club meetings during his first week in Paris. On the 8 May he went to a Fair Trade Club with Forster and Mrs Paulet; the following evening to Armand Barbès’s Club de la Révolution. Two days later Emerson saw Auguste Blanqui speak to the militant Société des Droits de

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l’Homme.103 He also appears to have attended a meeting of the Club des Femmes.104 Barbès and Blanqui’s clubs were both radical, leftist, and affiliated themselves with the Jacobin tradition.105 Within a week of Emerson’s attendance at their club speeches, both Barbès and Blanqui were facing imprisonment in connection with a coup attempt, which, Emerson noted, ‘came within an ace of succeeding.’106 A number of factors had contributed to the creation of a volatile situation in Paris. Peter Amann has argued that the anticlimactic 16 April demonstration left some workers with a sense of humiliation and alienation in the new Republic and dramatically increased antagonisms between radicals and moderates.107 The extreme Left were understandably dissatisfied with the results of the 23 April national elections. The anti-Socialist landslide portended the disestablishment of the National Workshops (upon which thousands were already dependent for food and money), the reversal of the initiatives begun by Louis Blanc in the Luxembourg Commission, an end to the political power of the radical clubs, and a return to ‘bourgeois order.’ Three immediate issues became touchstones for the extreme Left’s anger. In Rouen radical workers demonstrated in protest against the defeat of their candidates on 30 April. After a worker was injured by National Guardsmen, a riot ensued that was put down with force. The sting of injustice associated with the ‘Rouen Massacre’ was exacerbated by the results of a highly anticipated meeting of the National Assembly on 10 May. In that session Louis Blanc’s proposals for the creation of a Ministry of Progress were ‘hooted down’ by the Assembly. Finally, the Assembly’s failure to send arms to aid the Polish at a crucial moment in their revolts against Prussia and Austria (centred in Posen and Krakow respectively) indicated to some that France’s new leaders were as unrevolutionary as those they had replaced.108 Aloysius Huber, the president of the Club des Clubs (a coordinating agency for the club movement, strongly tied to Barbès’s Club de la Révolution) called for a mass demonstration in favour of aiding the Polish revolutionaries for 15 May. An unarmed procession of 40,000 formed at the Place de la Bastille and marched west to the Place de la Révolution (now Place de la Concorde). Finding the Palais

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Bourbon poorly guarded, the crowd stormed the building, disrupting the meeting of the National Assembly, and presented their petition. Barbès and Blanqui, as surprised by this turn of events as anyone, gave speeches.109 Huber announced that the Assembly was dissolved. The procession then marched to the Hôtel de Ville and proclaimed a new provisional government composed entirely of left-wing club leaders, revolutionaries, and workers.110 The insurrection was doomed to failure, however. Within hours Lamartine and Ledru-Rollin gained control over the scattered and confused National Guard and ordered a siege on the Hôtel de Ville, which quickly ended the uprising without firing a shot. Emerson was in the Sorbonne attending a lecture by Jules Michelet on Indian philosophy and another by the mathematician and astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Leverrier on 15 May.111 In the afternoon after the lecture Emerson heard rumours that the government had been routed but soon saw the government’s counteroffensive underway. He witnessed an ‘immense and sudden display of arms,’ ‘streets full of bayonets,’ and ‘the furious driving of the horses dragging cannon towards the National Assembly.’ He found Forster and the others at the Palais Royal, just beside the building that housed the Club des Clubs headquarters and chief ammunition depot, which, immediately after re-seizure of the Hôtel de Ville, was invaded by government forces.112 He was glad to see the government prevail and wrote home that he was ‘heartily glad of the Shopkeeper’s victory.’113 This does not indicate, however, that he did not sympathise with some of the goals of the more radical leftists — a point to which we will return presently. Emerson, and even Clough, saw Blanqui as a demagogue and conspirator and were not, it seems, unhappy to see him removed to the ‘dungeon of Vincennes.’114 In his final two weeks in Paris Emerson continued to study the political and social terrain of the capital as much as possible. On the 21 May he attended the massive Fête de la Concorde with Clough. In a letter home he described the 120,000 persons assembled at the festival on the Champ de Mars as ‘an immense family.’115 With a letter of invitation from Bancroft, he met Richard Rush, the American ambassador to Paris (and first foreign diplomat to officially recognise

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the provisional government). Rush provided Emerson with an entry pass to the National Assembly where he heard Lamartine deliver a speech on Poland and foreign policy.116 With Clough, Emerson saw several performances by the world-famous actress Rachel, whose 1848 renditions of the ‘Marseillaise’ had already become legendary, and saw the Spanish gallery at the Louvre.117 He was able to meet briefly with the comtesse d’Agoult (Daniel Stern) with whom he went to the studio of the artist Henri Lehmann, who sketched Emerson’s portrait.118 Richard Monckton Milnes was also in Paris at this time and took Emerson to dinner with Alexis de Tocqueville on 25 May.119 He was promised introductions to the controversial political author (and newly elected deputy to the National Assembly) Félicité Robert de Lammenais, Quinet, and others, but was obliged to return to London before meeting them.120 Like so much of Emerson’s experience in 1848, the sojourn in France led to divided sympathies and conflicting conclusions. Indeed, the experience seems at first to have intensified the double reaction that we have traced in his March and April notebooks. On the one hand, Emerson seemed heartened by what he saw as genuine efforts to create a more just society. He wrote home on 17 May, after the coup attempt, that in the clubs the ‘men are in terrible earnest . . . the deep sincerity of the speakers who are agitating social not political questions, and who are studying how to secure a fair share of bread to every man, and to get the God’s justice done through the land, is very good to hear.’121 He saw France as in some ways superior to England. Interestingly considering the amount of blood that was and would again be spilled there, he sensed social cohesion in republican Paris, which contrasted favourably to class-dominated British society. He was taken by his experience at the Fête de la Concorde. Two days later he wrote: ‘I find Paris a place of the largest liberty that is I suppose in the civilized world.’ In Paris ‘Superfine and Shirt’ (shirt being a translation of ‘blouse,’ meaning person of the working class) ‘who never saw each other before, — converse in the most earnest yet deferential way. Nothing like it could happen in England.’122 Emerson remarked that Paris had far fewer beggars than Manchester or London — perhaps the result of their employment in (or at the

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very least, their ability to procure food as a result of) the National Workshops programme. He felt the tone of Parisian society, again by contrast to London, to be ‘free from aristocratic pride.’ Life in Paris was ‘inexpensive,’ compared to England where ‘it is a proverb almost, that, to live . . . at all, you must have a great fortune; which sounds to me as certain a prediction of revolution as musket shots in the streets.’123 At times he put himself into the minds of the agitators in the clubs and of the ‘arithmeticians’ — a reference, perhaps to Blanc and the Luxembourg Labour Commission — who ‘cipher very shrewdly before the masses to show them what is each man’s share.’ Their idea, Emerson wrote in his journal, is that ‘the extreme inequality of property had got so far as to drive to revolution, & will not finish until God’s justice is established, nor until the laborer gets his wages, nor until there is no idler left in the land. . . . ’124 Emerson spent much of his time with young people, Francophiles, and radical Left-leaning enthusiasts. Jewsbury, as we have already noted, was of unconventional political views. He met on several occasions with the Irish Swedenborg-influenced Fourierist Hugh Doherty to whom he had been given a letter of introduction from J. J. G. Wilkinson.125 As noted earlier, Emerson had written about Doherty and his London-based paper The Phalanx in his 1842 Dial article. In 1848 Doherty was living in Paris and contributing to La Phalange.126 Thomas Gold Appleton, a Boston Unitarian who had come to Europe to study art, is referred to often in his letters.127 Most importantly of all, Emerson was with Clough on a near daily basis.128 The language of Clough’s letters home shows the extent to which he identified with the French Left. On 14 May he wrote, ‘I don’t expect much good will come of this present Assembly. It is extremely shopkeeperish and merchantish.’ On 19 May, after the clubs had been disempowered and disarmed he wrote to Arthur Stanley, ‘Liberty, Equality and Fraternity driven back by shop-keeping bayonet, hides her red cap in dingiest St. Antoine. Well-to-do-ism shakes her Egyptian scourge . . . the glory and the freshness of the dream is departed.’129 That Emerson was able to sympathise not only with the guardians of the moderate Republic but also with those who looked to a more Socialistic state may have been influenced by his company.

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Just as his initial reactions to the revolution divided into two strains, other comments from Emerson’s letters and notebooks show that he was extremely wary of the prospect of renewed violence and radical club power. Sometimes Emerson appears beguiled by the intemperate idealism and militancy on display: ‘The fire & fury of the people, when they are interrupted or thwarted, are inconceivable in New England. The costumes are formidable. All France is bearded like goats & lions, then most of Paris is in some kind of uniform red sash, red cap, blouse perhaps bound by red sash, brass helmet, & sword, and every body supposed to have a pistol in his pocket.’130 At other times he seems startled by the ‘seek and slay look’ of torchlight processions.131 In one journal entry, probably written while still in Paris, he either copied or composed what appears to be a mock manifesto for an imaginary new club: The Club des Conspirateurs declares that France is a land of conspiracy. It recognizes the right to riot, and the Supreme Conspirator. Conspiracy is permanent. A Chair of Conspiracy shall be created at the Collège de France. Citizen Blanqui will be commissioned to write, in the silence of the cabinet, a conspiracy manual for children.132 In another journal entry Emerson shows sympathy with the Assembly for ‘muster[ing] courage enough’ to silence the ‘chiefs of all the Clubs’ by turning out the Club des Clubs’s tribune.133 It is interesting that Emerson had little to say regarding Socialism at this time. We have noted that he was very aware of the ‘social question’ being debated. Showing awareness of the issue at stake for many in the radical left, and foreshadowing the conflict that would explode in the June Days, he wrote, ‘The Old Revolution said Qu’est-ce le tiers etat? Rien: Que doit il etre? Tout. The new Revolution reads le producteur for le tiers etat [sic].’134 Emerson would have things to say about Socialism, very publicly, in his June lectures, to which we will turn in the following section. It is possible that at the end of May Emerson put his thoughts on the very current topic straight into his new lecture manuscripts without the intermediate step of journal entries.

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What his journals from this time do show is a concern over whether the gains made by the revolution would last. There was an air of theatricality about the revolutionary city: ‘all Paris seems to me a continuation of the theatre, or of a limonade gazeuse, when I come out of the restaurant. . . .’135 He recalled George Sand’s reference to the ‘immortal inconstancy of the French.’136 Emerson, while extremely interested and even heartened by the new Republic’s potential, advised himself to wait and see: ‘The Boulevards have lost their fine trees, which were all cut down for barricades in February. At the end of a year we shall take account, & see if the Revolution was worth the trees.’137 § In April Emerson had received a letter signed by Carlyle, Dickens, and others formally requesting that he deliver a series of lectures in London, to which he agreed.138 The venue set was the Marylebone Literary and Scientific Institution, located at 17 Edward Street, Portman Square. The public was notified in the 5 June edition of The Times that Emerson would deliver six lectures in a series titled ‘The Mind and Manners of the Nineteenth Century’ starting the following day. Admission for the course was one guinea (£1 1s., or 21s.), or five shillings per individual lecture.139 The titles of the lectures were provocative, especially given the current political situation. The audience of these lectures was composed of London’s wealthy elite. Townsend Scudder compiled a list of nearly thirty literary celebrities and prominent members of the aristocracy known to be in attendance.140 The extraordinarily high price prohibited all but the wealthiest from attending. A letter to the editor of The Examiner appeared on 17 June, suggesting that Emerson deliver another series with a lower cost of admission, which would be ‘commensurate with the means of poets, critics, philosophers, historians, scholars, and other divine paupers of that class.’141 Emerson, at that point, had already written in a letter home that he intended to ‘make amends for my aristocratic Lecturing in Edwards St at prices which exclude all my public’ and accepted engagements offered by the Early Closing Association for a three-lecture series

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Table 4.2: London Lectures, June 1848 Marylebone Literary and Scientific Institute Portman Square, London 6T

Mind and Manners of the Nineteenth Century

8 Th 10 Sa 13 T 15 Th 17 Sa 26 M

‘Powers and Laws of Thought’ ‘Relation of the Intellect to Natural Science’ ‘Tendencies and Duties of Men of Thought’ ‘Politics and Socialism’ ‘Poetry and Eloquence’ ‘Natural Aristocracy’ ‘The Superlative’

Early Closing Association Exeter Hall 23 F ‘Napoleon’ 27 T ‘Domestic Life’ 30 F ‘Shakespeare’

at Exeter Hall, The Strand.142 This series, with admission prices of between two and five shillings for the entire course or a minimum of one shilling and a maximum of two shillings and six pence per lecture, was announced in The Times on 22 June. For this series Emerson returned to the mainstay lectures of his northern tour: ‘Napoleon,’ ‘Domestic Life,’ and ‘Shakespeare,’ which he described as three ‘dull old songs.’143 On the 26 June, after the Exeter Hall series had begun, a previously unscheduled encore performance of ‘The Superlative’ took place at Portman Square. Emerson received thirty-five guineas for the Exeter Hall Series and eighty pounds from the Literary and Scientific Institute for the series plus an extra ten guineas for the final lecture.144 The Mind and Manners series was one of the most unusual of Emerson’s career. None of the lectures in the series was published within Emerson’s lifetime with the sole exception of ‘Poetry and Eloquence,’ which only appeared in 1870, heavily altered. ‘Natural Aristocracy’ was published in Lectures and Biographical Sketches in 1883, the year after Emerson’s death, and also contains a great deal of material that was not part of the original 1848 versions. The remaining

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four lectures existed only in manuscript form until the appearance of The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson in 2001. Emerson conceived of the Mind and Manners series as two courses in one.145 The first three lectures are abstract and concerned with the large-scale project of seeking out the laws and rules that govern the intellect, to which Emerson returned throughout his career. They were all written primarily during the spring of 1848 and delivered in London for the first time.146 The second three lectures are discrete considerations of particular issues, and touch more directly on problems in contemporary society and politics. Very little critical literature exists on these lectures. One important exception is Larry Reynolds’s analysis in European Revolutions and the American Literary Renaissance (1988). Reynolds points out that the lectures were both ‘conservative, in the sense that they belittled the importance of political and social change’ and at the same time ‘advocated a radicalism far more profound than any being voiced by his European contemporaries, including Marx, Blanqui, and Proudhon.’ This ‘radicalism’ was a ‘call for spiritual regeneration, for new men, not new social orders.’147 With respect to Reynolds’s sound conclusions about the fairly conservative tone of the lectures, a new in-depth look at the London lectures, which have been published and annotated in the interim, will show that discourses on politics, reform, and revolution were still present in these lectures, that these are strongly reflective of Emerson’s initial reactions to the events of 1848, and that they foreshadow, in some ways, actions he undertook after his return to America. These lectures were both the concluding statements of Emerson’s tour of Britain and his first public discourses since the outbreak of the revolutions of 1848. Signs of the impact of the revolutions of 1848 are evident throughout the series. It is difficult to accurately reconstruct the June 1848 deliveries of these lectures. All of the lecture manuscripts were altered, revised, or rewritten for subsequent deliveries in the following years. Nevertheless, in the section that follows, I will provide a résumé of each of the lectures as closely as possible to how they were read in London using manuscript drafts and newspaper reviews as guidance.148 ‘Poetry and Eloquence,’ which, unlike the others, was neither new nor considerably revised after February 1848, is

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considered only briefly within the context of the other lectures. The goal in this section is to bring out and analyse the central points and messages of each lecture as they were given in London, and to come to some conclusions about how these relate to Emerson’s dialectics on revolution, state, and society. It is my particular concern to show that while the lectures do not suggest that the experience of 1848 catapulted Emerson into the role of radical revolutionary that he took on during the 1850s, they do point to some changes in his outlook that help to explain that transition. The object of the first lecture, ‘The Powers and Laws of Thought,’ is to introduce the course. With reference to the work of Richard Owen and to the scientific discussions he had attended in London and Paris, Emerson asks whether the methods of compiling natural facts in order to understand the laws that govern the world could also be applied to a study of the intellect. The project, he admits, is enormous and far beyond the reach of any single researcher. He states that his goal in the first three lectures is simply to present some ‘sketches or studies’ towards such an investigation. The special purpose of the first lecture is to establish the intellect as a positive, creative, and progressive force and to discuss the impediments that civilisation imposes on it. He argues that society tends to drive men of thought either to isolation and egoism or to jocose worldliness and levity. This, he contends, is caused by society’s demand for utility or practicality. Emerson explains the predominance of this demand in the modern world partly as a result of the ‘predominance of the English race as the model nation the globe . . . . The English mind in its proud practicalness, excludes contemplation. . . . But the highest service to be rendered is not a railway, nor even a Rosse telescope, nor a patent village, but a touch of divinity.’149 He sees the ‘general consent’ of the popular voice that ‘Lamartine, in leaving the profession of poet for the business of statesman, has risen’ as symptomatic of the deprecation of intellectuality due to the worship of practicality. Expanding on the theme of the thinker who is spoiled by society, he points out that thought and knowledge do not necessarily lead to moral progress: ‘a perpetually descending character is compatible with increasing erudition.’ In the 1848 version of the lecture, Emerson argued that the partiality, worldliness, and self-indulgence of men of

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thought are partly responsible for aggravating the scepticism of the wealthy. He used the cowardliness he perceived in Feargus O’Connor’s capitulation in Parliament after 10 April as an analogy: ‘the curious nobleman concludes when the idealist drinks madeira, that ideas must be a humbug, as he had already found patriotism to be, when they got a chartist silenced by a seat in the House of Commons.’150 By contrast, Emerson envisions a thinker with a combination of intellectual and moral faculty who could transcend nominal and ephemeral concerns: ‘If there were any who could furnish us with thought; if there were potentates of the spiritual nature . . . if there were such, be sure, one would care little about “provisional” or “republican” or any other sort of government.’ Emerson concludes by affirming the positive nature of the world and insists that what is good in speech, writing, and the arts is what delights and emancipates mankind. The main purpose of ‘The Relation of the Intellect to Natural Science’ is to illustrate an identity between intellect and nature, or in other words, to show that thought is itself a natural system and behaves according to universal laws. Emerson addresses the problems of fate and human inequality and continues his discourse on the scholar. In the first half of the lecture, Emerson elaborates on the similarities between mental activity and natural phenomena, using examples from the field of botanical science. The issue of the inequality of races also comes up for consideration. Emerson compares the improvement of races to plant cultivation: The botanist discovered long ago, that nature loves mixtures, and nothing grows well on the Crab Stock; but the bloods of two trees being mixed, a new and excellent fruit is produced. Our flower and fruit gardens are the result of that experiment. And not less in human history, aboriginal races are incapable of improvement; the dull, melancholy Pelasgi arrive at no civility until the Phoenicians and Ionians come in. The Briton, the Pict, is nothing until the Roman, the Saxon, the Norman arrives. The Indian of North America is barbarous. And, in the conduct of the mind, the blending of two tendencies or streams of thought, the union of two brains, is a happy result.151

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This is the first time in which Emerson publicly indicates that, to his mind, what makes a race superior is the amount of racial mixing that has gone into its formation rather than inherent qualities particular to that race. In other words, superiorities and inferiorities are not biologically determined but are surmountable through diversity and racial mixing. More examples of identities between intellect, chemistry, and astronomy carry the lecture forward and into a discussion on the nature of the arts as a reproduction of the harmony of natural structures. In the second half of the essay, however, the subject changes from unity and identity to the distance that intellectual activity imposes between humans. Emerson sees the thinker as working alone, beyond the collective spirit. He describes the man thinking as one who is behaving like a god and who will be punished for this insubordination by estrangement from the people around him. The only solution for this condition is to balance the integrity of the intellectual pursuit of truth with a similar pursuit of moral integrity, or to act in accordance with the ‘moral sentiment.’ The ‘office of the poet’ is to justify the good of this equilibrating moral compulsion, ‘to establish its eternal independence of demoniacal agencies.’ Emerson is stating clearly, even somewhat dogmatically, the conclusion to which he hinted at in the previous lecture: that the expression of a faith in the tendency of the universe as positive progress towards unity, perfection, and emancipation is the work of the scholar. This faith counteracts the negative fatalism, or belief that evil and servitude are built-in, ineradicable features of the universe. In the following passage, Emerson identifies these two ideologies with the two sides of the slavery debate in America: It is the merit of New England that it believes and knows, that Slavery must be abolished. That faith and the expression of it, we demand of the poet. In a poem for modern men . . . the possibility of emancipation should have been made indubitable. There is a God to propitiate against this duality in Nature; — and the poet, whilst admitting the facts as they lie in nature, owes to that worship of the Best in the best men, the celebration of his

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own and the reader’s faith in the possible reconciliation of things, that is, the bad force of things, with mankind.152 Emerson does not demand active political engagement on the part of the scholar, but does demand active moral engagement based on the ‘moral sentiment,’ which seems identifiable with a belief in a progressive, ameliorating universe. ‘The Tendencies and Duties of Men of Thought’ concludes the philosophical section of the series. The lecture can be divided into four main parts. In the first, Emerson divides the intellect into passive and active functions: referred to respectively as ‘instinct’ and ‘inspiration.’ He proceeds in the second and third sections to speculate on the properties of inspiration. Finally he prophesies the coming of a new intellectual religion. More thoroughly, the opening segment introduces and defines instinct, which Emerson describes as the fountain of truth and thought. Instinct takes on characteristics often associated with God: it is ineffable and unknowable, yet it is the source of all knowledge: ‘all that we know is flakes and grains detached from this mountain’; it is the ‘pilot’ that guides human endeavours; it is the ‘corrector of private excesses and mistakes’; it is owed deference. It is also the great leveller before which all humans, even ‘the insane,’ are ‘on a certain footing of equality.’ Differences between humans, then, are superficial and based on the ability to utilise the power of instinct more or less effectively: ‘Fed from one spring, the water tank is equally full in every cellar[,] the difference is in the distribution by pipes & pumps over the house. The spring is common, the difference is in the aqueduct.’153 This ‘distribution’ of the instinct into life, and specifically into action, is activated by inspiration, ‘heat,’ or ‘life energy.’ Inspiration is identified with creative force, evolutionary processes, and the spirit of progress. Actions propelled by inspiration are defined as ‘supervoluntary,’ or beyond the will of the individual. In other words, inspiration is the key that unlocks the enormous power of instinct and converts it to progressive action. The second section deals with the problem of inspiration. It is not transferable by any sure method. It ‘follows its own law & refuses our

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intrusion.’ Emerson sees the communication of inspiration as the ‘perpetual problem of education.’ Truth and inspiration are perpetually elusive and cannot be taught except by nature. Their existence, however, is emphatically insisted upon. The office of the writer is thus not to teach virtue, but to communicate hope. ‘Intellectual virtue’ is described as ‘reliance on ideas.’ The writer must write in a way that might pass the same reliance on to others: their duty is to ‘affirm and affirm . . . [to] be openers of doors . . . [to] hope and strive [,] for Despair is no muse & Vigour always liberates.’ In the third section Emerson turns to theories of vocation and labour. Every man is born with a particular ‘polarity,’ ‘bias,’ or ‘genius,’ which makes him adapted for a certain type of work. As long as man is free to do the work he is made for, the worker will be happy, inventive, and productive. This idea, a reiteration of the theory of vocations in ‘The American Scholar,’ is put into the context of contemporary revolutionary events in a way that vindicates the ultimate motives of the Socialist initiatives in France: ‘The dream which now floats before the eyes of the French nation that every man shall do that which of all things he prefers, & shall have two francs a day for doing that, is the real law of the world, & all good labor by which society is really served will be found to be of that kind.’ Emerson concludes the section with an affirmation that the individual’s obedience to his native genius is the ‘universal of faith,’ and that a man’s dedication to his true work is his key to liberation. In the final section, Emerson turns to the question of religion. He declares that the intellect demands a ‘devotion to truth.’ This private devotion creates conflict with existing institutionalised religions. In the religion of the intellect, religious ideas of personal immortality are cleared. Instead attention is paid to natural facts and arrangements. The moral that proceeds from this is that one must transfer the ‘trust which is felt in nature’s admired arrangements, to the sphere of Freedom & of rational life.’ To this statement, Emerson appends the vision of the ‘new religion,’ a universal church founded on moral science arising from the ruins of old faiths and institutions, which appeared in his journals soon after the outbreak of revolution.154 The lecture concludes by envisioning the new religion sending each man

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home to his ‘central solitude’ and placing him in contact with the roots and harmonies of the universe. The central idea of these three discourses is that the universe is in a constant state of amelioration or progress. The intellect is bound up with this process and is the thread that connects the progress and improvement of mankind through thought to the constantly evolving natural universe. Emerson argues that the central duty of ‘men of thought’ is to have and express a faith in the idea of ameliorative fate in nature. Their duty is to retain idealism against the materialistic spirit of society. He is obliged to speak on behalf of idealism. Faith in the positive fate translates into a belief in the potential of the emancipated individual. The scholar must transfer faith in the progress of nature ‘into the sphere of Freedom and rational life’ and express belief in the necessity of dismantling systems that go against the ‘moral sentiment.’ American slavery is given as a specific example. Finally, the argument is made that in relation to the mysterious force of instinct, all men are more or less equal, though they are unequal in ability to convert instinct into power. The fourth lecture delivered at Portman Square, titled ‘Politics and Socialism,’ was a revised version of ‘Spirit of the Times,’ which Emerson had delivered for the first time in Edinburgh (it was based on the ‘Introductory’ lecture to Emerson’s Human Life series, originally delivered in the winter of 1839–40). ‘Spirit of the Times’ remained unpublished until 2001 when it appeared in a compilation of Emerson’s Later Lectures. The editors used a surviving manuscript of the lecture, which appears to have been in use and under constant revision by Emerson between 1848 and 1856.155 It is impossible to know exactly which text Emerson used in the various 1848 versions of the lecture, and to decipher precisely what messages Emerson meant to get across in ‘Politics and Socialism’ is no easy task. Crabbe Robinson, who attended the Portman Square series wrote that ‘Emerson’s 4th lecture . . . was full of brilliant thoughts, but I was unable to connect them.’156 The first version of the lecture in Edinburgh was no less confusing to some audience members. One reviewer concluded that ‘the end or aim of the lecture was either non-existent or unintelligible.’157 Nevertheless, using newspaper reviews of the February and

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June versions of the lecture, we are able to understand the main arguments of both. The lecture changed dramatically between its first and second deliveries, seemingly in response to the political events that took place in the intervening months. It is unclear whether or to what extent the manuscript printed in the Later Lectures was the basis of the versions delivered in 1848. In order to avoid discussing material that may have been inserted after the June delivery, the most complete press transcript of the lecture, which appeared in Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Paper, is used in this résumé and in the analysis that concludes this chapter.158 ‘Politics and Socialism,’ as it was delivered in June 1848, can be divided into three main sections. Emerson first identifies some characteristics of the spirit of the age and then moves to discussions of Socialism, and finally to the development of the individual. In the first section, Emerson proposes that the intellectual spirit of analysis, criticism, and empiricism is the chief characteristic distinguishing the present age from its predecessors. This worked itself into the social and political realms in various ways. On the one hand, the critical spirit led to a popular disenchantment, discontent, and complaint against existing conditions, which, encouraged by political orators and agitators, explains popular political radicalism, especially of the urban workers. Emerson uses the example of the radical, frequently militant, workers of the Faubourg SaintAntoine, whom Napoleon found ‘the readiest to listen to reason.’ At the same time, empiricism and analysis resulted in a utilitarianism and commodity culture in which moral concerns are unquantifiable and thus easily dismissed. Emerson closes this first section with conclusions that resemble Engels’s deductions regarding the moral depravity underlying the capitalist structure. Speaking of the commercial spirit, Emerson concludes that: ‘“Business before friends” is its motto. Education and religion are equally degraded to mercantile uses, and aim only to make good citizens. All truth is practical.’ In the second part of the lecture, Emerson turns to the unprecedented technological advancement of the present age and its effects in the realms of social and political theory. After listing several examples

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of mechanical advances made during the previous decades, increasing the power and efficiency of man, he predicts the continuation of this trend into the future. From here, Emerson launches into a discussion of the origins and implications of Socialism as a projection of the spirit of technology onto human society. The transcript in Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper reads: Filled with wonder at our success, we say, ‘let us make our state perfect; the world shall be rendered as geometrical as a beehive.’ . . . Mr. Emerson could not refrain from doing honour to the generous ideas of the Socialists — Owen and Fourier. They were not content with the ordinary level of the vulgar philanthropist — looked beyond the soup-society and the charity concert — and drafted into their schemes the accommodations of the palace for the humblest in the community. Let such conceptions be gratefully appreciated, for they who think and hope well of mankind put the human race under obligation. They are the unconscious prophets of a true state of society—men who believe that in the world God’s justice will be done.159 In the third section of the lecture, however, he makes his final stance on the issue of Socialism clear. He insists on the supreme importance of the heroic individual, whose development depends on a rugged individualism incompatible with Socialist arrangements. The argument is made that men, if they are provided with too much, are ‘unmanned,’ and lose their heroic capacity.160 He repeats his earlier prediction that England would not experience a true revolution, though ‘a scramble for money’ may occur. He maintained that the scramble would not deserve the name ‘revolution,’ even if it were successful in toppling the existing government, as there would be no major change in public values. Earlier in the lecture, Emerson had inserted a statement from the March journals made about the ‘necessity for a moral engineer,’ who would transform society in a way analogous to the revolution worked by George Stephenson in the mechanical world.161 In the paraphrased transcript that appeared

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in Jerrold’s Weekly, the messianic tenor of Emerson’s conclusion to the lecture is emphasised: Successful communities were due to the presence and influence of some great man. The ONE MAN was wanted — the Lycurgus. Majorities were now so successful, from the want of a true minority — the MINORITY OF ONE. Greatness depended on individualism — would not live in phalansteries but preferred the separate house. Spoons and forks, and such common utensils, might be thrown together, but vases and statues must each have its own pedestal. The lecture concludes with yet another declaration of faith in the progressive structure of creation: that without a doubt there is ‘a plan successively realised in nature,’ and with the idea of the hero as interpreter of the secrets of the natural universe.162 ‘Politics and Socialism’ was, in a sense, a translation into political terms of theories more fully extrapolated in the fifth and sixth lectures in the series. Newspaper reviews indicate that ‘Poetry and Eloquence’ was a version of the lecture ‘Eloquence,’ which was written and delivered in America first and repeated five times during the winter tour in Britain. ‘Natural Aristocracy’ was written primarily in Manchester in December and delivered for the first time in Edinburgh along with ‘The Spirit of the Times.’ Again newspaper reviews are our main sources for reconstructing how these lectures were read and received in 1848.163 In ‘Poetry and Eloquence’ Emerson is concerned with the power of language to change and alter moods and convictions, the ‘habits of years’ of an audience. Emerson describes throughout the essay the characteristics of the ‘highest orator’: he must be ‘a large, composite man,’ who owes his rank to the magic of personal or ‘natural ascendancy.’ He must communicate a supreme sanity and, at the same time, ‘be so full of his subject as to be drunk with it.’ The lecture ends by affirming that the elevation of mankind is the highest end of eloquence, and that with a firm belief and faith in the idea that ‘virtue secures its own success,’ any man may be eloquent. The lecture, within the context of

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the other lectures in the Mind and Manners series, is another addition to the running commentary on the duties of the ‘natural aristocracy,’ to improve and lift the lower ranks of society.164 ‘Natural Aristocracy’ can be very roughly divided into three sections. In the first, Emerson sets forth some doctrines concerning the nature and existence of a natural upper class in society. The second section deals with the character and the education of the natural elite. Finally he makes some remarks on the behaviour of members of this class. In the opening section of ‘Natural Aristocracy,’ Emerson puts forward four main points. First: Human inequality is an insurmountable fact of nature. According to the review in Jerrold’s, the lecture began with an affirmation that the existence of a naturally superior class in any society is ‘inevitable, sacred, and universal.’ In the following paragraphs, Emerson continues to describe natural hierarchy as an indelible feature of human existence: ‘Nature knows not of equality; neither does intellect.’ A man cannot choose which level he is born into. Second: the Natural Aristocracy consists of the ‘highest minds’ in any society. Each is ‘total, not special, in his character and acquirements, and thoroughly respect[s] the truth.’ Third: other social stratifications not based on these qualities alone, are mere conventions, and ultimately meaningless. Emerson asserts that ‘the upper class should be distinguished by merit; any class not so distinguished ceases in fact to be the upper, whatever its conventional rank . . . . The true aristocratic class is that eminent by personal qualities — virtue, genius, talent . . . the pretender, wherever accidentally classified is ever plebian.’ Fourth: the natural elite have a duty and responsibility to take on leadership roles in society that otherwise might be filled by less desirable candidates: ‘Men of aim must lead the aimless; those who are not such should neither undertake nor be entrusted to lead.’ With the concept of natural gradation established, Emerson commences a descriptive discourse on the character and formation of the natural aristocrat. Jerrold’s reported that ‘Mr Emerson wished to see the true men of the world — men with catholic capacities, with universal instincts.’ The minds of the superior class are devoted to ‘great ends,’ and disregard the opinions of the ‘people in the street.’ He then

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takes on the issue of heredity and the passage of superior traits from one generation to the next. He avers that nature is ‘capricious’ in seeing superior moral traits through from generation to generation within a single family. Furthermore, genetic makeup cannot completely explain the formation and education of the elite. Emerson admits that environment and society are crucial, that ‘circumstances modify original tendencies.’ In terms of education and example, ‘those who are doomed to lead’ need associations ‘with leading thoughts and leading men.’ The necessary atmosphere cannot be created in isolation. Finally, the conclusion reached at the end of the lecture, again according to the Jerrold’s report, is that ‘the essential distinctions of aristocracy are all of a moral character.’165 The London lectures show that at the end of Emerson’s tour he was in some ways a step closer to reaching resolution to some of the open questions discussed in the first chapter. In the lectures, Emerson argues that the universe follows a law of natural progression, but also insists that it is necessary to engage oneself, at least morally, in the advancement of freedom and justice. In nearly all of the lectures Emerson is concerned with leadership. ‘Eloquence’ and ‘Natural Aristocracy’ are demands that gifted individuals take an active role in leading the aimless and advancing the population. The repeated insistence on the moral engagement of the scholar in the first three lectures, which appears to be directly related to his disappointment at the desertion of the Chartist movement by British intellectuals, presages his own increasing moral stake in the antislavery movement in the United States. That he mentioned the cause of abolition in ‘The Relation of the Intellect to Natural Science’ as one that demands the poet’s faith and expression suggests that Emerson’s decision to retake the lecture platform on behalf of the movement in 1849 is not unrelated to his experience in Paris and London. Furthermore, that Emerson makes an argument in support of racial mixing in this lecture is an early indication that he was unwilling to endorse the doctrines of ineffaceable inequalities and separate creations that were supported by many of his British colleagues, even at a time when some of his lectures — ‘The Superlative’ most notably — seem to argue for the superiority of the Northern and Anglo-Saxon races.

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In other ways, however, the experience of 1848 seems to have reinforced some elements in Emerson’s thought that suggest that he was far from ready to advocate a revolutionary approach to political problems upon his return to America. His affirmation that ‘revolutions of violence are scrambles merely’ indicates a denial of the idea that the progress in human society, in which he repeatedly affirms his faith in this series, could be advanced through violent revolt. Emerson’s demand that men of thought engage in social issues according to the impulse of the ‘moral sentiment’ is certainly stronger in this series than in previous lectures, but remains subdued and indistinct. As Reynolds has suggested, the idea that the person of thought should reside above politics is still present. In a passage summarising his goal in the series, Emerson wrote: . . . my rede [sic] is to make the student independent of the Century, to show him that his class . . . offer[s] one immutable front in all times & countries; cannot read the London Journals, cannot hear the drums of Paris; they stand in the same fraternal relation to all men — The world is always childish, &, with each gewgaw of a new code or constitution that it finds, thinks that it shall never cry any more; but it is always becoming evident that the permanent good like naphtha is for the soul only, cannot be retained in any society or form.166 In addition, there is an elitism present in some of the lectures, which seems to jar against the egalitarianism of Emerson’s later writing. Personal ascendancy and a naturally superior class are deemed ineradicable features of society, determined by causes beyond human control. This emphasis on the elite, however, is also tied to the theme of the duties of leadership, which likewise runs throughout the lectures. It is interesting to note that the example of the great leader, the ‘majority of one,’ in ‘Politics and Socialism’ is the semi-mythological figure Lycurgus. Plutarch describes the lawmaker Lycurgus’s greatest achievement as the establishment of the Spartan Senate, a resisting force both to pure unchecked democracy and to absolute monarchical dictatorship, ‘a central weight, like ballast in a ship.’ Candidatures for

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Lycurgus’s senate were reserved for the wisest, best, and fittest in society, though ultimately a senator would have to win his seat through popular election. Meanwhile, Lycurgus’s other laws were designed to improve public morality and raise the level of virtue and discernment in the populace.167 The lecture hints at a message that is also present in ‘Natural Aristocracy’: that ultimate power should reside with the people, but that the democratic influence must be checked by an elite corps for the preservation of society. In essence, this is a recapitulation of the ‘cosmic republicanism’ of his earliest lectures with an increased emphasis on the function and importance of the senatorial elite.168 ‘Natural Aristocracy,’ despite its insistence that hereditary aristocracy and natural aristocracy were not identical, hardly struck the mainly upper-middle-class and aristocratic audiences of Edinburgh and London as dangerously radical. The original delivery in February, according to a review in the Caledonian Mercury, ‘contained few or no original propositions but was an excellent commentary on the recognised axiom, that “the only nobility is virtue,”’ and treated the subject, noticeably, ‘without touching on republican idea of equality.’169 Crabbe Robinson remarked about the June version in London that it ‘contained nothing to offend the highborn.’170 The one possible exception was a section in ‘Natural Aristocracy,’ in which Emerson asked ‘if the perfumed gentleman . . . who serves the people in no wise . . . go[es] about to set ill examples and corrupt them, who shall blame them if they shoot him in the back, or burn his barns, or insult his children. . . . Not I.’ Lord Morpeth, after hearing the lecture, told Emerson that he hoped that in future deliveries, he would ‘leave that passage out.’171 However, it must be emphasised that the lecture overall is not radical in a leftist sense. The only demand it makes upon the rich is to try to render services to society, or at least not to set bad examples. Emerson himself was aware that his London lectures were anything but extreme. In a letter home, after describing the conclusion of the series, he wrote: ‘As it befell, no harm was done, no knives were concealed in the words, more the pity! . . . the assembly at last escaped without a Revolution.’172 While these lectures do not seem directly to presage the revolutionary attitude that later became entwined with the memory of 1848 in

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Emerson’s thought, they do create a place and a demand for wise and progressive leadership within a republican system. They order those with rank and talent to take the burden of responsibility for actively advancing the character of the population and the quality of society. Emerson returned to America much more content with his role as a lecturer. In the 1850s, when events convinced him that his energies could not be spared, he campaigned for the Free-Soil party and vociferously protested new laws that protected the property interests of slaveholders. He involved himself in forming a society of ‘cultural elites’ whose sense of duty to guide the moral growth of the nation is evident in the tone of the Atlantic Monthly, which they started, and in the liberal and antislavery positions they eloquently advocated. The position of leadership that Emerson took on after his return, both as an antislavery advocate and as an organiser of Boston’s ‘Brahmin caste,’ appear to be his own attempts to answer the call in these lectures for the moral engagement of the scholar and the collaboration of the ‘natural aristocrat’ in improving society. Emerson boarded the ship Europa bound for Boston in Liverpool on 14 July 1848. Before the conclusion of his lecture series at Portman Square, he had resumed his social activity in London.173 In early July he travelled to Windsor, Cambridge, and Winchester; and visited Stonehenge with Carlyle. He met the author Arthur Helps, who became a frequent correspondent in the ensuing years, during these travels. For his journey home, he travelled to Liverpool by train, stopping in Coventry (where he met George Eliot at the home of the author Charles Bray) and Stratford-upon-Avon.174 In Liverpool Clough accompanied him to the wharf, where he asked ‘What shall we do without you? Carlyle has led us all out into the desert and left us there.’ To which Emerson reportedly responded, ‘I consecrate you Bishop of all England . . . lead them into the promised land.’175 Emerson recorded almost no further comment on political events until after his return to America. Concurrently with the lectures, Ernest Jones and other revolutionary Chartist leaders implicated in a series of violent incidents of May and June, many of whom were known Socialists or Communists, were being arrested throughout

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Britain.176 Meanwhile in France, within two weeks of the delivery of the lecture ‘Politics and Socialism,’ the National Workshops were discontinued. Paris erupted into five days of violent rioting, this time almost homogeneous in its working-class makeup. Eastern Paris, with the Faubourg Saint-Antoine at its well-barricaded centre, was entirely controlled by insurgents. During the fighting more than 1,460 were killed and 11,642 arrested. In the aftermath, a commission of inquiry undertook the indictment of all Socialist members of government, including Louis Blanc and Albert the Worker, as instigators.177

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CHAPTER 5 THE LEGACY OF THE EUROPEAN EXPER IENCE

The experience of 1847–48 left an important mark on the second half of Emerson’s career. Emerson’s social and cultural activity changed after 1848. He returned to America with a clear desire to recreate some elements of the civil society he experienced in Britain. He also returned with a considerable transatlantic network of contacts, which he used to support and encourage dozens of Anglo-American cultural exchanges in the decades after his lecture tour. One of Emerson’s most individual literary works and the only book he published between 1850 and 1860, English Traits (1856), was another outcome of his experience abroad. Emerson began delivering lectures on England and the ‘English race’ within months of his arrival in Boston in 1848, which laid the groundwork for a book that took nearly eight years to complete. The events he witnessed in Britain and France, and the European revolutions of 1848 more generally, did not fade from Emerson’s memory. On the contrary, his references to them in his journals, notebooks, lectures, and political orations became more frequent as years went by and they took on key significance in the context of his increasingly radical abolitionist rhetoric. This chapter is divided into three sections. The first provides a brief overview of Emerson’s efforts to create a more satisfying social atmosphere in Boston and his work on behalf of British and American travellers who traversed the Atlantic for personal, cultural, and diplomatic

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purposes in the period following his return. The second and third sections respectively trace Emerson’s writings on the ‘English race’ and his response to the political events of 1848. I will argue that Emerson’s approach to both of these issues changed significantly and for similar reasons. Emerson’s initial responses to England and to the atmosphere of 1848 contrast sharply to later ones. Initially, Emerson was convinced by his British experience, and by the failed European revolutions, that the Anglo-Saxon had shown itself to be an exceptional race, which was unique in its ability to deal capably with freedom. In later years, however, Emerson came to question and qualify his ‘Saxonism’ as his sense of anger and alarm over the slavery issue in America intensified. He also came to see the European revolutions not as failures, but as examples in a greater struggle between the spirit of freedom and of tyranny, which was also playing out in the United States over the issue of slavery. Examining issues of influence and attempting to gauge opinions over a long period of time always demands some degree of flexibility, particularly when the issues at hand are as complex as those surrounding the events of 1848. Demonstrating the initial, short-term, and long-term consequences of Emerson’s experience in 1847–48 is not as straightforward a task as discussing the experience itself. Nevertheless, this chapter attempts to break down and to follow significant themes in Emerson’s thought that were critically influenced by what had occurred during these pivotal years. The significance of Emerson’s reaction to the societies and the political events he observed in Europe can be more fully understood when seen in relation to the development of his thought about America and American slavery. Likewise, his response to the crisis over slavery in his own country was not shaped only by American concerns, but also by his vision of an epic conflict between the spirit of progress towards human rights and a fatal materialism, which was taking place on both sides of the Atlantic and throughout the world. § Emerson’s tour of Great Britain resulted in a dramatically increased breadth of social connections in the second half of his career. In Britain

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Emerson associated with scores of new faces, including many of the most prominent figures in intellectual, industrial, scientific, and political circles. Though many of the names of those whom he met in Britain faded out of his biography after his return to America, the impact of his social experience in Britain was not short-lived. Some of the new friendships that came out of the British tour lasted for years, some even until death. The trip abroad seems to have cured Emerson of the feeling of provincial inefficacy that haunted him at the time of his departure. In the years after 1848 Emerson became deeply involved in the creation of a community of elites in Massachusetts and in fostering a network of support for transatlantic exchanges. In the first two years after his return Emerson said little in his letters, journals, or writings about his experience of France, nor of his opinions concerning the 1848 revolutions in Europe, but he said a great deal about England. Our best indications as to what his initial reactions to his European experience were are the two lectures he wrote and began delivering within months of his arrival in Boston, ‘England’ and ‘London.’ In these lectures Emerson expressed the idea that England should be looked upon as a model of culture, civilisation, and success. ‘England’ is a treatise on the historical triumph of the English nation and the vital role of certain English national characteristics, or English traits, in its achievement. ‘London’ paints a picture of the British metropolis as a capital of learning and power. English ‘tenacity,’ London’s public museums, and the omnipresence of culture are the main subjects of the discourse. In both lectures Emerson drew above all on observations from his extraordinary social experience in order to contend that the English nation was one worthy of respect as much, or more, for its civility as for its material success. In ‘England’ Emerson describes the English as unmatched for their ‘sincerity and thoroughness of hospitality.’ With unmasked adoration, Emerson lets flow a chain of adjectives and descriptors furthering the impression of English good grace. The English are described as a ‘true, benign, gentle, benevolent, hospitable, and pious race, fearing God, and loving man,’ with an abundant ‘milk of kindness in them.’ Reusing the notes he recorded after watching at the door of the House of Commons as its members entered, he declares

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that any observer will identify these men by their faces as ‘just, kind, and honorable.’ The English are lauded for being ‘as gentle and peaceful as they are brave and magnanimous,’ and their empire is described as one that ‘carr[ies] the eye and ear of the best circles of London into . . . the homes of almost bestial barbarism.’1 The theme of civilisation and civil society is even more central in the lecture ‘London.’ Emerson describes at length the great cultural and scientific institutions and the incalculable advantages afforded by London society. In London and its ‘clubhouses’ one finds the ‘collected society of English learning, wit, wealth, and power.’ He describes this society as wealth of a higher sort: ‘The riches of a cultivated population, one cannot exaggerate. Every day, you may meet a new man, centre of a new circle of thought and practice.’2 This broad emphasis on the advantages of a concentrated intellectual and cultural society bears connection to the new tone of Emerson’s own social life after his return to America. Much of Emerson’s activity in the years after 1848 demonstrates a desire to bring together the most polished and intelligent persons, both locally and internationally, for communication and intellectual exchange. One important outcome of the experience of 1847–48 was the idea of forming a club in which Boston’s brightest minds from a range of professional fields and disciplines could freely associate. The Town and Country Club was a direct precedent to the Saturday Club, established in 1856, which lasted more than half a century, shaped and even defined the Boston Brahmin caste, and was intimately connected to the establishment of one of the most influential and long-lived periodicals in American history, The Atlantic Monthly. Edward Emerson, writing the history of the Saturday Club sixty years after its creation, found its point of origin in a letter Emerson sent from England to the affable Boston financier Samuel Gray Ward in March 1848. In this epistle, he described his first weeks in the high social circles of London and his meetings with Macaulay, Hallam, Milnes, Lord Morpeth, Milman, Baring, the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, the prominent lawyer and writer Charles Austin, the poets Barry Cornwall, Lord Alfred Tennyson, and others, remarking on the dazzling ‘profusion of talent’ that was gathered in

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the capital.3 Emerson clearly found the concentrated intellectual environment of London, with its collection of cultural institutions, learned societies, and clubhouses as its central feature, impressive, stimulating, and admirable. Emerson had participated in clubs before. He was one of the most important members of the Transcendental Club, which met during the 1830s and 1840s, and was a long-time member of the local Concord Social Circle, where he met occasionally with neighbours in his village. The Town and Country Club, however, was clearly different from the loosely organised ‘symposia’ of disaffected Unitarians, clergymen, and non-conformists that met irregularly during The Dial days, and from the local society of Concord villagers. Its constitution was signed by 111 of Boston’s leading citizens including politicians, poets, lawyers, publishers, scientists, scholars, and businessmen. Its constitution was drafted entirely by Emerson in 1849. It states that the club, formed in order ‘to establish better acquaintance between men of scientific, literary and philanthropic pursuits,’ would meet regularly in a specially designated Club Room in Boston (open daily, with a library) for discussion of ‘literary or general questions.’ Papers would be given both by permanent members and by visiting speakers.4 The club was forced to disband after one year due to financial difficulties, though Emerson’s commitment to nurturing civil society in Boston on the English model continued. He hosted and attended dinners in Boston at increasingly regular intervals, meetings which led gradually to the formation of the Saturday Club in 1855. Though Emerson was not the principal organiser, as he had been with the Town and Country Club, he was a key founding member, one of the original fourteen, who, as its chronicler points out, consisted of ‘four poets, one historian, one essayist, one biologist and geologist, one mathematician and astronomer, one classical scholar, one musical critic, one judge, two lawyers, and one banker.’ These men, and those they subsequently invited to join, were among the most important and prominent in New England.5 The Saturday Club was an even further cry from the transcendental symposia of the 1840s. Its meetings were based around elaborate dinners, ‘seven courses at least, with sherry, sauterne, and claret.’6 Whereas

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the uniting features, if any, in the transcendental club were a Unitarian affiliation and a sense of general protest against the overall state of society,7 the feature that united the members of the Saturday Club was, first and foremost, prominence and excellence in their fields. Most were from privileged backgrounds, highly educated, and noted for polished and gentlemanly behaviour. The majority had experience of transatlantic travel or had already established numerous international contacts. In politics, most were antislavery, Free-Soil ‘conscience Whigs,’ though some were far from being radical abolitionists or egalitarians.8 The Atlantic Monthly grew up alongside the Saturday Club and, in its early period, was highly dependent on its members for article contributions.9 The tone of their writings in this magazine shows that the men of the Saturday Club thought of themselves as belonging to a ‘cultural elite’ with special duties to lead the nation intellectually and morally. In addition to a strong antislavery stance, The Atlantic conveyed a broad liberalism, both in its cultural agenda and on social and political issues. The magazine appealed to middle-class readers with intellectual and literary interests and liberal religious opinions. It had a circulation of nearly 30,000 across the country and abroad in its second year of publication.10 The periodical was imbued with Emerson’s influence, both directly through the articles and poems he contributed, and in its ideological programme. The democratic idea that Emerson strove to convey in his lectures — that through the pursuit of culture men, women, and society as a whole could progress and improve morally and intellectually — was also central to The Atlantic.11 To say that the Saturday Club and The Atlantic would never have been established without the intermediary step of Emerson’s 1847–48 tour of Great Britain would be a stretch, but the question of whether or not Emerson would have been a central figure in their formation and so much a guiding force within the group is one worth considering, particularly when it is remembered that in 1847 Emerson contemplated and longed for a withdrawal into the wilderness rather than a plunge into society. To the annoyance of the ascetic and hermitical Thoreau, Emerson took on a more sociable role and a worldlier tone in personal life as a result of his British tour.12 In England he was accepted and had become comfortable in the highest social circles,

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particularly amongst the liberal elite, and discovered that he felt at home in that company. Had Emerson withdrawn instead, would the Town and Country and its successor, the Saturday Club, have formed without him at their centre? Had he not returned from Europe in such a well-adjusted state would the practical and worldly Boston elite, including men like Oliver Wendell Holmes, have adopted and advanced his philosophy to such an extent?13 Emerson’s integration into elite society in the 1850s and 1860s, which built directly upon his British experience, goes a very long way in explaining why his voice became such an important one in The Atlantic and even his sustained importance to American thought. At the same time that Emerson focused on the creation of a Londonlike club society in Boston during the 1850s and 1860s he was sending scores of letters across the Atlantic. He corresponded with Arthur Hugh Clough, James Anthony Froude, Matthew Arnold, Alexander Ireland, William Allingham, J. J. G. Wilkinson, John Chapman, Charles Bray, Arthur Helps, the Biggs Family, W. E. Forster, the poet Coventry Patmore, the writer and mayor of Stratford-upon-Avon Edward Fordham Flower, and others. Through them he heard news of British friends and colleagues he had known in 1848: Geraldine Jewsbury, Elizabeth Paulet, Francis Espinasse, Richard Monckton Milnes, Thomas Ballantyne, and Tennyson. He gained inside perspectives on the Crimean War and on divisions in British society over the American Civil War. He asked his publishers to send copies of his books to British friends, and received copies of their newest books as they were published in return. Many of the faces Emerson would see again — some in America and some on his third and final trip to Britain in semi-retirement twenty-four years later.14 As a direct result of his British sojourn and the new contacts that he established in 1847–48, Emerson was able to facilitate dozens of transatlantic exchanges in the quarter century that followed. The most common medium by which this was done was the letter of introduction. Emerson wrote letters for American travellers to British contacts whom he felt might further their purpose in the United Kingdom. The same worked in reverse. Emerson’s British friends and colleagues wrote to Emerson ahead of time or sent messages to be carried and delivered

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in person introducing the traveller and their mission and politely making a case that they should be met with and accommodated. Several of Emerson’s close friends and colleagues travelled to Europe during the 1850s. Emerson sang the praises of the Unitarian minister and abolitionist James Freeman Clarke to Alexander Ireland when he went to England to recover from illness in 1849.15 When George P. Bradford, a modest teacher and former Brook farmer, travelled to England and Europe in 1854, Emerson made efforts to connect him with Clough, Ireland, and Bray.16 In 1855 Emerson offered introductions to Carlyle, Wilkinson, and Helps to Caroline Sturgis.17 Others whom Emerson introduced via letters to his transatlantic colleagues in the years after 1848 include local friends and literary colleagues Elizabeth Hoar, Anna Ward, William Bangs, Samuel Longfellow, and Henry and William James.18 These letters were addressed to a relatively small circle of personal friends or frequent correspondents in Britain: Clough, Carlyle, Ireland, Helps, and Bray. After Emerson began his long correspondence with Hermann Grimm in the 1860s, he was also able to direct friends and family to him in Berlin. In other cases Emerson’s letters of introduction were written to serve a particular purpose. In cases where he felt that there was a worthy cause he wrote to all British acquaintances with whom he had connected during his lecture tour who could potentially be of assistance. Emerson used his English contacts and experience with transatlantic copyright issues to help an Ohio-born scholar, Delia Slater Bacon, travel to England to research and publish an important book on Shakespeare. Emerson had read a manuscript by Bacon in 1852 making the sensational argument that Shakespeare’s plays were in fact the work not of one but of a conglomerate of authors. He recommended that it be published simultaneously in England and America (in order to avoid pirating) and made an instrumental effort on her behalf, writing letters to all relevant acquaintances including Clough, Carlyle, Chapman, and Flower, whose wife assisted her in Stratford-upon-Avon.19 Other letters were written on behalf of travellers who went to England for social, diplomatic, or political purposes. In 1854 the New York– based founder of the Children’s Aid Society, Charles Loring Brace, with whom Emerson had only a slight acquaintance, wrote requesting letters

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of introduction for his upcoming trip to London. Emerson responded by offering a letter to the philanthropist Dr Joseph Toynbee, whom he had met in 1848, and even promised to ‘strain a point’ by writing on his behalf to Joseph Mazzini.20 During the Civil War a stream of Americans travelled to England to work for the Union cause carrying letters from Emerson. When his future biographer Moncure Daniel Conway announced that he would speak there for the cause of emancipation, Emerson wrote to the Biggs family in Leicester and to Alexander Ireland, whom he knew to be supporters of the North, introducing the man and his mission.21 In 1863 he wrote to Milnes and Forster, both now pro-North parliamentarians, in order to introduce the American lawyer and statesman William Maxwell Evarts who was joining the Union’s minister in Great Britain. Evarts was sent by the State Department to prevent the Confederacy from buying British-built ironclads and also to mingle amongst the British elite with the goal of defusing southern sympathies.22 In 1865 Emerson sent a letter of introduction to John Stuart Mill on behalf of George Walker, a Massachusetts banker on a mission to London as an agent of the US Treasury.23 On the American side, Emerson was able to help nearly as many British travellers. Even before leaving England he was writing letters of introduction for William Nicholson, a physician and patron of science, who was considering moving with his family to America.24 In 1849 he hosted Flower and his family in Concord and asked his brother to assist them in New York.25 In 1852, when Clough announced his interest in moving to America, Emerson sent a long letter advising him how best to procure employment as a teacher and offering an extended invitation to his home in Concord with the possibility of work. When Clough arrived, Emerson hosted a banquet in his honour at the Tremont House in Boston reminiscent of the party thrown for him by Bancroft in London. In attendance were the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, poets Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Russell Lowell, artist Horatio Greenough, politician Charles Sumner, Theodore Parker, Ellery Channing, Samuel Gray Ward, and others.26 Visiting Britons were also sometimes directed to Emerson with letters of introduction from friends made during his 1847–48 tour. William Ashurst, the radical co-founder of the pro-Mazzini

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People’s International League came to Emerson in 1853 with a letter of introduction from his daughter Matilda, the wife of Joseph Biggs of Leicester.27 Emerson later hosted two British authors — Charles Mackay and William Hepworth Dixon — both of whom went on to write important books about American society before and after the Civil War.28 He received Lord Amberley and John Morley, both sent to him by John Stuart Mill,29 and assisted James Anthony Froude when he travelled to America in 1871.30 Emerson, as William Stowe has pointed out, was a ‘reluctant traveller’ whose early writings often associate Europe, and the act of travelling to it, with frivolousness and even with shame. In keeping with his words: ‘The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home,’ he was certainly not one to endorse travel unreservedly.31 Even in the 1850s he called the American practice of travelling to Europe ‘a mild epidemic insanity,’ but one which he knew not how to hinder.32 In several cases where he agreed to write letters of introduction he chided the American traveller for being abroad when their energies could be used at home, particularly in times of political conflict.33 To some Americans who asked Emerson for help in travelling to England, he replied that he did not feel at liberty to write on their behalf.34 Emerson tried to dissuade transoceanic trips that he believed would be unproductive.35 Nevertheless, as Stowe rightly observes, Emerson found travel personally edifying. He also saw value in it as a means of achieving mutual understanding between the best minds in different nations. By the time of the Civil War, Emerson wrote that in such a crisis he thought it a ‘necessity to bring the most intelligent persons in both countries into communication.’36 Judging by the abundant aid he gave to travellers, it seems that Emerson held this philosophy, with more general application, throughout the 1850s. § The most obvious impact of the experience of 1847–48 on Emerson’s literary career was that it prompted him to write a book on England, English Traits, which was published in 1856. During Emerson’s tour he admired the ‘Saxon’ features, which he imagined underwriting

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English success and stability. In lectures and manuscripts written after his return to America, he continued to vaunt the ‘English race’ as one possessing clearly superior racial traits, and to express a belief that history had shown the Anglo-Saxons to be naturally more suited to freedom than people of other races. In English Traits, however, Emerson’s celebration of the Saxon is effectively divorced from ‘blood’ hierarchies and instead used symbolically to describe one side in a greater struggle between the spirit of freedom and civility against that of tyranny and arbitrary power. By focusing attention on a set of still unpublished manuscript drafts and on lectures from this period, which were published in The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson in 2001, we are able to see the extent to which English Traits represents a revision of earlier opinions.37 Changes in Emerson’s feelings about race and slavery in America provide some clues as to why this transition occurred. Previous chapters have noted that during his lecture tour Emerson recorded extensive observations of England and the English in his journal. As we have seen in Chapter Three, Emerson’s preconceptions about the English race and its rise to prominence shaped the conclusions he made during the winter tour. In his Manchester soiree speech he described the English race as one possessing a sense of justice and honesty, a strong work ethic, loyalty, bodily strength, and steadfastness. He understood these qualities as factors that explained England’s industrial and imperial power. The industrious and conscientious middle-class families whom Emerson visited during his tour, including self-made men like George Stephenson, liberal captains of industry like W. E. Forster and Joseph Biggs, and skilled workers like the saddler Mr Potter embodied and reified in Emerson’s mind these admirable ‘English’ qualities. It has also been noted that the pronounced Saxonism of the Manchester soiree speech and ‘The Superlative,’ written around the same time, were similar to other lectures written before February 1848. ‘The Superlative’ emphasised that inequalities existed between races. ‘Natural Aristocracy’ and ‘Spirit of the Times’ stressed that ‘nature knows not of equality.’ The lectures that Emerson wrote after the outbreak of the 1848 revolution in France were more optimistic,

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contending that before the vital force that governs progress in society, humans are all ‘on a certain footing of equality.’ Nevertheless, the winter lectures were reused as the concluding instalments in his lecture series in London, perhaps indicating that the French experience was not enough to change completely the course on which his thoughts were set during the winter phase of the tour. Emerson’s writings from the time immediately following his return to America indicate that on these questions of racial determinism and of natural hierarchy based on a blood code, he tended to take the pessimistic view. In his writings on England from this period, which he eventually developed into chapters for English Traits, he gravitated towards the idea that England’s power and success were tied to traits deep in the English race, particularly those inherited from its Saxon ancestors. ‘England’ and ‘London,’ as noted earlier in this chapter, were largely concerned with English civil society and the unparalleled cultural opportunities it offered to its own citizens and to the world. ‘England,’ however, is also about the English race. Emerson’s approach foreshadows the one that he would take in English Traits. The essay is a tribute to the ‘the triumph of labor,’ in a land in which ‘the long habitation of a powerful and ingenious race has turned every rood of land to its best use.’38 In ‘England’ Emerson works backwards from the country’s present condition on the assumption that the result proceeded from various causes, which he attempts to enumerate. He finds that the climate of Britain and its abundance of raw materials are important, but also notes that Ireland, with similar land and climate, did not rival England in success. Searching for a deeper source to England’s power Emerson concludes that the true cause is in the race itself; that the ‘English race appear to possess the advantage of the best blood.’ The English are described as having ‘great vigor of body and endurance,’ ‘constitutional energy,’ ‘burly strength,’ and amazing powers of performance. England’s accumulations of wealth and power are portrayed as results of these and other English traits.39 In this lecture the assumption that England’s present position proceeded in large part from invisible sources in the English race explains the cause-and-effect linkages that Emerson draws between English traits and English power.

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In ‘England’ Emerson concedes that the country, ‘in developing colossal wealth,’ had also ‘developed hideous pauperism.’ However, the problem is not discussed in terms of flaws in England’s political economy or social structure. It is mentioned, seemingly only for the sake of completeness: In drawing these sketches, I am well aware there is a dark side of England, which, I have not wished to expose. . . . These fair, ruddy, muscular, well-educated bodies go attended by poor, dwarfed, starved, short-lived skeletons. There are two Englands; — rich, Norman-Saxon England, learned, social England, — seated in castles, halls, universities, and middleclass houses of admirable completeness and comfort, and poor, Celtic, peasant, drudging Chartist England, in hovels and workhouses, cowed and hopeless. Emerson concludes this passage with a sharp departure: ‘I only recognize this fact, in passing. It is important that it be stated. It will not help us now to dwell on it.’40 Though he does rest some of the blame for the destitution of the poor England on the material bent of the ‘national mind,’ his eagerness to brush the issue of the ‘two Englands’ aside abruptly and without further comment indicates that his concern in ‘England’ was only with the flourishing ‘Norman-Saxon’ England while the second, poor ‘Celtic’ England would be best disregarded, as it would not contribute to his discussion of English success. The racial appellations, in the context of other writings Emerson produced at this time, suggest that Emerson thought that the roots of the success of the first England, and the problems of the second, were partly attributable to differences in race, temperament, and ability. Draft manuscripts for the large-scale project that became English Traits, and other lectures delivered between 1848 and 1854 suggest that Emerson returned to America convinced by British and European experience that major, fundamental differences did exist between races and that the present condition and histories of the various peoples of Britain and Europe could be interpreted as a function of racial traits. A manuscript fragment titled ‘Talent,’ probably

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written in 1849, appears to be an early draft for a tribal history of Britain, which was not incorporated into English Traits.41 It is useful as an illustration of Emerson’s basic assumptions concerning the inherited differences between Saxons and Celts. His account begins with the Britons, which he describes as a Celtic tribe that migrated from Asia into Europe around 700 B.C. and eventually reached the British Isles. This tribe, whom Emerson refers to as Cimmerians or Cumbri, was eventually pushed to the periphery of the isles by races of ‘strong Savages’ — Angles, Saxons, Danes, and Northmen. The descendents of the Cimmerians, Emerson explains, are found in Wales (Cymru), Ireland, and among the ‘Highlandmen’ of Scotland. The descriptions of the tribes in this manuscript are revelatory. The Cimmerians are referred to as ‘Asiatic’ in their customs. When they came, ‘they brought with them the oriental religion of the Druids & the oriental castes,’ as well as the ‘superstition that has always been found in Eastern Asia.’42 These features of ancient tribal life, Emerson supposes, are evident in the behaviour of the descendents of the Celts to the present day: the Irish, Welsh, and Highlanders are ‘distinguished by very deep national figures; by their superstition[,] by the immoveable establishment of Castes which they brought from Central Asia . . . which made them, as a people, unfriendly to improvement.’ Emerson describes the tribes of Angles and Saxons who arrived later, by contrast, as fierce, restless, and piratical. Unlike the Celts, they were democratic: ‘these barbarians kept the peace among themselves by studied equality’ — and they enjoyed an impassioned, ‘disorderly freedom,’ which contrasted to the rigidity of Celtic hierarchy. Through these historical notes Emerson concludes that ‘general abiding traits may be detected in the maturity of every nation corresponding with the indications of its earliest annals.’43 This manuscript suggests that when Emerson sought causes that explained the ‘two Englands’ of the present, he found them in the contrast between an inherent Saxon passion for mobility and self-rule and an ‘Asiatic’ Celtic rigidity and resistance to change and improvement. The idea that Saxons were naturally more suited to freedom than people of other races also emerges in the lecture ‘France, or Urbanity’

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(sometimes called ‘French Character’), first delivered in January 1854. Much of the lecture is given to a comparison of Britain and France in order to set ‘the qualities and defects of the [French] race in strong relief.’ The French are variously described as Celtic and Latin. Emerson describes them as characterised by Gallic ‘giddiness,’ going for show, glory, and drama. By contrast to the English, who march towards liberty, ‘year after year, through sun and shade,’ the French are repeatedly ‘stung to revolt by some petulance,’ but fail and return to despotism.’ Emerson concludes that the ‘Latin nations,’ including France, were falling into a ‘state of decay,’ and that ‘at the present time only the English race can be trusted with freedom.’44 The remarks and conclusions in the manuscript ‘Talent’ and the lectures ‘England’ and ‘France’ are based on historical, cultural, and anecdotal evidence. However, Emerson uses the term ‘race’ and ‘blood’ and emphasises certain traits that he sees as inherent in the various races. For this reason these notes should be considered to be more than observations on culture and tradition and viewed in the context of wider currents in science and literature of which Emerson was keenly aware. Scientific racialism became widely disseminated and extremely influential in America and England at mid-century. Theories of separate origins, racial hierarchies, and absolute biological determinism gained in currency and support at this time.45 We have already noted that Emerson read and was influenced by Robert Chambers’s Vestiges of Creation (1845), which argued that Caucasians had reached a more advanced stage of evolution than non-European races. After his return to America he read the Scottish anatomist Robert Knox’s Races of Men, published in 1850. According to Knox, ‘human character, individual and national, is traceable solely to the nature of that race to which the individual or nation belongs’; in short, ‘race is everything.’46 Emerson began struggling with Races of Men in his notebooks and various manuscripts from the early 1850s.47 Other influential scientific works that Emerson read during the 1850s diverged from Knox’s analysis in some ways, but upheld the inequality of races. Between 1848 and 1856 Emerson became familiar with a number of racial theories, including those of J. F. Blumenbach, Lorenz Oken, and Louis Agassiz. He may also have been exposed, directly or indirectly, to the racial theories of

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William Sharp MacLeay and William John Swainson, Arnold Guyot, and the Philadelphia ‘extremists’ Samuel George Morton, Josiah Nott, and George Robins Gliddon.48 Though they differed on the question of whether higher traits were preserved in races from the time of their origin or acquired as a result of being at the forefront of human evolution, nearly all of these theorists viewed European ‘Caucasian’ peoples as superior to others. Many posited that among the European races, the Anglo-Saxon was the most advanced and the Celtic races, the least.49 Emerson was not unique in associating the Saxon race with a strong work ethic and a love of freedom. These motifs had roots in the sixteenth century and had been employed frequently by English-speaking writers on both sides of the Atlantic, particularly during the English Civil War and the American Revolution. However, in the mid-nineteenth century the scientific racial hierarchism described above melded in literature with the myth of Saxon freedom, and carried untold numbers, including some of Emerson’s closest friends and colleagues, into what Reginald Horsman described as an ‘emotional tide of racial theory.’50 The conclusions of these scientific works were reflected in hundreds of articles in influential American and British periodicals and reinforced in the public mind by an increasing infusion of racialist discourse in literature.51 Thomas Carlyle’s notorious racist tract ‘Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question,’ was first published anonymously in Fraser’s Magazine in 1849 before appearing in Carlyle’s Latter-Day Pamphlets in 1850.52 In the same year, Emerson’s friend and colleague, the Boston-based naturalist Louis Agassiz, published a seminal article in the Christian Examiner, supposedly showing that the human races had been created separately and were immutable.53 Emerson’s draft manuscripts show that his assumptions concerning Saxon superiorities were reinforced as a result of his experience in 1848, and that he too was affected by this ‘tide.’ However, a re-examination of English Traits shows that he did much more to resist it in this book than has previously been understood.54 It is important to recognise that Emerson made a conscious decision to cast the Saxon as a symbol of freedom rather than a superior blood type. Some signs of the change in his approach to the English race appear in the draft manuscripts of the 1850s. Certain passages and notes show

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that even while he was linking the successes and failures of nations to inherited racial traits, he was at the same time challenging or even seeking to undermine his own conclusions by showing that the most important traits and qualities are not biologically determined, but are moral and mutable. In one note for ‘Natural Aristocracy,’ Emerson concludes that ultimately ‘it will be found that all distinctions fade before that of high Sentiments. Manners and morals rule.’55 In another draft manuscript from this period he decided to ‘adjourn the question of race,’ calling the names Celt, Roman, Saxon ‘superficial marks[,] as if we classified people by the street in which they lived.’ He speculated that beneath the ‘coats or covers’ of anatomical organisation is a ‘spiritual necessity,’ which is ultimately personal, not racial or national.56 These comments indicate the direction Emerson would take in the finalised version of English Traits. The conclusion of Emerson’s extended study of the English race stands out in contrast not only to the conclusions of Carlyle and others, but also to his own earlier writings on the subject. English Traits defies categorisation as much now as it did at the time of its original publication. It is at once a travelogue, a collection of essays, and an ethnic-historical study. It is organised according to a pattern that reflects the main themes around which Emerson structured his own thought about England. As Richard Bridgman has pointed out, the book was long in developing and its peculiar structure bears the mark of its long gestation.57 Emerson wrote that his manuscript on England had reached book length as early as 1852. A year later he thought its end was close at hand, but it was not until October 1855 that he sent the first chapter to his publisher. English Traits finally reached publication in August 1856, eight years after his return to America. Some of Emerson’s lectures and manuscripts written during his 1848 tour and in the period following his return to America focused on the Anglo-Saxon as an exceptional race and explained England’s position of power and prominence in the world as a result of superior racial traits. At some points in English Traits Emerson appears to be in direct dialogue with these earlier writings. Emerson preserves the narrative of a long hard march to freedom, using the Saxon as a symbol, but rejects the idea that the traits that explain English success

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are the unique province of the English race. The result is a book that can be understood both as a continuation and as a reversal of the direction of Emerson’s thought about the English race, and about race more generally, in the period following his tour of Great Britain. The book contains eighteen original chapters, with the text of the 1847 Manchester soiee speech appended as a nineteenth. The first two chapters, ‘First Visit to England’ and ‘Voyage to England,’ are in the autobiographical voice. After an anecdotal memoir of the 1833 visit, Emerson carries his readers with him on the Washington Irving in 1847. In the middle section of the book Emerson’s fundamental concern is with English power and character. He first describes England itself, recasting his earlier contention that if English success were due to climate and natural resources solely, that Ireland too would have excelled. He also announces the central questions that the middle section of the book attempts to answer: ‘Why England is England,’ and what explains ‘that power which the English hold over other nations?’58 The chapters ‘Race,’ ‘Ability,’ ‘Manners,’ ‘Truth,’ and ‘Character’ describe what Emerson sees as the most admirable features of the English national character. Its innate appreciation of freedom, justice, and democratic systems; its respect for practical realities; and its work ethic are identified primarily as ‘Saxon’ traits, while its more fierce and piratical features are associated with the Norse and Norman strains. Emerson’s description of English character and manners is linked to his objective of finding the sources of England’s power. Englishmen are described as possessing a unique love of labour and a natural drive to create and accumulate wealth, which explains why in work output and industrial advances, England was the leader of all nations. Their strong spirits balanced with courage and patience lay behind their successes in wars and their drive to expand into new territories, hence their vast empire. Their fidelity, domesticity, and truthfulness make them models to follow and justify their imperial role. The third section of the book focuses primarily on English institutions, qualifying the optimistic analysis of the previous chapters with an unflattering look at England’s mental and moral deficiencies. In ‘Cockayne’ Emerson portrays the English as arrogant braggarts. In ‘Wealth’ he points to the negative aspects of England’s mental

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materialism, which gave rise to a ‘brutal political economy’ in which heartlessness towards the poor and the dehumanising treatment of workers was rampant. In the factories, the ‘robust rural Saxon degenerates . . . [in]to the Leicester stockinger, to the imbecile Manchester spinner.’59 The chapters ‘Aristocracy’ and ‘Universities’ argue that England is plagued by ancient conventions, which had long ceased to be useful. ‘Religion’ similarly contends that the great spirit that animated Christian Britain in the Middle Ages was now more or less gone from the Anglican Church. ‘Literature’ argues that the time of Shakespeare and Milton was a golden age of the English mind, but that beginning with Locke and continuing to the present, idealism and genius were being trampled beneath the waxing force of materialism. Chapters Sixteen through Eighteen return to an anecdotal style to wrap up and finally synthesise the two sides of the critique presented in the previous chapters— its reverential Saxonism on the one hand, and its accusations of moral corruption as a result of materialism on the other. Emerson’s main conclusion in English Traits is that whilst the English mind, choked by a materialistic spirit, appeared to have reached a state of ‘arrested development,’ it had nonetheless instructed the world and sown the seeds of freedom and progress in the modern era. Despite its shortcomings, England had, ‘over 700 years evolved the principles of freedom’ and, whatever its fate, would be remembered ‘as an island famous . . . for the announcements of original right which make the stone tables of liberty.’60 The challenge that Emerson issued to the English in 1847, to continue to stand for the hope of mankind ‘with strength still equal to the time,’ ends the volume.61 As in his earlier lecture ‘England,’ Emerson’s main concern in English Traits is to discover the sources of England’s power by proceeding backwards from visible result to invisible cause. In this sense, the work is highly representative of the method of analysis described by Herbert Butterfield in The Whig Interpretation of History (1931). Butterfield argued that English-speaking historians working in the then dominant mode of historical writing were prone to ‘emphasise certain principles of progress in the past and to produce a story which is the ratification if not the glory of the present.’62 Later, in The

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Englishman and His History (1944), Butterfield clarified that inherent in the whig (with a small ‘w,’ referring to a general outlook and not the historic Whig Party) interpretation of history was a vision of the past as a progressive march towards freedom. Butterfield postulated that it had attained a near ubiquitous presence in the English-speaking world, where history tended to be told as ‘the story of our liberty.’ Though sound in its values, it was built around a misconstruing of the past, particularly on theories of ‘primitive Teutonic freedom,’ the ‘myth of the Magna Carta,’ and the idea that in England ‘liberty did not need to be created or hatched . . . it only needed to be restored.’ The English ‘alliance with history’ or belief in its own history as a gradual, evolutionary progression towards liberty contrasted to the European, and particularly the French, model in which ‘liberty springs form a revolt against history and tradition.’ Butterfield argued that 1789 and 1848 (the example of Mazzini who believed ‘that the programme of insurrections upon which he built his faith implied the sacrifice of a generation’ is cited as an example of contrast to English values) further entrenched this idea in English consciousness.63 In English Traits Emerson adopts a historical narrative clearly in line with the whig interpretation. Given his long-term association with Bancroft, his several attendances at ‘historical breakfasts’ in 1847–48, and contacts with Macaulay, Hallam, Milman, and others, and the predominance of this historical mode in the English-speaking world, it is unsurprising that Emerson’s approach to England fits into this tradition.64 Emerson’s initial reaction to the failed revolutions of 1848, as the next section will show, was to see value in England’s ability to progress and reform itself gradually without revolution. While this theme is strongly present in English Traits, it is accompanied by an interrogation into whether England’s historical path can be explained racially. The issue of race in English Traits is particularly difficult to handle because Emerson seems to present three varyingly incompatible conclusions. First, he comes near to arguing at certain points that race (or ‘blood’) is essential to the success of England due to English superiority, and that the best English traits derive from Germanic, and particularly Saxon, sources. Emerson asks, ‘It is race, is it not? that puts

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the hundred millions of Indians under the dominion of a remote island in the north of Europe?’ He does not respond directly, but argues that race has a ‘controlling influence’ that explains the preservation of character and national traits in groups of people of common ancestry.65 In the chapters ‘Ability’ and ‘Truth,’ Emerson focuses on the Saxon ‘taste for toil,’ illustrating this feature with anecdotes from the tribal past. The Saxons are described as great ‘wealth-makers,’ whose ability to turn resources to material good justifies ‘their occupancy of the centre of habitable land.’66 The Saxons are also described as good fighters who appreciate fairness and justice and as freedom-loving people who ‘resist every means employed to make [them] subservient to the will of others.’ It is these ‘Saxon’ traits that give the English ‘the leadership of the modern world.’67 This theme is echoed when Emerson contends that England’s ‘practical power’ rests on its ‘national sincerity,’ which derives from a ‘hereditary rectitude’ displayed in the ‘Teutonic tribes,’ as opposed to French vanity and tendency to exaggerate.68 On the other hand, a second conclusion offered in the book is that the reason why the English race is superior is not because of its Saxon blood, but because it is a ‘composite’ race. He argues that it is a law of nature that racial mixing is beneficial. The chapter ‘Race’ begins with Emerson rejecting Knox’s doctrine of imperishable races by arguing that in reality ‘you cannot draw the line where a race begins or ends.’ He declares that ‘the best nations are those most widely related; and navigation, as effecting a world wide mixture, is the most potent advancer of nations,’ using the English race, with its ‘mixed origin,’ as a case in point. In English Traits the blending of Celtic, Roman, Saxon, and Norse blood is described as the factor that explains the astounding breadth of the English national character, and as what made England’s population ‘collectively a better race than any from which they derive.’69 Of the three strains of discourse on race encompassed by English Traits, the one that trumps over all is the third, which debunks the idea that the superior qualities of the Saxon-Englishman are rooted in blood at all, and instead makes the Saxon a mythic symbol of the struggle for freedom, emancipation, and progress. Emerson’s main argument in the first half of the chapter ‘Race’ is that a number

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of limitations to the ‘doctrine of race’ undermine its validity. He ridicules the vanity and self-deceit of racial doctrinism, and suggests that forces that raise mental and moral capacities such as civilisation, education, and faith ‘eat away’ at the ancient tribal traits.70 Emerson insists that the admirable traits of the ‘world’s Englishman’ were in fact cosmopolitan rather than racial in origin; they could not be found amongst the ‘population which never travels’ and are discernible at last only in certain Londoners and ‘people who come and go thither.’71 In light of these statements, Emerson’s discussion of the Saxon and other races is shown to be part of a metaphorical rather than a literal scheme. Emerson’s Saxon in English Traits is symbolic of a greater struggle of the spirit of freedom and civility against that of tyranny and arbitrary power. Emerson does cast the history of Britain after 1066 as the gradual march of the Saxons, ‘step by step’ forcing the Normans to concede to them ‘all the essential securities of civil liberty.’ However, in ‘Ability’ we learn that the names Saxon and Norman are to be used not literally, but ‘mythically.’ He clarifies that, in reality, ‘the nobles are of both tribes, and the workers of both.’72 By affirming that his history should be read symbolically rather than literally, Emerson denies the idea that England’s success in achieving the broadest liberty and freedom yet known for its citizens could be attributed to the inherent properties of its Saxon race. It was the triumph of a universal idealism — the march towards greater freedom and civil rights — that made England an inspiring pattern for the whole world. In English Traits, Emerson comes down on the side of the debate that had raged in his draft manuscripts that suggested that race is as superficial a classifier of men as the ‘streets in which they lived.’ He not only reconsiders but actively undercuts the racialist interpretation of England’s greatness that he himself had previously voiced. Race, ultimately, was meaningless in England’s destiny. Why did this change in Emerson’s thesis on the English race occur? Emerson’s positive experience in Britain and aspects of his convictions about Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism, which were reinforced by the immediate outcome of the 1848 revolutions, certainly played a role in

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shaping the celebratory treatment of the ‘English race’ in the lectures he wrote in England and upon his return to America. The path from these lectures to English Traits, however, shifted, to a significant extent, as a result of changes in Emerson’s stance on slavery in America after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850. The contrast between two antislavery orations, one from 1849 and the other from 1851, illustrates this point. In 1849 Emerson spoke at the August Emancipation Day celebration in Worcester, Massachusetts. The majority of the speech is about a ‘constant progress’ in history, which is similar to the improvement in botanical species and, in like manner, ‘is very slow.’73 In keeping with the call for the engagement of the scholar in this natural ameliorative process that Emerson voiced in his London lectures, he speaks against slavery, but does so in a way that emphasises that the spread of civilisation will ensure slavery’s death. However, Emerson’s antislavery rhetoric became more urgent and radical after experiencing an intense personal reaction to the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1851. The law, put into effect on 18 September 1850, set fines and imprisonment as penalties for aiding runaway slaves and commanded that northern marshals participate in slave catching.74 Within a year of the law’s passage Emerson was breaking the law himself, whilst delivering stump speeches for John G. Palfrey’s Free-Soil Congressional campaign.75 Emerson believed that support for the law was the result of a materialist spirit, which united southern slaveholders and corrupted ‘officials’ who attempted to persuade northern communities through the ‘mischievous whisper, “Tariff and southern market, if you will be quiet.”’76 Parallel in Emerson’s rhetoric to his ‘two Englands’ were ‘two Americas.’ As his 1848 lecture ‘England’ shows, Emerson returned home with a vision of ‘two Englands’ - one admirable, comfortable, flourishing ‘Norman-Saxon’ nation, and another ‘Celtic’ England, which was poor and hopeless. He likened this in the lecture ‘London’ to ‘two Americas, — one, white and exclusive; and the other, black and excluded.’77 In English Traits, however, he renounced his earlier vision and instead portrayed England as divided into one nation that stood for justice and freedom, and another conservative, materialist, ‘aristocratical’ country where ‘not the Trial by Jury, but the dinner,

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is the main institution.’78 Similarly, after 1851, Emerson still saw two Americas, but dropped the claim that one was white and privileged and the other black and deprived. In his ‘Fugitive Slave Law’ address, he stated that ‘under the Union . . . there are really two nations, the North and the South.’ Those, like Daniel Webster, who supported the 1850 legislation, are described as ‘white slaves’ of the South, harnessed ‘to the chariot of the planters.’79 The fact that the North and the South shared Anglo-Saxon ancestry called his earlier divisions into question after 1851. In an 1852 lecture, Emerson asked which ‘branch’ of the English race would triumph in America, ‘the liberty-loving, the thought-loving . . . grand British race . . . [that] created so many laws and charters, and exhibited so much moral grandeur in private and poor men; — or, the England of Kings and Lords, castles and primogeniture.’80 In 1854 he declared that moral torpor in America regarding slavery showed that the Anglo-Saxon race is ‘selfish.’ He admits that ‘the plea in the mouth of a slave-holder that the negro is an inferior race sounds very oddly in my ear.’81 A year later he wondered how American slavery ‘can coexist with the advantages and superiorities we fondly ascribe to ourselves.’82 These considerations affected the final version of English Traits, and help to explain the transition in Emerson’s use of the Saxon between his return to America and the publication of his book on England in 1856. Emerson projected his feelings about race and slavery in America onto his analysis of England. In English Traits Emerson preserves his mythic Saxon to symbolise gains made in the struggle for individual freedom and justice against control, materialism, and arbitrary power. He rejected the ideas of Knox and others who held that the Anglo-Saxon was an inherently superior master race. English Traits should be understood both as a product of his 1847–48 lecture tour, and of revisions to the conclusions he arrived at in England that were closely related to his thought about slavery and race in the United States. Neal Dolan has recently argued that Emerson ‘took it upon himself . . . [to] fashion a new set of symbols for America’s new kind of post-Enlightenment-liberal society.’83 By the mid-1850s, Emerson was sure that American freedom should no longer include the freedom to

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hold slaves. He would use the ‘Saxon’ not as a symbol of racial superiority, but rather of a people’s ability to break the chains of oppression and lead the world forward to an unprecedented age of freedom. § The European revolutions and their aftermath had a profound impact on Emerson. Throughout the later part of his career he thought of the events often, writing about them in journals, lectures, and political speeches. Emerson’s response to these events went through three main stages, which relate closely to his stance on slavery, as it evolved over the course of the 1850s. In the context of the broader American reaction to 1848, Emerson’s initial responses were similar to those common throughout America. His later reinterpretations, however, show that, like others in the North, he came to see the events through the lens of his increasingly radical antislavery and later pro-Union commitments. The crisis culminating in the Civil War has been interpreted as a conflict between two ideologies of freedom: one standing for human rights, and the other standing for the idea of non-interference. Emerson’s later use of 1848 shows the extent to which his path towards a radical pole in this conflict of ideologies led to a use of the past that was shaped, sometimes all too conveniently, by the concerns of the present. It will be useful first to outline briefly the late stages of the 1848 revolutions in Europe. In France, as we have noted, the euphoric February revolution gave way to class conflict and violence in the June Days. In December 1848, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was elected president by universal male suffrage, winning three quarters of the popular vote. Freedom of the press was soon suspended. In 1851 he led a successful coup, assigning himself dictatorial powers and later changing his title to emperor. Elsewhere in Europe the upheaval and bloodshed of 1848 was more or less over by the late summer of 1849. At that point the major dynasties of Austria, Prussia, and Naples were intact and in control over the same territory as in 1847. In Germany the national unity desired by revolutionaries in the various kingdoms had not materialised. Austria successfully quelled nationalist revolutions

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in northern Italy and Hungary, and suppressed democratic revolutionary movements in Vienna and elsewhere within its empire. The revolution in Rome, which had resulted in the flight of Pius IX and the reorganisation of the Papal States into the Roman Republic under Mazzini’s leadership, was ended, ironically, by the French Army in the early summer of 1849. In the previous month the struggle of Sicilian liberals against Ferdinand II had been put down with brutal force and a wave of imprisonments. It was clear to all by 1850 that the European revolutions were over.84 Examining Emerson’s written comments from his return to America onwards, in which he makes direct reference to the experience and events of 1848 or to their aftermath, we can discern three main phases to his reaction. Emerson initially found the European revolutions, especially the revolution in France, to have been tragicomic failures, proving to him that the peoples of Europe, as opposed to the AngloSaxon peoples, were not ready for freedom. In a second, more complicated phase, which lasted throughout the 1850s, Emerson’s analysis of the events and outcomes of 1848 became more sophisticated. He came to see the revolutions that continued into 1849 as distinct from the events in France, and he lionised revolutionary leaders such as Louis Kossuth and Joseph Mazzini. He drew parallels in his journals and in some of his lectures between American supporters of slavery and European reactionaries and rulers of the post-1848 order in Europe. At this time, Emerson showed hostility to the authoritarian regimes in central and eastern Europe, but his most piercing comments were against those whom he saw as hypocrites professing liberal ideals, but in reality opposing the spread of liberty. In this category Emerson placed both the British and American Whigs with whose policies he disagreed, and the French Emperor Louis Napoleon. The tone of these comments suggests that Emerson’s feeling of betrayal over the passage and enforcement of slave legislation in America compelled him to draw these parallels. In a third and final phase, effectively an extension of the second, Emerson’s interpretation was almost the exact opposite of his initial stance. Inspired by his participation in what he understood to be a revolution against the moral abomination of slavery, he came to see the idealism of the French revolutionaries of 1848 as the

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spirit that connected 1848 and the American Civil War within an epic struggle for human dignity and freedom. In Paris, in 1848, remarking on the loss of the ‘fine trees,’ which had been cut down to make barricades, Emerson decided that in a year’s time he would ‘take account, & see if the Revolution was worth the trees.’85 Soon after his return to America he already thought that ‘perhaps’ it had not been.86 In the summer of 1849, surveying the broader situation in Europe, Emerson wrote: ‘Hungary, it seems, must take the yoke again, & Austria, & Italy, & Prussia, & France. Only the English race can be trusted with Freedom. . . . If I had a barn-fowl that wanted a name, I should call him France. Never was [a] national symbol so comically fit.’87 The tone of this entry suggests that in 1849 Emerson understood the European revolutions to have been more or less a single movement of which the events in France were the animus. In this early estimation, Emerson sees the revolutions as having resulted in nothing but further proof of his belief in Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism. The events of the 1850s, however, challenged both Emerson’s simplistic dismissal of the 1848 revolutions and his confidence in England and the English race as the only home of freedom. Reflecting his bitterness over the situation in the United States, particularly on the issue of slavery, Emerson envisioned an abstract struggle between idealists and materialists, which transcended national and racial boundaries. Reflecting on 1848 and its aftermath, he found that the revolutions had not been the failures he initially had understood them to have been, but that they were reflective of a larger struggle between friends and foes of liberty, which was playing out in America, in England, and in Europe. He began to accuse the latter and defend the former in judgmental, impassioned journal entries, and in his lectures. As noted above, Emerson was deeply disturbed by the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law, which was included to placate Southerners in exchange for the entry of California into the Union as a Free State. After a series of arrests in Boston in February 1851 in connection to the case of Shadrach Minkins, an escaped slave, it was abundantly clear that the US authorities, and those of the State of

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Massachusetts, intended to carry out the law. Emerson was shocked and dismayed by the spread of slave legislation to the North and was vocal in his protest.88 He began to rethink 1848 at this time, and came to see parallels between the supporters of slavery in America and forces that attempted to suppress progressive change in Europe. Worst of all, in Emerson’s mind, were those whom he saw as hypocrites and betrayers of the cause of freedom. When the majority faction of the American Whig party, including Emerson’s onetime hero, Daniel Webster, lent their full support to the Fugitive Slave Act, Emerson was reminded of events he witnessed in England at the height of the Chartist agitation. In 1848 he had written with distaste of the ostensibly ‘bold and democratic’ Englishman who, at the moment of crisis ‘recoils; — and joins the rich.’89 In 1851 he made a trenchant connection to the American situation in his journal, commenting in his notebook on a passage from The Leader, a reformist British periodical: There is one benefit derived from the movement lately. The most polite & decorous Whigs, all for church & college & charity, have shown their teeth unmistakably. We shall not be deceived again. We believed . . . that they were honest men. . . . I find a text for our very fact in an English paper speaking of their 10 April 1848. ‘It precipitated the Whigs into Toryism, making them rush into that political infamy for which they seem to have a constitutional predilection.’90 At around the same time, Emerson came to the conclusion that British foreign policy during the events of 1848–49 had amounted to a betrayal of the freedom-seeking peoples of Europe. Lord Palmerston, as foreign secretary, had pursued a policy of non-intervention in the European conflicts, but had in certain key instances bolstered the major powers of the post-1815 concert against nationalists seeking independence. In 1849 Britain joined Russia and France in coercing Wilhelm IV of Prussia to halt support of Schleswig-Holstein, where the ethnically German populace had risen the previous year against Denmark. This resulted in a failure of the duchies’ struggle for self-rule

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and integration into the multinational German Confederation, thereby further weakening the liberal Assembly at Frankfurt.91 Britain also did nothing to assist Hungary after it swept out Habsburg armies and declared independence from Austria in 1849, partly out of its strong interest in maintaining the Austrian Empire as a buffer state against the advance of Russia into Europe. With no support from London or Paris, Hungary fell in 1849 within months of declaring its independence.92 Emerson evidently saw these actions as unsatisfactory and as signs that the material-aristocratic power was predominant even in ‘liberal’ England, leading it to collude with the oppressors rather than intervene on behalf of the free: England never stands for the cause of freedom on the continent, but always for her trade. She did not stand for the freedom of Schleswig Holstein, but for the King of Denmark. She did not stand for the Hungarian, but for Austria. . . . . England, meantime, is liberal, but the power is with the aristocracy, who never go for liberty. . . . Few & poor chances for European Emancipation . . . 93 This journal entry was reworked and included in his second Fugitive Slave Law speech of 1854, but expanded so as to tie together American and British statesmen who abandoned ‘Poland, Italy, Hungary, Schleswig-Holstein, and the French Republicans’ as hypocrites who ‘banded against liberty . . . befriending [it] with their words; and crushing it with their votes.’ It is interesting to note that Emerson accuses these statesmen for not having followed an interventionist policy about which he said nothing and possibly (given the tone of his initial reaction), would not have supported at the time. 94 Other instances in which Emerson compares the corruption of Webster and others who supported slave legislation in America to European counterrevolutionaries are abundant. In 1852 Emerson remarked that ‘European politics are too translatable into American.’ He found that two of the most important Boston newspapers, the Transcript and the Daily Advertiser, ‘take, on each question, the Metternich view. In our Mass[achusetts] courts, too, the judge is on

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the side of the criminal.’95 Pondering Webster’s famous ‘Hulsemann Letter’ in which he defended American-style democracy to the Austrian chargé d’affaires in Washington, Emerson compared the author to Louis Napoleon, who at home preached ‘French liberty’ while simultaneously sending forces to crush the new Republic in Rome.96 In another passage he writes that Webster ‘would dragoon the Hungarians, for all his fine words. . . . He would in Austria truckle to the Czar, as he does in America to the Carolinas; and hunt the Hungarians from the Sultan as he does the fugitives of Virginia from Massachusetts.’97 The reactionary tide in Europe, not only in government but also in public sentiment, which was in full force in the early 1850s, struck Emerson as frightfully similar to the atmosphere in the United States. He understood the wide support Louis Napoleon enjoyed in France as the product of the short-sightedness and base materialism of the masses, and that in this regard the Americans were not exceptional: Then consider that the people don’t want liberty, — they want bread; & though republicanism would give them more bread after a year or two, it would not until then, & they want bread every day. Louis Napoleon says, I will give you work, — & they believed him. In America, we hold out the same bribe, ‘Roast beef, & two dollars a day.’ And our people will not go for the liberty of other people . . . but for annexation of territory, or a tariff, or whatever promises new chances for young men, more money to men of business.98 Elsewhere, Emerson laments a ‘universal skepticism’ exerting devastating effects on both sides of the Atlantic, resulting in the Know Nothing Party and ‘acquiescence in slavery’ in America, and ‘cruel political servitude’ in Europe.99 In this light, we can understand Emerson’s lionisation of European revolutionary leaders during the first half of the 1850s as related to his vision of a sublime struggle for freedom against a materialist fatalism, which he saw affecting both Americans and Europeans in his time.

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In his 1851 lecture ‘Fate,’ he placed the Free Soil party, Kossuth, and Mazzini on the same side in the fundamental conflict between the ‘affirmative and the negative of the one idea of Freedom, [which] is arrived at this hour of the world in the general human spirit.’100 In May 1852 Emerson delivered a welcome speech for Kossuth when he visited Concord. Kossuth had become a fugitive after Russian intervention on behalf of Austria squashed Hungarian resistance in August 1849, three months after its official declaration of independence. He travelled first to England in October 1851 and toured, delivering speeches to mass audiences in many of the same cities Emerson had recently visited, and then to America, arriving in New York in December. In the spring of 1852 he toured New England.101 Emerson’s praise of Kossuth in the speech is uncharacteristically unrestrained; the Hungarian revolutionary is portrayed as a God-ordained freedom fighter. Emerson calls Kossuth ‘the angel of freedom,’ ‘the foremost soldier of freedom in this age,’ and ‘a doctor in the college of liberty.’ Emerson addresses Kossuth directly, as a man who has ‘achieved the right to interpret our Washington,’ adding ‘that it is not those who live idly in the city called after his name, but those who, all over the world, think and act like him, who can claim to explain the sentiment of Washington.’102 A final aspect of Emerson’s analysis of 1848 during this phase has been hinted at in the previous section. In English Traits Emerson contrasted English stability and the idea of a gradual march towards liberty to the ‘desperate revolution[s],’ mob violence, and assassinations that he associated with the French tradition. In English Traits Emerson made only slight reference, without any overt show of sympathy, to Chartism in Great Britain at that time and no specific comments about the wider wave of revolution in 1848 in Europe.103 This shows that though Emerson was willing to celebrate nationalist revolutionaries in Europe during the 1850s, his hope was in gradual, peaceful reform, which, once effected, would not be overturned. Emerson at no point opposed the goals of the Chartists. As we have seen in his reaction at the time of the events themselves, he was intensely disappointed at their lack of effective leadership. He was unenthusiastic about O’Connor, whom he perceived as weak, disturbed by the ‘gross

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and bloody chiefs’ of the physical-force faction, and most of all infuriated by the willingness of the British elite to abandon the movement, leaving it in such hands. Other writings from this period show that this feeling remained with Emerson long after his return to America. In a loose set of handwritten notes titled ‘Chartism’ Emerson recorded a number of facts in support of the Chartist cause. He noted that despite the gains made through the 1832 Reform Act, ‘the political equity is still very impure. There are still but one million voters in a population of 30,000,000.’ The Chartist demand that ‘intellect & not property be represented in Parliament’ was resisted by the ‘Egyptian stiffness of England,’ where ‘the land is owned by 32,000 only.’104 However, Emerson concedes that ‘Chartist meetings are pathetic’ and supported by ‘a constituency that cannot read & are drunk with gin.’ Their leaders (the names O’Connor and Cooper appear, struck through with pen) are ‘swindling,’ ‘fustian’ and ‘betray [their supporters] in public & cheat them in private.’ Emerson lists the six points of the People’s Charter, and concludes that ‘they must have it at last.’105 The new poem ‘The Chartist’s Complaint,’ which Emerson published in the first number of The Atlantic in 1857, suggests that he wanted to vent some of the feelings regarding Chartism that he had not expressed in English Traits. In a dialogue with ‘Day,’ the Chartist asks why the ‘triste and damp’ world of the labourer must be so different from that of the ‘rich man’ living in close proximity. The sun graces the ‘rich man’s wood and lake’ and thus, it seems to the dissatisfied Chartist, is ‘a sycophant to smug success.’ The final couplet is a commentary on the anger, bitterness, and hopelessness that arrives in the heart of the oppressed: ‘O Sun! I curse thy cruel ray: / Back, back to chaos, harlot Day!’106 The advent of the Civil War marks the third and final stage in Emerson’s analysis of 1848. In the post–Emancipation Proclamation phase of the war Emerson’s commitment to the northern cause was absolute. He saw the conflict as a second American revolution, a war to destroy slavery which pitted the friends versus the foes of liberty, proceeding from the same moral sources as the American War of Independence. The reflections on Europe during 1848 and in the decade

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and a half of reactionary leadership that followed, took on a similarly decisive, black-and-white tone. In the twelve years between his return to America and the outbreak of the war, Emerson had said little that was positive about the 1848 revolution in France, seemingly seeing it in terms of its negative result — the rise of Louis Napoleon — and he had almost nothing negative to say about England’s having weathered its storm with its governmental organisation still intact. We have seen that Emerson recognised that materialism and aristocratic power were still exerting harmful influences in England, but that he was given to believe that the ‘Saxon’ principles of truth and justice were moving it onwards, gradually, along its path to liberty. Emerson was nonetheless shocked and disturbed by the outpouring of sympathy in England for the Confederacy.107 This led him to attack British conservatism with unrestrained ferocity and to tie the spirit of the Northern ‘revolution’ against slave power to the memory of the French Revolution of 1848, which he came to see less in terms of the results of its failure than of the idealism at its root. In ‘Moral Forces’ (1862) he attacked The Times for its ‘spite and affected sarcasm’ in its coverage of the war. In an address on ‘The Scholar’ some months later, the revolutionary republican and leader in the 1848 provisional government, François Arago, figures along with Socrates, Phocion, Cato, and Lafayette in a list of persons who have the truth among ‘nations who have it not.’108 In 1863 he remarked in his journal that the Americans were ‘in the midst of a great Revolution,’ fighting for ‘freedom of thought, of religion, of speech, of the press, & of trade, & of suffrage,’ while in England, by contrast, all ‘six points of Chartism are still postponed.’109 In ‘Fortune of the Republic’ (1863), the most scathing speech of his career, he announced that the model society for those who supported the spirit of slavery was England ‘not, of course, middleclass England, but rich, powerful and titled England.’110 Emerson attacks Carlyle, who had satirised the Civil War in a recent article in Macmillan’s Magazine, as a pedantic fatalist.111 With reference to the war, Emerson writes that it is ‘dreadful . . . to see the Americans slaughter each other!’ but argues that to give the South independence would be to necessitate alliance with it. In an unnerving sentence that

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indicates the fervour with which he believed in the rightness of the war, Emerson concludes that ‘one generation might well be sacrificed . . . that this continent be purged, and a new era of equal rights dawn on the universe.’112 This lecture also shows that Emerson’s understanding of the revolutions he experienced as an outsider in 1848 took on a different cast when he understood himself to be participating in one in his own country. Emerson describes the Paris of the Second Republic as having been the true ‘capital of Europe.’113 London is associated with ‘selfish and mixed’ liberty while the revolutions in Paris and Germany are identified with a belief in the ‘idea of human freedom.’ The French Socialists, Emerson declares, though ‘full of crude thoughts and wishes,’ at least were sincerely interested in ‘lift[ing] the condition of mankind.’114 Though Emerson was able to draw upon his own experience in ways that most Americans were not, his reaction to the events of 1848 were not altogether unique. Recent studies have shown that the revolutions of 1848 had a major impact on thought about politics, slavery, and society in the United States during the 1850s.115 Americans were never unanimous in response to the European revolutions, but several main trends are discernable. During the spring of 1848, while Emerson was still in Europe, Americans were generally supportive of the republican revolutions, which they interpreted as being inspired by the American example. Though many were alarmed by the ‘red’ threat in France, particularly after the outbreak of violence between Socialists and republicans in the bloody ‘June Days,’ Americans were initially optimistic about the revolutions, as evidenced by numerous sympathy demonstrations in major American cities, a swathe of new places like Lamartine, Wisconsin, and Kossuth County, Iowa, named after European revolutionaries, and in the letters of citizens and public officials.116 While most Americans saw the revolutions in retrospective terms as strivings towards American democracy, which validated its current system, some antislavery advocates used the steps taken in France to argue that America had failed to live up to the spirit that animated its own revolutionary heroes. Frederick Douglass, Theodore Parker, and others delivered speeches using the example of revolutionary France, which

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emancipated its slaves and addressed workers’ rights in its constitution, to highlight the injustices that had yet to be overcome in America. Timothy Roberts has argued that for these and others like Lucretia Mott and Margaret Fuller, 1848 shaped a new reformist agenda in which advocacy of abolitionism and women’s and workers’ rights converged.117 When the failure of the revolutionary movements became apparent, American reactions became more complicated and divided. Many Americans concluded that Europeans were not ready for democracy and saw a self-justifying contrast between the violence, chaos, and defeat in Europe and the ability of (Anglo-)America to maintain domestic peace while spreading its values westward.118 Many, though not all, Americans sympathised with republican revolutionary émigrés and travellers from Europe, most notably Kossuth, often drawing comparisons to America’s revolutionary past, but only a tiny minority supplied them with any more than moral support, or called for American intervention on behalf of foreign republican forces.119 In the longer term, the impact of the revolutions was to increase sectional feeling in the United States, particularly as the North and South came to rally around different views of the future of republicanism, the meaning of freedom, and the legacy of the American Revolution.120 From the 1850s to the end of the Civil War, Northerners increasingly argued for overturning arbitrary, ‘aristocratic’ slaveholding power. The example of earlier American and recent European revolutionaries who fought to cast aside oppressive aristocratic powers and institute a free labour and free market society, held natural appeal and became part of pro-northern sectional rhetoric. Southern proslavery advocates and later secessionists also found source material for their arguments in the example of 1848. Some claimed to embody the same spirit that had inspired the American revolutionaries and the struggles of 1848–49 in Hungary and Italy for national self-determination. Southerners argued, as André Fleche points out, ‘that they could improve upon European efforts at self-determination by keeping their working class enslaved and rejecting the communism and “red republicanism” that troubled Old World nations.’ European immigrants and refugees who arrived in America from

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1848 onwards advocated both of these positions, depending on their personal priorities. Many became active in American politics and went on to play important roles on both sides in the Civil War.121 What is interesting, within the context of this study, is to locate where Emerson fits into these broader trends. The initial phase of Emerson’s response after his return to America shows that his attitudes were more typical of the general American reaction to 1848 than those of some of his closest friends and colleagues. His ability to dismiss the revolutions in 1849 and to celebrate, by contrast, the unique capacity of the ‘English race’ to deal capably with freedom stands in stark contrast to the tone taken by Theodore Parker in relation to the events. Margaret Fuller’s revolutionary activism in Italy was even more dissimilar. Fuller, one of Emerson’s most beloved friends, had been in Europe as a correspondent for Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune since 1846. When the Roman Republic was declared in February 1849, following the assassination of the Papal States Prime Minister and the flight of Pius IX in late 1848, her husband took up a captaincy in the Guardia Civica. He fought alongside his men against the French between April and the fall of Rome in July 1849 while Margaret worked in a hospital, ‘caring for his wounded and dying comrades.’122 In her Tribune articles she pleaded, unsuccessfully, for American support on behalf of Rome. After the siege she began writing a history of the Italian revolutions and the Roman Republic. In her letters she spoke of her ‘revolutionary spirit,’ declared that she was ‘more radical than ever,’ and professed her continued devotion to Mazzini.123 The reactions of Parker, Douglass, and Fuller were not typical of America in general, but only of a relatively small group of northern abolitionists and radicals. Emerson’s initial understanding of the failed revolutions as further evidence of Saxon exceptionalism, on the other hand, was similar to those exhibited both in the North and the South, as well as in England. The contrast between Emerson’s initial response and those of the 1850s suggests that his later interpretation of the events of 1848 was a product not only of thoughts about Europe, but also of a transformation wrought by his radical abolitionism after 1851. From 1851

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onwards, his view of 1848 could no longer be characterised as one that might be shared by Americans in all parts of the country, particularly not in the South. It conformed to the more radical view voiced by Parker and others earlier. In the 1850s Emerson’s interpretation of 1848 became linked to a broader antislavery, pro-reform agenda. His attacks on the ‘aristocratic’ power in England grew fiercer. He envisioned an abstract struggle for freedom in which the positive force was represented not only by those struggling for national self-determination, but also by the Chartists and French Republicans and even Socialists who supported universal male suffrage, worker’s rights, and, where it still existed, the abolition of slavery. He was not alone in this. Historians have shown that discussion of 1848 became infused with sectional feeling in the 1850s. Many in the North focused on an interpretation of both the European and the American revolutions as struggles for what Isaiah Berlin termed ‘positive freedom.’ Southerners who used the efforts of European nationalists and the example of the American War for Independence in their rhetoric focused, by contrast, on ‘negative freedom.’124 That people from both the North and the South found examples to justify these views in the European revolutions of 1848 is unsurprising because, in these struggles, the causes of positive freedom, or human rights such as the right to work, the right to representative government, and the right to shape one’s own destiny, and negative freedoms — freedoms from foreign powers and from the unwanted interference from a central government — generally went hand in hand. The same could be said of the American Revolution, as Americans saw it. As we have seen, in Emerson’s own writings from the 1830s and 1840s he had interpreted the colonists’ war against Britain both as a struggle for political independence and as one that stood for the principle of the individual’s right to self-mastery. In the slavery crisis and, especially, in the Civil War, however, the ideologies of non-interference and of advancing human rights were no longer on the same side of the divide in Emerson’s mind. Emerson had hoped for peace and showed his continued admiration for the path of gradual reform as opposed to revolutionary violence in English Traits. However, from the time of the outbreak of violence

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on the Kansas frontier between antislavery settlers and proslavery ‘border ruffians’ in 1856, Emerson realised that ‘the new revolution of the nineteenth century,’ would be a struggle to achieve the positive freedoms that the first American Revolution had left undone. He reconciled himself to the idea that to achieve this, violence may be necessary.125 From 1856 onwards Emerson had little more to say about Kossuth or the various European independence movements, but he did focus anew on the Chartist movement, whose charter, perhaps not incidentally, centred on the right to vote and other ‘positive’ freedoms.126 In America he celebrated John Brown, whom he first met in January 1857 at Thoreau’s home in Concord. After Brown carried out his infamous raid on a US armoury at Harper’s Ferry in 1859, Emerson idealised him in his speeches as the incarnation of the spirit of the American Revolution. He captured Brown’s intolerance for compromise in a quote from his visit to Concord: ‘Better that a whole generation of men, women and children should pass away by a violent death, than that one word of [the Golden Rule or the Declaration of Independence] should be violated in this country.’127 Emerson held Brown up as a martyr and a leader in a righteous campaign against slavery. Though Emerson’s position was extremely radical even in the North at the time, within a few years untold thousands in the wartime Union had come round to this view.128 Emerson’s zealous defence of Brown and his violent methods stands in contrast to the aversion he showed to revolutionary violence while he was in Europe and again in English Traits. During the Civil War that followed, Emerson regarded himself as a participant in a revolution of which the events of 1848 were an important precedent. The revaluation of the events of 1848 culminated with his assertion that Paris, with its revolutionaries who aimed to lift the condition of mankind, was the true capital of Europe. His vision during the conflict in America was one-sided, disturbingly so, when one stops to wonder why the carnage of the Civil War could not have been prevented.129 From another point of view, when one considers that for Emerson, ensuring that the dehumanising institution of slavery would not plague

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future generations was worth any price, his extreme rhetoric seems more understandable in the circumstances. He saw the end of slavery through the victory of the North as a revolution, and as the will of God. The deaths of those who fought for the Confederacy and for the Union were second in his mind to this.

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CONCLUSION

Emerson’s lecture tour of Great Britain and his experience of the dramatic political events of 1848 constitute an important episode in his career. Before Emerson’s departure for Europe he was torn by a sense of confusion over issues such as slavery, national destiny, and the Mexican War. His struggle with a sense of dissatisfaction at his own inability to respond in an adequate way to these issues was exacerbated by the failure of a number of literary and social initiatives with which he was connected as a participant or an active observer during the 1840s. By 1847 Emerson felt that he and his circle had receded into a condition of provincial inefficacy and disconnectedness from the main currents of American life. At a time when he admitted that his inclination was to withdraw himself into the wilderness, he chose instead to take up an invitation to lecture in Great Britain. In England, Emerson’s spirits improved. He saw what he considered to be a strong ‘English race’ confronting the serious problems of the day with realism, hard work, and determination. In the manufacturing districts, he was warmly welcomed by a number of progressive liberal industrialists in whom Emerson saw much to admire. In London, partially as the result of a fortuitous reconnection with George Bancroft and his long-term association with Carlyle, Emerson moved in the highest intellectual, literary, and even political circles, and visited some of its most prestigious clubs and scientific societies. He was dazzled and stimulated by the concentration of men and women of genius and talent in London and in Britain more generally. Although Emerson expressed a belief in natural hierarchies and inequalities in his journals and in new lectures such as ‘Natural

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Aristocracy’ at this time, he was not blind to the suffering of the working and jobless classes or to their lack of representation in the British government. When violence erupted in France and threatened to spread to England, Emerson was torn between sympathy and antipathy towards the revolutionary movement. While he recognised and endorsed appeals for greater political representation and protection against exploitation for all citizens, he remained unconvinced about the ultimate workability of state Socialism, and disturbed by the possibility that mob violence might spin out of control. In England, Emerson was genuinely disappointed at the failure of the intellectual classes to support the workers’ cause, leaving them to be led by what, in his eyes, were inferior men and traitors. Emerson channelled some of his thoughts on these issues into his June London lectures, which are the best indications of the immediate, unmitigated result of his experience and his response to 1848. Emerson focused on leadership. In the lectures he wrote after the outbreak of the revolution in France, Emerson placed special emphasis on the duty of the scholar to engage, at least morally, in the advancement of freedom and justice. He emphasised that there is a divide between the aimless masses and those fit to lead, and stressed that those with talent, moral fitness, and ability have a duty to guide society in the right direction. The impact of Emerson’s experience on his life after his return to America is discernible in the new direction he took in his social interaction, in his 1856 book English Traits, and in his numerous references in private writings and public orations to the Chartist agitation in Britain, the 1848 revolutions in Europe, and their aftermath during the 1850s and 1860s. After his return to America, Emerson became deeply involved in the creation of a community of elites in Massachusetts and in assisting with numerous transatlantic exchanges. Beginning immediately after his arrival in Boston, he worked towards the establishment of a London-like club culture in Boston, which brought together prominent persons from a variety of professions. In his new social role, Emerson evidently overcame the feeling of disconnectedness and inefficacy he complained of before his departure.

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The paths that Emerson took from England to English Traits and from his initial responses to his later analyses of the events of 1848 were less straightforward. Emerson’s thinking about England revolved to a large extent around the idea of an ‘English race.’ Building on preconceptions held before his tour, which were reinforced in his mind by his experience in Britain, Emerson vaunted the ‘English race’ during the years immediately following his return to America as one possessing superior racial traits, such as a commanding work ethic and an ability to deal responsibly with freedom. Searching for the sources of England’s present power and success, he concluded that the English appeared to have ‘the best blood,’ and explained the difference between a flourishing ‘Norman-Saxon’ England and a hopeless ‘Celtic’ England partly in terms of racial characteristics, which he found in their tribal histories. Influential scientific and literary works that he read at this time contained similar conclusions. In English Traits, however, Emerson overturned some of his earlier conclusions. He deemphasised the notion of a superior Anglo-Saxon blood type. He retained the notion of a gradual Saxon approach to liberty, which compared favourably to the cycle of revolutionary violence and despotic reaction that he saw in French history, but he used the Saxon primarily as a symbol representing one side in a broader struggle between ‘worker’ and ‘enjoyer,’ justice and tyranny, and democracy and arbitrary power throughout the world. Part of what explains this shift is his reaction to events in the United States during the first half of the 1850s, particularly those related to the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law. Emerson believed that support for the law was the result of a prevailing materialist spirit, which put the interests of property and economic stability above those of basic human rights. The disgust he felt towards Anglo-Saxon Americans who supported the slave legislation made him feel that the true divisions that existed in humanity were not between rich and poor or between one race and another, but between those who would stand for the rights of the individual and those who would place material satiety above humane considerations. Emerson’s comments and analysis on the political events of 1848 underwent a similar shift. Initially, after the failure of the European

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revolutions became apparent, Emerson saw the events primarily in terms of their negative result, a new epoch of despotism. This heightened his sense of Anglo-American exceptionalism. In the 1850s, however, he came to rethink 1848, and drew links between the supporters of slavery in America, European reactionaries, and the ‘aristocratic’ interest in Britain that led it to betray the freedom-seeking peoples of Europe. Emerson’s analyses of Britain, Europe, and the events of 1848 were strongly influenced by his concerns in America. His perception of a rift in humanity separating materialists and idealists came to dominate his vision. In his notebooks and in his lectures, Emerson placed Americans and Europeans on both sides of this divide. At various points in the 1850s and 60s, Emerson characterised Webster and the pro-Compromise faction of the American Whig party, alongside Palmerston, British aristocrats, Louis Napoleon and his supporters, and the rulers of the Austrian and Russian Empires, as enemies of freedom. He dealt sympathetically with Kossuth, Mazzini, and later, the unnamed worker of ‘The Chartist’s Complaint,’ French Socialists, and German revolutionaries. During the Civil War, Emerson saw both the present and the past in black and white. The contrast between the comments on his return regarding the events of 1848 and those of the 1850s and 60s is testimony to the extent to which the priorities of the present influenced the way Emerson and other Americans saw and used the recent past. As mentioned in the introduction, the impact of Emerson’s experience abroad in 1847–48 on his thought has been interpreted in a number of different ways by biographers and critics, and some of these interpretations seem to contradict the others. This study has demonstrated more of these interpretations to be right than wrong. There are some points that will have been proven incorrect. Stephen Whicher’s contention that Emerson’s trip abroad marked the ‘conclusion of the real development of his thought’ is belied by the fact that his thought on race, politics, and revolution were anything but static during the 1850s and 60s. Whicher’s argument that Emerson bade a ‘farewell to action’ coinciding with the fall of Brook Farm, abandoning his youthful emphasis on bringing about change and reform in society and instead trusting passively in the natural process of amelioration, has already

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been seriously challenged by recent scholarship. Here I have emphasised that, if anything, Emerson became more active and dynamic after 1848 and, as the 1850s went on, more committed to combatting the spirit of tyranny and materialism that he saw gathering force both in Europe and in America. Philip Nicoloff’s contention that Emerson returned to America with an increased emphasis on racial and national destiny, I believe, is true. However, I have tried to show that Emerson’s emphasis on biological determinism and racial hierarchies peaked soon after his return and that English Traits actually represents a significant rejection of some of his own earlier racialist conclusions. Recent critics, including Phyllis Cole, Len Gougeon, and David Robinson, have suggested that there is some connection between Emerson’s experience in 1847–48 and his social activism and heightened political sensibility during the 1850s. At first glance, the fact that Emerson returned to America in what may be described as a ‘conservative’ mood appears to belie this interpretation. However, the lesson that Emerson learned through the Chartist failure in April 1848 was one that stayed with him and exerted a powerful influence in the years that followed. Emerson responded to the event by insisting in his London lectures that the engagement of the scholar and the leadership of the ‘Natural Aristocracy’ cannot be spared in the path towards progress. He felt that the intellectual classes of England had let down the cause of progress in a way that was disgraceful and cowardly. He was determined not to follow their example. 1848 set the stage for an ever-increasing engagement in progressive issues in the 1850s. When the Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850, making all Americans responsible for the maintenance of southern slavery, Emerson felt that he could not stand idly by. These feelings pushed him to take to the stump for the Free-Soil party in 1851. Emerson took his responsibility to engage more seriously than ever in the years that followed. The heightened sense that ‘moral suasion’ was not enough; that the man of letters has the duty to actively engage in making the world a better place pushed him into a leadership position that he would hardly have conceived for himself in his earlier career. He spoke and advocated for women’s rights and the rights of AfricanAmericans. Emerson’s later reinterpretation of the events of 1848 in

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continental Europe as struggles for freedom, which were unsuccessful because those who were in a position to help chose to do nothing continued to motivate him to take on the role of a moral leader in the war against slavery. Sacvan Bercovitch’s argument that the European Forty-Eight marked the end of Emerson’s flirtation with utopian Socialism and caused an ideological homecoming to radical liberalism is convincing in light of what we have seen here. From 1847 onwards, Emerson integrated himself into a northern and transatlantic culture that could be described, with few exceptions, as being solidly liberal. Emerson’s new elite milieu was one into which the radical aspects of his thought, including his hope for adjustments and solutions to the problems of capitalism and his increasingly aggressive, eventually militant, opposition to slavery, could be accommodated. It was perhaps as much a positive reaction to his time amongst the progressive captains of industry in England as it was a negative reaction to the Socialism of revolutionary France that explains this ‘homecoming.’ My concern in four of the five chapters of this book has been chiefly biographical. What is written here is only one step towards an understanding of the importance of Emerson’s lecture tour to Britain. In Chapter Two the focus on the immediate reaction to Emerson’s lectures highlighted some points in relation to British society and the lecture platform in 1847–48. As Martin Hewitt has already illustrated using reactions to Emerson’s lectures in Manchester as an example, controversial changes in the use and conventions of the lecture platform were taking place in the late 1840s. Our record of the reactions to Emerson’s lectures in Nottingham, Derby, Glasgow, Dundee, and elsewhere, shows that the platform was a contested space throughout the United Kingdom. In Britain Emerson was showered with support by some and viciously attacked in press articles, placards, and pamphlets by others. Some celebrated him as America’s greatest living writer. Others were deeply troubled by the extent of Emerson’s influence. Often his very right to speak at institutions where discussion of religion and politics were formally excluded was called into question. British opinions about Emerson are in some ways reflective of conflicting political, regional, and religious concerns. In England, Emerson

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was generally supported by liberals and opposed primarily by conservatives and writers with strong orthodox religious views. In Scotland, political persuasion appears to have been far less an important factor in determining reaction to Emerson than religious denomination. Scottish writers associated with various post-Disruption Calvinist churches, including Free Church liberals, were amongst the strongest condemnatory voices while Blackwood’s, a Tory publication, showed support and understanding. Other approaches might be effectively employed to draw conclusions about the long-term impact of Emerson’s lectures within the context of the adult education movement in general, the history of the individual institutions at which he spoke, and the history of the lecture platform. It is hoped that the steps taken here, and the appended list of British press articles about Emerson and his tour, may be of service to future scholars interested in these aspects of British history. Emerson’s 1847–48 tour was a remarkable journey by an important man of letters in turbulent times. For Emerson, the experiences of Britain and of revolutionary Europe were not soon forgotten. They became intertwined with his rhetoric and his concerns about the fortune of the American republic. In the growing darkness of the sectional conflict, in his journals, and in his lectures, Emerson ranged Americans and Europeans, past and present, onto either side of great moral divide. The ‘revolution’ that he interpreted the Civil War to be was linked in his mind to a history of struggles for human rights around the world. The American Revolution, 1848, and the destruction of slavery in America became three links in the same chain in a powerful mind at war.

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APPENDIX 1

Map of England, Scotland and Wales in 1847–48

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APPENDIX 2 EMER SON IN BR ITISH AND FR ENCH NEWSPAPER S AND PER IODICALS PR IOR TO 1850

What follows is the result of an attempt to gather a complete list of newspaper and periodical sources on Ralph Waldo Emerson appearing in Britain and France before 1 January 1850. In addition to the most complete existing bibliography of works about Emerson: Robert E. Burkholder and Joel Myerson, Emerson: An Annotated Secondary Bibliography (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985), I have drawn extensively from the following works: WS I

William J. Sowder, ‘Emerson’s Early Impact on England: A Study in British Periodicals.’ PMLA 77.5 (1962): 561–76. WS II William J. Sowder, ‘Emerson’s Rationalist Champions: A Study in British Periodicals.’ NEQ 37:2 (1964): 147–70. TS I Townsend Scudder, III, ‘Emerson’s British Lecture Tour, 1847–1848, I: The Preparations for the Tour, and the Nature of Emerson’s Audiences.’ American Literature 7.1 (1935): 15–36. TS II Townsend Scudder, III, ‘Emerson’s British Lecture Tour, 1847– 1848, II: Emerson as a Lecturer in Britain and the Reception of the Lectures.’ American Literature 7.2 (1935): 166–80. TS III Townsend Scudder, III, ‘Emerson in London and the London Lectures.’ American Literature, 8.1 (1936): 22–36.

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TS IV Townsend Scudder, III, ‘A Chronological List of Emerson’s Lectures on His British Lecture Tour of 1847–1848.’ PMLA, 51.1 (1936): 243–48. KWC Kenneth Walter Cameron, Emerson and Thoreau in Europe: The Transcendental Influence (Hartford: Transcendental Books, 1999). LL Ronald A. Bosco and Joel Myerson, eds. The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson , 2 vols. (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 2001). MH Martin Hewitt, ‘Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Dawson, and the Control of the Lecture Platform in Mid-Nineteenth Century Manchester,’ Nineteenth-Century Prose 25:2 (Fall 1998): 1–23. Numbers following an abbreviated source reference: These have been added for the purposes of accessing the source of the reference and, in some instances, the above author’s résumé or analysis of the contents of the reference. In the case of WS I, TS I–IV, and LL, free-standing numbers represent page numbers and numbers in parentheses represent footnotes. In the case of KWC, numbers in parentheses refer to the bibliographical list in the opening pages of the volume. In cases where the entry is also listed in Burkholder and Myerson’s Secondary Bibliography I have enclosed the corresponding reference number in braces at the end of the entry. In cases where I have discovered a new reference, or where more information about an already-known reference has been uncovered in the course of my research, I have marked the reference with a footnote. Simple book advertisements and announcements of coming lectures have generally been excluded from this list. A short list of British books and pamphlets that contain discussions of Emerson is appended to the end of this list.

1838 January: ‘Review of Harriet Martineau’s Retrospect of Western Travel,’ The London and Westminster Review, xxviii, 470–502. WS I 562 (9); {A 39}

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1839 Harriet Martineau, ‘Literary Lionism,’ The London and Westminster Review, xxxii, 261–68. WS I 562 (10); {A 85} September: John Heraud, ‘A Response from America,’ Monthly Magazine, 3rd ser., 2, pp. 344–52. {A 87} April:

1840 March:

April:

October:

Richard Milnes, ‘American Philosophy—Emerson’s Works,’ The London and Westminster Review, xxxiii, 345– 72. WS I 562 (11, 102, 108, 109, 125); {A 94} Jonathan Bayley, ‘Nature,’ The Intellectual Repository and New Jerusalem Magazine, n.s.i, 188–91. WS I 565 (41); {A 96} John Heraud, ‘Census of Foreign Literature. Continental Philosophy in America. No. III – Cousin Criticised,’ Monthly Magazine, 3rd ser., 4, pp. 331–38. {A 113}

1841 The Spectator, 834. WS I 562 (14, 46, 117), WS II (1)1 Tablet, 613–14. {A 156} Britannia, 834–35. {A 157} The Literary Gazette, 620. WS I 572 (113); {A 158} The London and Westminster Review, xxxvi, 491–92. WS I 561 (8, 112); {A 160} October: The Monthly Review, n.s.iii, 274–79. WS I 562 (14, 115); {A 161} October: Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, n.s.viii, 666–70. WS I 562 (14, 23, 159); {A 163} Oct. 23: Athenaeum, 803–4. WS I 562 (14, 94, 111, 161); {A 164}2 Oct. 29: Evening Chronicle, 3. {A 165} November: John Heraud, ‘Emerson’s Essays,’ Monthly Magazine. 3rd ser., 6, 485–505. {A 167} August 28: Sept. 18: Sept. 25: Sept. 25: October:

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1842 Jan. 29: Manchester Times and Gazette.3 August 1: Charles Lane, ‘Transatlantic Transcendentalism,’ Union, i, 166–68. {A 195} December: The Eclectic Review, lxxvi, 667–87. WS I 565 (45, 87, 91, 93, 98, 161), WS II (5, 20); {A 199}

1844 Rufus Griswold, ‘The Poets and Poetry of America,’ The Foreign Quarterly Review, xxxii, 291–324. WS I 564 (30, 104); {A 221} August 7: Phlarète Chasles, ‘Des Tendances littéraires en Angleterre et en Amérique,’ Revue des Deux Mondes, 526. KWC (3); {A 232} Oct. 16: Anti-slavery Reporter, 197–98. WS I 567 (67); {A 238} Oct. 30: Anti-slavery Reporter, 203. {A 203} Nov. 24: G. Prentice, The Spectator, 1122–23. WS I 562 (15, 22); {A 245}4 Nov. 30: Literary Examiner, 757. {A 246} Dec. 28: Athenaeum, 1197. WS I 569 (78); WS II (1); {A 252} January:

1845 February: April 5: May: June 28: July 31: Nov. 25:

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Douglas Jerrold [?], Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine, i, 184–47. WS I 567 (19, 31, 75); {A 264} Preston Guardian.5 Charles Wicksteed, The Prospective Review, i, 252–63. WS I 567 (67, 123), WS II (5); {A 269} The Literary Gazette, 423. WS I, 575 (148); {A 271} Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser (Dublin).6 Chais, G. ‘Les Poètes Américaines,’ La Revue Indépendante, xxiii, 229. KWC (6)

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1846 February: ‘Ralph Waldo Emerson,’ Lowe’s Edinburgh Magazine, i, 169–82.7 April: ‘Emerson’s Essays,’ and ‘American Poetry,’ The Biblical Review and Congregational Magazine, i, 148–52, 317–23. WS I 563 (17, 32, 45, 107, 114, 161); {A 289, 290} July: ‘Mysticism and Scepticism,’ Edinburgh Review, lxxxiv, 195– 223. {A 294} July: Stern, Daniel [Marie de Flavigny], Études Contemporaines: Emerson,’ La Revue Indépendante, 446–456. KWC (7); {A 296}

1847 Critic, 9–11. WS I 562 (15, 26, 34); {A 308}8 G. Prentice [?], Athenaeum, 144–46. WS I, 563 (16, 26, 37); {A 314} April: The Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review, xlvii, 250. WS I 564 (30); {A 332} May 1: ‘Our Library. Poems, by Ralph Waldo Emerson,’ People’s Journal, iii, 249–50. {A 338} May 8: The Literary Examiner, 292. WS I 564 (30, 82); {A 339} August: Émile Montégut, ‘Un Penseur et Poète Américain: Ralph Waldo Emerson,’ La Revue des Deux Mondes, xix, 462–93. KWC (11); {A 348} Sept. 11: Athenaeum, TS I (13) Sept. 24: Liverpool Mercury.9 Oct. 19: Manchester Examiner. TS I (14) Oct. 19: Liverpool Mercury.10 Oct. 23: Leeds Mercury.11 Oct. 29: Liverpool Mercury. TS I (8) Oct. 29: Manchester Examiner. TS I (16)12 Oct. 30: Manchester Times. TS I (28) Oct. 30: Liverpool Chronicle and General Advertiser. TS I (29) November: Parke Goodwin, ‘Ralph Waldo Emerson,’ The People’s Journal of Literature, Art, and Popular Progress, iv, 305–08. WS I 564 (28, 132, 159), TS I (17); {A 357} Jan. 2: Feb. 6:

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A PPENDIX 2

Nov. 1: Nov. 2: Nov. 3: Nov. 4: Nov. 6: Nov. 6: Nov. 6: Nov. 8: Nov. 9: Nov. 9: Nov. 9: Nov. 10: Nov. 10: Nov. 10: Nov. 11: Nov. 12: Nov. 13: Nov. 13:

Nov. 13: Nov. 13: Nov. 16: Nov. 16: Nov. 16: Nov. 17: Nov. 17: Nov. 18: Nov. 19: Nov. 20: Nov. 20: Nov. 20: Nov. 20: Nov. 23: Nov. 23:

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Alexander Ireland, Athenaeum Gazette (Manchester). TS I (18)13 Liverpool Mercury. TS I (30) Manchester Guardian. TS I (43), TS IV14 Daily News (London).15 Liverpool Chronicle and General Advertiser. TS IV Manchester Guardian. TS IV Manchester Times. TS I 9, 3216 Manchester Examiner. TS II (21), TS IV Daily News (London). Manchester Times.17 Liverpool Mercury. TS II (19), TS IV Alexander Ireland, Athenaeum Gazette (Manchester). TS I (18)18 Manchester Guardian. TS IV19 Manchester Courier. TS II 172–3, MH (20) Daily News (London). Liverpool Mercury. TS II (19) Manchester Guardian. TS IV20 Goodwyn Barmby, ‘Emerson and his Writings,’ Howitt’s Journal, ii, 315–6. WS I 568 (77, 118, 133, 138, 150), WS II (1, 32), TS I (28); {A 356} Manchester Times. TS I 32, TS II (22) Manchester Examiner. TS I (34, 41) Liverpool Mercury. TS IV Liverpool Albion. TS IV Daily News (London). Manchester Courier. MH (21, 63) Manchester Guardian. TS IV21 Daily News (London). Liverpool Mercury.22 Manchester Guardian. TS II (46), TS IV Manchester Times. TS II (46) Manchester Examiner. TS II (46) Liverpool Chronicle. TS II (49) Liverpool Mercury.23 Daily News (London).

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Manchester Guardian. TS IV24 Reasoner. 639–40. WS II (14, 17) Daily News (London).25 Nottinghamshire Guardian. TS II 173 Caledonian Mercury.26 Joseph Neuberg, Nottingham Mercury. TS I (19) Manchester Guardian. TS IV Gateshead Observer (Newcastle). TS I 29, TS II (1) Manchester Times. TS II (44) Manchester Examiner. MH (23) William Henry Smith, ‘Emerson,’ Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, lxii, 643–57. WS I 563 (16, 25, 52, 80, 105), WS II (1), TS I (24); {A 358} December: ‘The Great Claims of Swedenborg . . . as Advocated by R. W. Emerson,’ The Intellectual Repository and New Jerusalem Magazine, n.s.viii, 464–70. WS I 565 (43, 157); {A 359} Dec. 1: Manchester Guardian. TS IV Dec. 1: Manchester Courier. MH (22) Dec. 1: Derby Mercury. TS I (25)27 Dec. 1: Reasoner, 8–11. WS II (16) Dec. 2: ‘Emerson the American,’ Nottinghamshire Guardian. TS (30) Dec. 3: Nottingham Mercury. TS I 29. Dec. 4: Liverpool Chronicle. TS IV28 Dec. 4: Preston Guardian. TS I (34), TS IV Dec. 7: Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser (Dublin).29 Dec. 8: Reasoner, 38–40. WS II (16)30 Dec. 8: Derby Mercury. TS II 30 Dec. 9: Nottingham Guardian. TS II (37) Dec. 10: Nottingham Mercury. TS IV Dec. 10: Nottingham Journal. TS II (1, 34) Dec. 10: Nottingham Review. TS II (23, 36) Dec. 11: Leicestershire Mercury. TS IV Dec. 11: Howitt’s Journal, 369–71. WS I 566 (56)31 Dec. 11: Birmingham Journal and Commerical Advertiser. TS I 30 Dec. 15: Derby Mercury. TS II (27), IV32 Dec. 15: Derbyshire Courier. TS II (14) Nov. 24: Nov. 24: Nov. 24: Nov. 25: Nov. 25: Nov. 26: Nov. 27: Nov. 27: Nov. 27: Nov. 27: December:

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Nottingham Mercury. TS IV Preston Guardian. TS II (28, 34), TS IV Critic, 386–7. WS I 575 (149); {A 365}33 Leicestershire Mercury. TS I 30 Literary Gazette, 879 {A 366} Preston Chronicle and Lancashire Observer. TS II (12, 28) Reasoner, 45–8. WS II (16) Nottingham Mercury. TS IV Leeds Mercury. TS IV Derbyshire Courier. TS IV Leicestershire Mercury. TS II 166, TS IV Birmingham Journal and Commercial Advertiser. TS II (1, 8, 34); TS IV Dec. 29: Reasoner, 63–6. WS II (16)

Dec. 17: Dec. 18: Dec. 18: Dec. 18: Dec. 18: Dec. 18: Dec. 22: Dec. 24: Dec. 24: Dec. 25: Dec. 25: Dec. 25:

1848 January: ‘Ralph Waldo Emerson; Or, the Coming Man,’ Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, xv, 17–23. WS I 542 (15, 26, 28, 36, 40, 46, 93, 96, 103, 149), TS I (22), TS II (24); {A 373}34 January: ‘Emerson,’ Revue Britannique. 105–35. {A372} Jan. 1: Worcester Herald. TS II (40), TS IV Jan. 1: Leeds Times. TS I 30 Jan. 1: Halifax Guardian. TS I (31) Jan. 5: ‘Mr Emerson’s Lectures in Worcester,’ Worcestershire Chronicle and Provincial Railway Gazette. TS II (3, 14)35 Jan. 5: Reasoner, 80–2. WS II (16) Jan. 8: Halifax Guardian. TS IV36 Jan. 8: Leeds Times. TS II (1), TS IV37 Jan. 8: Leeds Mercury.38 Jan. 8: Sheffield and Rotherham Independent. TS I 23 Jan. 8: York Herald. TS I (31) Jan. 12: Reasoner. WS II (16) Jan. 13: Bradford Observer. TS II (50) Jan. 15: Sheffield Times. TS IV Jan. 15: The Yorkshireman. TS II (34), TS IV

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Sheffield Mercury. TS II (9) York Herald. TS II (34) York Courant. TS II (11), TS IV Sheffield Iris. TS II (42) Hull Advertiser. TS IV Hull Packet and East Riding Times.39 Sheffield Times. TS IV Reasoner, 117–120. WS II (16)40 Hull Advertiser. TS II (14) Yorkshire Gazette. TS IV Sheffield and Rotherham Independent. TS II (28) Macphail’s Edinburgh Ecclesiastical Journal and Literary Review, xv, 30–53. WS I 563 (18, 23, 40, 47, 93, 119, 137, 157), WS II (20, 32); {A 379} Feb. 2: Reasoner, 138–40. WS II (16) Feb. 5: Renfrewshire Advertiser. TS I (31, 34) Feb. 10: Newcastle Courant.41 Feb. 11: Newcastle Courant. TS IV Feb. 12: Halifax Guardian. TS IV Feb. 12: Darlington and Stockton Times. TS IV Feb. 12: Newcastle Guardian and Tyne Mercury. TS II (38), TS IV Feb. 12: Gateshead Observer (Newcastle). TS II (39) Feb. 13: Eclectic Magazine, xiii, 145–58. {A 378} Feb. 14: Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh), TS II (14, 45) Feb. 16: Dundee Courier. TS I (31) Feb. 16: The Scotsman. LL 10342 Feb. 17: The Edinburgh Evening Courant. LL 103 Feb. 19: York Herald and General Advertiser. TS II (31) Feb. 22: Dundee, Perth, and Cupar Advertiser. TS IV Feb. 23: Dundee Courier. TS II (13, 43) Feb. 24: Perthshire Advertiser and Strathmore Journal. TS II (10, 35), TS IV March 2: Perthshire Advertiser and Strathmore Journal. TS IV March 3: Scottish Guardian (Glasgow). TS II (32) April: George Cupples [A Student], ‘Emerson and his Visit to Scotland,’ Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine, vii, 322–31. Jan. 15: Jan. 15: Jan. 20: Jan. 20: Jan. 21: Jan. 21: Jan. 22: Jan. 26: Jan. 28: Jan. 29: Jan. 29: February:

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WS I 563 (27, 54, 73, 84, 97, 150, 163), WS II (32), TS II (30, 33); {A 385} April: The Christian Rembrancer, xv, 347–51. WS I 564 (35, 49, 91, 106) April 21: The People’s Journal, 210. WS II (32); {A 388} June 3: The Inquirer. TS I (31) June 5: The Times (London). TS I (31) June 7: Reasoner, 31. WS II (16) June 10: Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper, 750. WS I 575 (148, 157), TS II (1), TS III (5, 40) June 10: The Inquirer. TS III 32 June 17: Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper. TS III (41) June 17: The Times (London). TS III (45) June 17: The Examiner (London), 388. TS III (73) June 21: Reasoner, 63. WS II (16) June 23: The Times (London). TS III (47) June 24: The Examiner (London), 405. WS I 575 (151) June 24: The Athenaeum (London). TS II (53), TS III (49) June 24: Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper. TS III (42) June 28: The Era. TS III (49) June 28: The Sun. TS III (50) June 28: The Globe. TS III (51) July: Ernest, ‘American Thoughts on European Revolutions,’ Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, lxiv, 31–9. {A 392} July: ‘Literature of the United States,’ The Westminster Review and Foreign Quarterly, 487. WS I 575 (157); {A 393} July 1: Émile Montégut, ‘Les Symptômes du Temps,’ Revue des Deux Mondes, ser. 5, 106–119. KWC (16) July 3: Morning Advertiser. TS II (52) July 5: Panthea [Sophia D. Collet], Reasoner, 65. WS II (16, 17) July 9: The Weekly Times. TS III (52) July 12: The British Banner, 487. TS I 32, TS II 167 (14), TS III (53, 75) 20 Nov. ‘Letters from America. Ralph Waldo Emerson.’ People’s Journal, iv, 305. {A 397} December: ‘The German Mind,’ English Review, 357–89. {A 398}

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1849 Jan. 21: March:

March 17: March 19: April 17: May 4: August 15: September: Sept. 15: Oct. 27: Nov. 15:

Nov. 15: Nov. 15:

Hull Packet and East Riding Times.43 McCarthy, ‘Emerson,’ The Dublin Review, xxvi, 152–79. WS I 563 (15, 31, 49, 50, 51, 74, 77, 85, 91, 92, 129, 159), WS II (5, 20, 32); {A 406} Preston Guardian. Tribune des Peuples.44 Liverpool Mercury. Hull Packet and East Riding Times.45 Émile Montégut, ‘De la Maladie Morale du XIXe Siècle,’ Revue des Deux Mondes. KWC (18) ‘The Emerson Mania,’ The English Review, xii, 139–47. WS I 566 (49, 50, 86, 95, 120, 129, 161), WS II (4, 20); {A 434} Critic, 431. {A 425} Athenaeum (London), xxii, no. 1148, p. 1086. KWC (19) [Cuchveal-Clarigny], ‘La Société Américaine et les Écrivains de l’Union,’ Revue des Deux Mondes, 4, 653–83. KWC (20); {A 433} Critic, 526. WS I 561 (2) {A 432} The Northern Star and National Trades’ Journal.46

Books and Pamphlets (listed chronologically) Harriet Martineau, Retrospect of Western Travel, 2 vols. (London: Saunders and Otley, 1838). {A 36} Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation, 2 vols. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1842). {A 174} Robert H. Gordon, ‘Sonnet. To Ralph Waldo Emerson, Boston, U.S.’ Dublin University Magazine, xxiv (December 1844) 671. {B 5} Edgar Quinet, Le Christianisme et la Révolution Française (Paris: Comon et Cie., 1845). {A 255} Adam Mickiewicz, De la Littérature Slave (Paris: Martinet Bourgogne, 1845). Rufus Wilmont Griswold, The Prose Writers of America (London: Richard Bentley, 1847), 42, 440–6.47

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Henry Sutton, The Evangel of Love (London: C. A. Bartlett, 1847). [Alexander Dunlop] Civis. Emerson’s Orations to the Modern Athenians; or, Pantheism, Being a Glance at the Chimera of the Oracle of the Woods (Edinburgh: J. E. Elder, 1848). {A 369} Adam Mickiewicz, Vorlesungen über slawische Literatur und Zustände, trans. Gustav Siegfried. 3 vols. (Leipzig: Brockhaus und Avenarius, 1849).

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APPENDIX 3 PR E-1849 BR ITISH PUBLICATIONS

The following is a complete list of works published exclusively under Emerson’s name in Great Britain before 1849. Compilations that included selections from Emerson’s writings along with pieces by other authors are not included. For further information on these works, the reader should consult Joel Myerson’s Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Descriptive Bibliography (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982) and his Supplement to Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Descriptive Bibliography (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005) using the reference numbers provided. In the ‘Notes’ section I have indicated whether the work was published legitimately with Emerson’s consent or pirated. Unless otherwise stated, further information in the ‘Notes’ sections are not included in Myerson’s bibliographies.

1841 Title: Publisher: Contents: Price: Myerson: Notes:

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Essays, with preface by Thomas Carlyle James Fraser Essays (First Series) [book] 10s. (cloth) A 10.2.a. Legitimate. Myerson, 1982, pp. 46–7: ‘On 25 June 1841, Carlyle wrote Emerson that Fraser would publish 750

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copies and give Emerson half the profits (CEC, 302). . . . By 31 January 1844, 500 copies had been sold and Emerson received $121.02 (CEC, 356–67). As late as May 1848 Emerson received £16.10.0 “on a/c of First ‘Essays’” from the publisher (JMN, x, 418).’ Casings sold after 1842 bore the name J. W. Nickisson, Fraser’s successor. See Myerson 1982, p. xv, note. Times, 7 August 1841.

1842 Title: Publisher: Contents: Price: Myerson:

Notes:

‘Man the Reformer’ Simpkin, Marshall & Co. Title essay [pamphlet] 3d. (or 1s.6d. per dozen, Times, 6 October 1844) A 12.1 (First English edition); A 12.2 (Second English Edition, 1842); A 12.3 (Third English Edition – Manchester: Abel and Heywood, 1843) Pirated. Myerson, 1982, p. 95: ‘Carlyle wrote Emerson on 17 November 1842 that the visiting Bronson Alcott was distributing copies, and Thomas Ballantyne sent a copy to Emerson on 3 December 1842; both copies may have been the first edition (CEC, 334 and 334n).’ Times, 6 October 1844.

1843 Title: Publisher: Contents:

Price: Myerson: Notes:

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Orations, Lectures, and Addresses W. H. Smith (Smith’s Standard Library) Essays (First Series); ‘American Scholar,’ ‘Divinity School,’ ‘Literary Ethics,’ ‘Method of Nature,’ ‘Man the Reformer’ [book] 2s. A 10.3.a. (1843); A 10.3.b. (1844 Reprint by W. H. Smith). Pirated. Myerson 1982, p. 47: ‘Carlyle wrote Emerson on 31 October 1843 about a pirated edition to be sold “on greyish paper . . . at two shillings,” undoubtedly a

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reference to this edition (CEC, 349).’ Times, 16 Sept 1843; Times, 12 December 1843; Derby Mercury, 4 October 1843; Examiner (London), 27 January 1844.

1844 Title: Nature: An Essay. And Orations Publisher: W. H. Smith Contents: Nature, ‘The American Scholar,’ ‘Divinity School Address,’ ‘Literary Ethics,’ ‘Man the Reformer’ [book] Price: 1s. 6d. Myerson: C 1 Notes: Pirated. Myerson, 1982, p. 569: ‘Listed as published between 28 February and 15 March 1844 in Publishers’ Circular and Booksellers’ Record 7 (15 March 1844), 82. Possibly 2,500 copies printed (see JMN, x, 427).’ Title: Publisher: Contents: Price: Myerson: Notes:

‘The Young American’ John Chapman Title essay [pamphlet] 6d. A 15 Legitimate. Myerson, 1982, p. 108: ‘Advertised as “Lately Published” in Athenaeum, no. 887 (26 October), 984.’ Times, 25 May 1844; Examiner (London), 25 May 1844.

Title: Emerson’s Orations, Lectures, and Addresses Publisher: H. G. Clarke Contents: ‘Man Thinking,’ ‘Divinity School Address,’ ‘Literary Ethics,’ ‘Method of Nature,’ ‘Man the Reformer,’ ‘The Young American’ [book] Price: 1s. Myerson: 14.1.a. (First English edition, first printing); 14.1.b. (1845 Reprint by Clarke) Notes: Pirated. Myerson, 1982, p. 106: first printing deposit copy in British Library, 3 August 1844. Second printing

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advertised in Publishers’ Circular and Booksellers’ Record 7 (15 October 1844), 309. Contains biographical sketch titled ‘Memoir’ (pp. v-vi). Title: Nature; an Essay. And Lectures on the Times Publisher: H. G. Clarke Contents: Nature; ‘Introductory Lecture,’ ‘The Conservative,’ ‘The Transcendentalist’ [book] Price: 1s. Myerson: A 13.1.a. (First English edition, first printing); A 13.1.b (Reprint by Clarke, 1844); A 13.1.c (Reprint by Clarke, 1845) Notes: Pirated. Times, 16 August 1844. Title:

‘The Emancipation of the Negroes in the British West Indies’ Publisher: John Chapman Contents: Title lecture [pamphlet] Price: 6d. Myerson: A 17.2. Notes: Legitimate. Times, 2 December 1844. Title: Publisher: Contents: Price: Myerson: Notes:

‘The Method of Nature’ C. E. Mudie Title lecture [pamphlet] 4d. A 11.2. Pirated.

Title: Publisher: Date: Contents: Price: Myerson: Notes:

‘Man Thinking’ C. E. Mudie 1844 Title lecture (aka. ‘The American Scholar’) [pamphlet] 4d. 5.3.a. (First printing); 5.3.b. (Second printing). Pirated.

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Essays, Second Series John Chapman Essays (Second Series) [book] 3s. (paper); 3s. 6d. (cloth) A 16.2.a (First printing); A 16.2.b (Second printing by Chapman, 1845); A 16.2.b (Third printing by Chapman, 1845); A 16.2.d (Fourth printing by Chapman, 1845); A 16.2.e (Fifth printing by Chapman, 1846); A 16.2.f. (Sixth printing by Chapman, 1848). Legitimate. Times 6 Nov 1844, 26 Nov 1844, 2 December 1844 (quotes reviews from The League of 16 November and The Inquirer); Examiner March 29, 1845.

1845 Nature: An Essay. To Which is Added, Orations, Lectures, and Addresses Publisher: Aylott and Jones Contents: Nature, ‘The American Scholar,’ ‘Divinity School Address,’ ‘Literary Ethics,’ ‘The Method of Nature,’ ‘Man the Reformer,’ ‘The Young American.’ Price: 1s. 6d. Myerson: C 2.1.a. Notes: Pirated. Title:

Title: Publisher: Contents: Price: Myerson: Notes:

Essays H. G. Clarke Essays (First Series) [book] 1s. A 10.4.a. Pirated.

1847 Title: Poems Publisher: John Chapman

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Contents: Price: Myerson: Notes:

Poems (‘The Sphinx’ to ‘Concord Monument’) [book] 6s. A 18.1.a. Legitimate. Times, 21 December 1846; Times, 11 March 1847 (quotes reviews from Athenaeum, Critic, Manchester Examiner).

Title: Publisher: Contents: Price: Myerson: Notes:

Essays John Chapman Essays (First Series) [book] 6s. (cloth) A 10.6.a. Legitimate. Times, 21 December 1847. Price not shown in Myerson, shown in Times notice. Previously advertised as ‘fourth edition’ in Athenaeum, 20 November 1847. See Myerson, 1982, 54.

1848 Title: Essays, Lectures and Orations Publisher: William Orr and Co. Essays (First Series), Nature, Lectures on the Times: ‘Introductory Lecture,’ ‘The Conservative,’ ‘The Transcendentalist,’ ‘The Christian Teacher’ (a.k.a. ‘Divinity School Address’), ‘Man the Reformer,’ ‘Man-Thinking’ (a.k.a. ‘American Scholar’), ‘The Method of Nature.’ Price: 3s. (Myerson, 1982, 569); 4s. according to Times notice. Myerson: C 3 Notes: Pirated. Times, 20 June 1848. Myerson, 1982, 569: ‘Possibly published late 1847 (L, iv, 14).’ Title: Essays, Orations, and Lectures Publisher: William Tegg and Co. Contents: Essays (First Series), Nature, ‘Man Thinking,’ ‘The Christian Teacher,’ ‘Literary Ethics,’ ‘The Method of Nature,’ ‘Man the Reformer,’ ‘The Young American’

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Price: Myerson:

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2s.; 3s.6d.; 1s. (Corresponding respectively to three printings, see below) C 4.1.a, {Renumbered A 10.4A in 2005 Supplement}; C 4.1.b-c. (printed by Tegg in conjunction with Aylott and Jones); C 5.1.a-c. Pirated. Times, 28 August 1848.

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NOTES

INTRODUCTION 1. Ronald Bosco and Joel Myerson, ‘Introduction,’ Emerson Bicentennial Essays (Boston, 2006), p. x. Bibliographies published annually in the Autumn edition of Emerson Society Papers list 273 new additions to the catalogue of secondary literature between 2006 and 2009. 2. Townsend Scudder III, ‘Emerson’s British Lecture Tour, 1847–1848, Part I: The Preparations for the Tour, and the Nature of Emerson’s Audiences,’ American Literature 7:1 (March 1935), 15–36; idem, ‘Emerson’s British Lecture Tour, 1847–1848, Part II: Emerson as a Lecturer in Britain and the Reception of the Lectures,’ American Literature 7:2 (May 1935), 166–80; idem, ‘Emerson in London and the London Lectures,’ American Literature 8:1 (1936): 22–36; idem, ‘A Chronological List of Emerson’s Lectures on his British Lecture Tour of 1847–1848,’ PMLA 51:1 (March 1936), 243–8; idem, The Lonely, Wayfaring Man: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Some Englishmen (London, 1936). 3. William J. Sowder, ‘Emerson’s Early Impact on England: A Study in British Periodicals,’ PMLA 77 (December 1962), 561–76. Sowder’s ‘Emerson’s Rationalist Champions: A Study in British Periodicals.’ NEQ 37:2 (1964), 147–70 also focuses some attention on this early period. Both of these articles appear slightly altered as chapters Emerson’s Impact on Great Britain and Canada (Charlottesville: [Publisher] 1966). 4. Since Scudder’s study, ten volumes of Emerson’s Letters (Ralph L. Rusk and Eleanor M. Tilton, eds. (New York, 1939, 1990–1995) and sixteen volumes of Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks, William H. Gilman, Ralph H. Orth, et al., eds. (Cambridge, MA, 1960–1982) have been edited and published. A three-volume edition of his previously unpublished Early Lectures was compiled and edited by Stephen E. Whicher, Robert E. Spiller, and Wallace E. Williams (Cambridge, MA, 1959–1972). Other

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5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

10. 11.

12.

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works containing formerly unpublished material by Emerson include The Topical Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 3 vols. (Columbia, MO and London, 1990–94); Emerson’s Antislavery Writings, Len Gougeon and Joel Myerson, eds. (New Haven and London, 1995); and The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco and Joel Myerson, eds. 2 vols. (Athens and London, 2001). A scholarly edition of Emerson’s works, The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, has been underway since 1971. To date, nine volumes are available. Stephen Whicher, Freedom and Fate (Philadelphia, 1953), 155. Phillip Nicoloff, Emerson on Race and History: An Examination of English Traits (New York, 1961), 23–30, 244. Reynolds, European Revolutions and the American Literary Renaissance (New Haven, 1988), 25–43. Phyllis Cole, ‘Emerson, England, and Fate,’ in David Levin, ed. Emerson: Prophecy, Metamorphosis, and Influence. (New York: [Publisher] 1975), 83–105. David Robinson, Emerson and the Conduct of Life: Pragmatism and Ethical Purpose in the Later Work (Cambridge, 1993); Len Gougeon, ‘Emerson and the British: Challenging the Limits of Liberty,’ REAL: The Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature 22 (2006), 182–4. Sacvan Bercovitch, Rites of Assent: Transformations in the Symbolic Construction of America (New York and London, 1993), 337–52. Quote, p. 342. Len Gougeon outlines both sides of the debate described here in the introduction to Virtue’s Hero: Emerson, Antislavery, and Reform (Athens, 1990), 1–19. For further examples see George F. Whicher and Gail Kennedy, eds. The Transcendentalist Revolt (Lexington, MA, 1968). Unlike Holmes, Whicher is sharply critical of what he interprets as Emerson’s conservatism. Christopher Newfield argues that Emerson was ‘actively opposed substantial forms of liberty and equality,’ in The Emerson Effect: Individualism and Submission in America (Chicago: [Publisher] 1996). Quote, p. 177. See also John Carlos Rowe, At Emerson’s Tomb: The Politics of Classic American Literature (New York: [Publisher], 1997). John Updike’s article ‘Emersonianism,’ in The New Yorker, of 4 June 1984 (pp. 112–32) portrays Emerson as a man of severe intellectual coldness whose influential philosophy led to ‘the notorious loneliness and callousness and violence of American life’(p. 126). The Emerson bicentennial in 2003 prompted a series of attacks. In the opening stages of the Iraq war, in an editorial in the New York Times (‘It’s Emerson’s Anniversary and He’s Got 21st-Century America Nailed,’ 4 May 2003), Adam Cohen argued that the self-absorption and pitiless attitudes he saw in Emerson’s writing were linked to a Republican tax cut ‘that would take

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13.

14.

15. 16.

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health care from sick children,’ to big-business corruption, and to American renegade standoffishness in foreign affairs. Gougeon discusses the presentation of Emerson’s reform and antislavery activity in Conway’s Emerson at Home and Abroad (Boston: [Publisher] 1882), Rusk’s Life of Emerson (New York: [Publisher] 1949), and other works in his introduction to Virtue’s Hero. Anne C. Rose, in Transcendentalism as a Social Movement, 1830–1850 (New Haven: [Publisher] 1981), argues persuasively that Emerson’s early transcendentalism was reformist and action-oriented but falls short of an adequate appraisal of his radicalism after 1850. Neal Dolan’s Emerson’s Liberalism (Madison, WI, 2009) argues that Emerson was at all times an optimist-realist with a genuine commitment to the core liberal value of freedom. See, for example, Robert Richardson’s biography, Emerson: The Mind on Fire (Berkeley: [Publisher] 1995); Peter S. Field, Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Making of a Democratic Intellectual (Oxford: [Publisher] 2002); Lawrence Buell, Emerson (Cambridge, MA: [Publisher], 2003); Anita Haya Patterson, From Emerson to King: Democracy, Race, and the Politics of Protest (Oxford: 1997); David M. Robinson’s introduction to The Political Emerson (Boston: 2004); and David Hackett Fischer’s Liberty and Freedom (Oxford: 2005). Some excellent recent works on Emerson’s circle and the antislavery movement include Albert J. Von Frank, The Trials of Anthony Burns: Freedom and Slavery in Emerson’s Boston (Cambridge, MA: [Publisher], 1998); Sandra H. Petrulionis, To Set This World Right: The Antislavery Movement in Thoreau’s Concord (Ithaca: [Publisher], 2006); and Linck C. Johnson, ‘“Liberty Is Never Cheap”: Emerson, “The Fugitive Slave Law,” and the Antislavery Lecture Series at the Broadway Tabernacle,’ NEQ 76:4 (December 2003), 550–92. On Emerson and women’s rights see Gougeon, ‘Emerson and the Woman Question: The Evolution of His Thought,’ NEQ 71:4 (December 1998), 570– 92 and Phyllis Cole, ‘“The Movement’s New Tide”: Emerson and Women’s Rights,’ in Emerson Bicentennial Essays, Ronald Bosco and Joel Myerson, eds. (Boston: [Publisher], 2006), 117–52. JMN, xi, 149. A number of historiographical chapters and review essays are the best entry points into these developments. See, for example, introductory chapters in James Epstein, In Practice: Studies in the Language and Culture of Popular Politics in Modern Britain (Stanford, 2003); Arthur Burns and Joanna Innes, eds., Rethinking the Age of Reform: Britain, 1780–1850 (Cambridge, 2003); Callum D. Brown, The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800–2000 (London and New York, 2000); David Cannadine, Class in Britain (London, 2000); Michael Bentley, ‘Victorian Politics and the Linguistic Turn,’ The Historical Journal 42:3 (1999), 883–902; Jon Lawrence,

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Speaking for the People: Party, Language and Popular Politics in England, 1867– 1914 (Cambridge, 1998); and Martin Hewitt, The Emergence of Stability in the Industrial City: Manchester, 1832–1867 (Aldershot, 1996). 17. Martin Hewitt, ‘Aspects of Platform Culture in Nineteenth Century Britain,’ Nineteenth-Century Prose 29:1 (Spring 2002), 1–32. Hewitt has edited two volumes of essay-length studies on various aspects of platform culture in nineteenth-century Britain: Platform Pulpit Rhetoric (Leeds, 2000), and ‘Platform Culture in Nineteenth-Century Britain,’ a special edition of Nineteenth-Century Prose 29:1 (Spring 2002). He has addressed Emerson’s Manchester lectures in this context in his article ‘Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Dawson, and the Control of the Lecture Platform in Mid-nineteenth Century Manchester,’ Nineteenth-Century Prose 25:2 (Fall 1998), 1–23. 18. A number of recent works have focused attention on Emerson as a lecturer in an American context. See, for example, Peter S. Field, ‘“The Transformation of Genius into Practical Power”: Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Public Lecture,’ Journal of the Early Republic 21:3 (Autumn 2001), 467–93; Wilson R. Jackson, ‘“Man Thinking, Man Saying”: Emerson as Lecturer,’ in The Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds. (Cambridge, 1999), 76–96; Mary Cayton, ‘The Making of an American Prophet: Emerson, His Audiences, and the Rise of the Culture Industry in Nineteenth-Century America,’ American Historical Review 92 (1987), 587–620; Stephen Railton, Authorship and Audience: Literary Performance in the American Renaissance (Princeton, 1991), 23–49; and David M. Robinson, Apostle of Culture: Emerson as Preacher and Lecturer (Philadelphia, 1982).

CHAPTER 1 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

L, iii, 419; JMN, x, 204; CEC, 317. Rusk, Life, 330; L, iii, 420. JMN, x, 206–7. L, iii, 422; JMN, x, 333. James Martineau, the brother of Emerson’s English friend Harriet, was a popular preacher. Emerson wrote home that he ‘found pictures & busts of him in the houses of his friends here as if he were some great man’ (L, iii, 426). Also present at this meeting was Thomas Hogg. 6. E. S. Gaustad and P. L. Barlow, New Historical Atlas of Religion in America (New York, 2001), Maps of Regional Denominational Predominance 1830 and 1850, pp. 358–9 (Figures C2-C3). 7. Richardson, Mind on Fire, 3–5.

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NOTES 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

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Letters of Nov. 19 and Dec. 10, 1832 in Cabot, Memoir, i, 171–172 and 175. Cabot, Memoir, i, 191. CW, v, 2–4. CW, v, 7. Cabot, Memoir, i, 189, 193–194. Cabot, Memoir, i, 194. He was particularly enthusiastic about Carlyle’s anonymous and witty review of Ebenezer Eliot’s ‘Corn Law Rhymes’ published in the Edinburgh Review in 1832. Emerson discovered Carlyle’s name in 1832 before leaving for Europe. JMN, iv, 79–80, 83–4. Gougeon, Emerson and Eros, 95, 218. Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, Charles Richard Sanders, ed. 34 vols. (Durham, NC, 1995), xxiii, 136–8. Carlyle’s article, ‘Thirty-five Unpublished Letters of Oliver Cromwell,’ appeared in Fraser’s 36 (December 1847), 631–54. L, iii, 422–4. Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, xxiii, 139–42. Italics signify underlined words in the manuscripts. L, iii, 460. Richardson, Mind on Fire, 445. Quoted from January Searle [George Searle Phillips], Emerson (London, 1855), 47. The source of Searle’s account is unknown. Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, xxiii, 143–5, 154; Sowder, Emerson’s Impact, 209. Francis, Transcendental Utopias, 210–11. Also see Priscilla J. Brewer, ‘Emerson, Lane, and the Shakers: A Case of Converging Ideologies,’ NEQ 55:2 (June 1982), 254–75. L, iii, 425; JMN, x, 409, 436n. L, iii, 425. Elizabeth Davis Bancroft, Letters from England 1846–1849 (London, 1904), 144–5. Richardson, Mind on Fire, 11. L, iii, 426. J. A. Cabot, Memoir, i, 90, 93–4. See Russel B. Nye’s introduction to the abridged edition of Bancroft’s History of the United States of America (Chicago, 1966). Lilian Handlin, George Bancroft: The Intellectual as Democrat (New York, 1984), 154–7. M.A. de Wolfe Howe, The Life and Letters of George Bancroft, 2 vols. (1908; reprint, Port Washington, NY, 1971), i, 222–23. On the transcendentalist ‘assault on Locke’ see Barbara Packer, The Transcendentalists, 20–31.

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31. JMN, v, 383; Joel Porte, Emerson in His Journals (Cambridge, MA, 1982), 169, 176. 32. JMN, vii, 416. 33. Russel B. Nye, George Bancroft: Brahmin Rebel (New York, 1944), 140–60. 34. Ibid., 163. 35. See, for example, Dolan, Emerson’s Liberalism, 22–27. Also see Randall Fuller, Emerson’s Ghosts: Literature, Politics and the Making of Americanists (Oxford, 2007), 11–14. 36. At 10s. the book would have been in the highest price band for literature during the period 1836–56, see Alexis Weedon, Victorian Publishing: The Economics of Book Production for a Mass Market, 1836–1916 (Aldershot, 2003), 103–7. 37. CEC, 302, 306–7, 312. 38. This seems to be the W. H. Smith edition of Emerson’s Orations, Lectures, and Addresses (London, 1844). It is unclear why Carlyle does not mention the name Smith, and why he wondered, in 1847, if the culprit was in fact Mudie. CEC, 432. 39. The tendency in Britain to pirate American works in cheap editions, which began in earnest in 1839, resulted in a dominance of American writers on the British market from which the writers themselves rarely drew any profit. See Sowder ‘Early Impact’ and Clarence L. Gohdes, American Literature in Nineteenth-Century England (New York, 1944). 40. CEC, 333–5. The first two editions were printed by Simpkin & Marshall in London in 1842. The Lancashire version referred to by Carlyle is almost certainly the Abel Heywood edition, published in Manchester. This is dated 1843 but may have been released in late 1842 (see Appendix 3). On Heywood see Alan Kidd, Manchester: A History (Manchester, 2006), 47–8. 41. CEC, 364–69. Chapman also published a pamphlet version of ‘The Young American’ in 1844. 42. Chapman made legitimate editions of Emerson’s works available in the upper-low price band. See Alexis Weedon, Victorian Publishing, 105. For general information on book publishing, markets, and readers in the Victorian era see Richard Altick, The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public, 1800–1900 (Chicago, 1957); David Vincent, Literacy and Popular Culture: England, 1750–1914 (Cambridge, 1989); Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes (New Haven and London, 2001); Simon Eliot, ‘From Few and Expensive to Many and Cheap: The British Book Market, 1800–1890,’ in A Companion to the History of the Book, Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose, eds. (Malden, MA and Oxford, 2007), 291–302. 43. L, iv, 14. 44. JMN, x, 247.

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45. CEC, 348–51, 359–61. On lecturing as a source of income see Philip Collins, ‘“Agglomerating Dollars with Prodigious Rapidity”: British Pioneers on the American Lecture Circuit,’ in James R. Kincaid and Albert J. Kuhn, eds. Victorian Literature and Society: Essays Presented to Richard D. Altick (Columbus, 1983), 3–29. 46. On Emerson’s shrewd publishing decisions following the initial piracies see Joseph M. Thomas, ‘“The Property of My Own Book”: Emerson’s Poems (1847) and the Literary Marketplace,’ NEQ 69:3 (September 1996), 410–11. 47. These were Essays, Lectures, and Orations, published by William S. Orr (London, 1848), priced 4s. and Essays, Orations, and Lectures, published by William Tegg (London, 1848), priced 3s. 6d. 48. CE, i, 192. 49. CE, i, 110. 50. CE, i, 384. 51. See Rosemary Ashton, 142 Strand: A Radical Address in Victorian London (London, 2006). 52. Guinevere L. Griest, Mudie’s Circulating Library and the Victorian Novel (Bloomington, IN., 1970) and Clarence Gohdes, ‘British Interest in American Literature During the Latter Part of the Nineteenth Century as Reflected by Mudie’s Select Library,’ American Literature 13 (January 1942), 356–62; Francis Espinasse, Literary Recollections and Sketches (London, 1893), 357. The Dial had six subscribers in England, see Myerson, New England Transcendentalists and the Dial, 83. 53. CEC, 432. 54. See works by William J. Sowder: ‘Early Impact,’ ‘Rationalist Champions,’ and Emerson’s Impact on the British Isles and Canada (1966). 55. The number 10,000 is an estimate based on the fact that the average print run for a published book in 1846 was in the area of 2,500 (Alexis Weedon, Victorian Publishing, 49) and on the assumption that the Clarke and Smith editions alone represented 5,500 volumes (see note above). For general information on libraries and literacy before 1850 see Thomas Kelly, A History of Adult Education in Britain, 3rd edition (1970; Liverpool, 1992), 173–77; Richard Altick, English Common Reader, 216–19. T. W. Heyck, The Transformation of Intellectual Life in Victorian England (London, 1982), 25–6 and 34–5. Heyck estimated that in the early Victorian period ‘more than one third of the population was illiterate and . . . perhaps another third to one-half was semi-literate’ (26). 56. Appendix 3 lists all editions and printings of Emerson’s works published in the UK before 1849. For further information see Joel Myerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Descriptive Bibliography (Pittsburgh, 1982) and idem, Supplement to Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Descriptive Bibliography (Pittsburgh, 2005).

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57. Emerson wrote and delivered a number of lectures after resigning from the Second Church in Boston in December 1832. ‘A Historical Discourse, Delivered before the Citizens of Concord, 12th September, 1835 on the Second Centennial Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town’ (Concord: G. F. Bemis, 1835) was his first publication. Bronson Alcott’s copy of the pamphlet is held in Houghton Library, Harvard. The discourse was later reprinted in Miscellanies (1884). 58. CE, xi, 67, 72. 59. CE, xi, 75. 60. The nature and some of the implications of the historicism of the ‘Historical Discourse’ are discussed in Dean C. Hammer, ‘The Puritans as Founders: The Quest for Identity in Early Whig Rhetoric,’ Religion and American Culture 6:2 (Summer 1996), 161–94; Robert Burkholder, ‘Emerson and the West: Concord, the Historical Discourse, and Beyond,’ Nineteenth-Century Studies 4 (1990), 93–103; Eugene Green, ‘Reading Local History: Shattuck’s History, Emerson’s Discourse, Thoreau’s Walden,’ NEQ 50:2 (June 1977), 303–14. 61. CE, i, 219. 62. See, for example, CE, xi, 49 (‘Historical Discourse at Concord’): ‘so be [the Concord town-meeting] an everlasting testimony . . . and so much ground of assurance of man’s capacity for self-government’ and CE, iii, 219 (‘Politics’): ‘The tendencies of the times favor the idea of self-government.’ Michael Ziser investigates Emerson’s and other Transcendentalists’ preoccupation with American revolutionary tradition in this period in ‘World Revolutions’ in Joel Myerson and Sandra Petrulionis, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Transcendentalism, (Oxford, 2010), 70–4. 63. CE, iii, 21. 64. RE, ix, 129. 65. CE, xi, 153. Cf. ‘The Conservative’ (1841) CE, i, 322: ‘I understand well the respect of mankind for war, because that breaks up the Chinese stagnation of society, and demonstrates the personal merits of all men. A state of war or anarchy, in which law has little force, is so far valuable that it puts every man on trial.’ 66. CE, xi, 159. 67. CE, xi, 174. 68. ‘The Editors to the Reader,’ The Dial 1:1 (July 1840), 1–14. 69. Whicher, Freedom and Fate, 124. 70. Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution, 3 vols. (1837; reprint, London, 1880), i, 6: ‘Borne over the Atlantic, to the closing ear of Louis . . . what sounds are these . . . DEMOCRACY announcing, in rifle-volleys death-winged, under her Star Banner, to the tune of Yankee-doodle-doo, that she is born, and, whirlwind-like, will envelop the whole world!’

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71. See Rusk, Life, 257. Emerson reviewed The French Revolution for the Christian Examiner 23 (January 1838), 386–7; reprinted in Uncollected Writings (1912; reprint, Port Washington, NY, 1973), 26–7. Houghton bMS Am 1280.197 (10) appears to be a draft for this review. Gougeon, without reference to Carlyle’s work, sees 1838 as the beginning of Emerson’s ‘Silent Years,’ a sevenyear estrangement from social activism. After a letter of protest to Martin Van Buren and an antislavery speech in 1837, Emerson did not speak for the antislavery cause again until 1844: ‘Emerson and Abolition: The Silent Years, 1837–1844,’ American Literature 54:4 (December 1982), 560–75. 72. CE, ii, 119. 73. Whicher, Freedom and Fate, 77. 74. Since O. B. Frothingham’s Transcendentalism in New England (1876) opposition to the current conditions of society and hope for a new, more harmonious arrangement have been understood as one of the unifying features of the transcendentalist movement. Indeed, it is one of the few things that the group of distinctive and sometimes highly divergent thinkers normally referred to as New England transcendentalists — Orestes Brownson, Henry Thoreau, Elizabeth Peabody, Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Ripley, and others — all held in common. See Frothingham, (1876; reprint, New York, 1959), esp. 153–6; Henry David Gray, Emerson: A Statement of New England Transcendentalism as Expressed in the Philosophy of its Chief Proponent (Stanford, 1917), 82; Arthur I. Ladu, ‘Emerson: Whig or Democrat?’ NEQ 13:3 (September 1940), 422; Anne C. Rose, Transcendentalism as a Social Movement, 1830–1850, x–xi, and passim; Lance Newman, Our Common Dwelling: Henry Thoreau, Transcendentalism, and the Class Politics of Nature (Basingstoke, 2005), 35–9. 75. Houghton bMS Am 1280.197 (18). An edited version of this manuscript is published in Robert E. Spiller and Wallace E. Williams, eds. The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 3 vols. (Cambridge, MA: 1972), iii, 85–102. 76. Emerson had previously delivered a lecture on ‘Reforms’ in the Present Age series (1839–40), much of which was later added to ‘Lecture on the Times,’ ‘Spiritual Laws,’ and ‘Self-Reliance.’ See Early Lectures, iii, 256–70. 77. CE, i, 248. 78. CE, i, 250, 253, 25. 79. CE, i, 268. 80. CE, i, 277. 81. See, for example, CE, i, 299: ‘Reform in its antagonism [to conservatism] inclines to asinine resistance . . . it runs to egotism and bloated self-conceit; it runs to a bodiless pretension, to unnatural refining and elevation which

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ends in hypocrisy and sensual reaction’; 314: ‘A strong person makes the law and custom null before his own will’; 324: ‘It will never make a difference to a hero what the laws are. His greatness will shine and accomplish itself unto the end . . . he will say . . . I am primarily engaged to myself to be a public servant of all the gods, to demonstrate to all men that there is intelligence and good will at the heart of things.’ On this aspect in Emerson’s rhetoric see Thomas Augst, ‘Composing the Moral Senses: Emerson and the Politics of Character in Nineteenth-Century America,’ Political Theory 27:1 (February 1999), 85–120. 82. Transcriptions of reviews of these lectures, including Andrews Norton’s notorious denunciation in the Boston Daily Advertiser, and checklists of additional reviews are available in Joel Myerson, ed. Emerson and Thoreau: The Contemporary Reviews (New York, 1992), 25–55. Also see Anne C. Rose, Transcendentalism as a Social Movement, 70–108; Sarah Ann Wider, The Critical Reception of Emerson: Unsettling All Things (Rochester, 2000), 57–60; Robert E. Burkholder, ‘The Radical Emerson: Politics in “The American Scholar,”’ ESQ 34.1–2 (1988), 37–58; idem, ‘Emerson, Kneeland, and the Divinity School Address,’ American Literature 58:1 (March 1986), 1–14. Robert Milder considers these as the only radical orations of Emerson’s career in ‘The Radical Emerson?’ in Cambridge Companion, 49–75. 83. Gougeon discusses the influence of Channing’s Slavery (1835), ‘The Abolitionists’ (1836), and Emancipation (1840) on Emerson’s philosophy of reform in ‘Emerson and Abolition: The Silent Years, 1837–1844,’ and in Virtue’s Hero, 41–55. Tunde Andeleke has pointed to a dearth in scholarship on the ‘moral suasion’ paradigm which was tremendously influential amongst black and white supporters of abolition in ‘Afro-Americans and Moral Suasion: The Debate in the 1830s,’ Journal of Negro History 83:2 (Spring 1998), 127–42. See also Merle E. Curti, ‘Non-Resistance in New England,’ NEQ 2:1 (January 1929), 34–57. For further discussion of abolition strategies current in Emerson’s Boston see Donald M. Jacobson, Courage and Conscience: Black and White Abolitionists in Boston (Bloomington, 1993); Aileen S. Kraditor, Means and Ends in American Abolitionism: Garrison and His Critics on Strategy and Tactics, 1834–1850 (New York, 1969); and Douglas C. Stange, Patterns of Antislavery among American Unitarians, 1831–1860 (Rutherford, NJ, 1977). 84. ‘Fourierism and the Socialists,’ Dial 3:1 (July 1842), 86–96. Emerson’s piece serves as a brief introduction to a longer article by the American Fourierist Albert Brisbane, placing it in the context of the rapidly growing influence of Fourierist thought in Europe and America. A fuller discussion of this article and of Emerson’s reaction to Fourierism is given in William Hall Brock,

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85. 86. 87. 88.

89. 90.

91. 92. 93.

94.

95. 96.

97.

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Phalanx on a Hill: Responses to Fourierism in the Transcendentalist Circle (Ph.D. Dissertation, Loyola University Chicago, 1996), Chapter 5. Also see Carl J. Guarneri, The Utopian Alternative: Fourierism in Nineteenth-Century America (Ithaca, 1991). Ibid., 89. ‘English Reformers,’ The Dial 3:2 (October 1842), 226–47. Ibid., 240. On Barmby see Kathryn Gleadle, The Early Feminists: Radical Unitarians and the Emergence of the Women’s Rights Movement, 1831–51 (Basingstoke, 1995), 41–2; Ruth Watts, Gender, Power, and the Unitarians in England, 1760–1860 (London and New York, 1998), 204; Arthur E. Bestor, Jr., ‘The Evolution of the Socialist Vocabulary,’ Journal of the History of Ideas 9:3 (June 1948), 259–302. Barmby’s article, ‘Emerson and his Writings’ appeared in Howitt’s Journal, 13 November 1847, 315–16. ‘English Reformers,’ 240. Jack Cade was the leader of a 1450 popular revolt in Kent. Emerson was certainly aware of Chartism by 1842. He read and assisted in the American publication of Carlyle’s Chartism (1839), which discusses the ‘Glasgow Thuggery, Chartist torch-meetings, Birmingham riots’ and the causes of the violent uprisings which raged during 1839. See Emerson to Carlyle, 28 February 1842. Quotes from reprint in Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, 5 vols. (London, 1899), iv, 120, 190–91, and passim. CE, iii, 261. CE, iii, 266. See Kerry Larson’s summary of the anti-association argument in ‘New England Reformers’ in ‘Emerson’s Strange Equality,’ Nineteenth-Century Literature 59:3 (December 2004), 322–25. Six years previously Emerson had protested the forced removal of the Cherokee nation from their ancestral lands in the South to reservations west of the Mississippi in an open letter addressed to President Martin Van Buren. Around the same time he had delivered a tepid antislavery speech in Concord. He found the experience dissatisfying and since that time maintained a guarded silence and distanced himself from both causes. See See J. E. Cabot, A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 2 vols. (Boston, 1887), ii, 425–8, and Gougeon, Virtue’s Hero, 38–40. Gougeon, Virtue’s Hero, 70. On Emerson’s extensive research for the ‘Emancipation in the West Indies’ speech see Joseph Slater, ‘Two Sources for Emerson’s First Address on West Indian Emancipation,’ ESQ 44 (1966), 97–100; Gougeon, Virtue’s Hero, 68, 73–4. AW, 26.

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234 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106.

107.

108.

109. 110.

111.

112.

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AW, 29. AW, 27. AW, 23–26. CE, i, 381. CE, i, 384. CE, iii, 255. CE, iii, 200. CE, iii, 214. CE, iii, 215: ‘A man who cannot be acquainted with me, taxes me; looking from afar at me ordains that a part of my labor shall go to this or that whimsical end — not as I, but as he happens to fancy.’ CE, iii, 215. In the ‘Discourse at Concord’ this sentiment was equated with the origins of both the emigration of the Puritans from England and with the underlying cause of the American Revolution. The argument in ‘Politics’ is more nuanced than is shown here. Arthur Ladu points out that Emerson may be discoursing on an ideal rather than an actual state in some of these passages, ‘Whig or Democrat,’ 222–23. AW, 30: ‘The recent testimonies of Struge, of Thome and Kimball, of Gurney, of Phillippo, are very explicit on this point, the capacity and the success of the colored and the black population in employments of skill, of profit, and of trust. . . . ’ Emerson refers to Joseph Sturge, The West Indies (1837); J. A. Thome and J. H. Kimball, Emancipation in the West Indies: A Six Months Tour in Antigua, Barbadoes, and Jamaica, in the year 1837 (1838); John Jay Gurney, Winter in the West Indies (1840); and James Phillippo, Jamaica: Its Past and Present State, 2nd ed. (1843). See AW, 208n, 209n. AW, 29–30. CE, iii, 94: ‘Suppose a slaver on the coast of Guinea should take on board a gang of negroes which should contain persons of the stamp of Toussaint L’Ouverture: let us fancy, under these swarthy masks he has a gang of Washingtons in chains.’ See Gougeon, Virtue’s Hero, 95–114. In 1845 Emerson supported the invitation of Wendell Phillips, an outspoken abolitionist, to speak to the Concord Lyceum. When two curators resigned over the issue, he consented to be voted in as a replacement administrator. He refused to lecture in the Lyceum of New Bedford, Massachusetts, after they passed a rule excluding blacks from membership. In 1846 he attended the public funeral of the divisive abolitionist lecturer and reporter Charles Turner Torrey, who died while serving a prison sentence in Maryland for assisting slave escapes. ‘Anniversary of West Indian Emancipation’ in AW, 35–38. The original manuscript of this speech does not survive. The text provided is

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113. 114. 115.

116.

117.

118. 119. 120. 121.

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reconstructed from newspaper transcriptions in the New York Tribune and the Liberator. Also see Louis Ruchames, ‘Emerson’s Second West India Emancipation Address,’ NEQ 28 (September 1955), 383–8. AW, 38. The famous quotation is from John O’Sullivan, ‘Annexation,’ The United States Democratic Review 17 (July-August, 1845), 5. Joel Silbey’s Storm over Texas: The Annexation Controversy and the Road to the Civil War (Oxford and New York, 2005) is an excellent recent book on this subject. American settlers in Texas had gained independence from Mexico in 1836 though its boundaries remained unsettled and the new republic was under constant threat of re-conquest. Whicher argued that Emerson’s understanding of history evolved in a more or less linear fashion from a rebellious belief in spiritual transcendence of the individual over the conventions of the world, including history itself, to an acceptance of man’s powerlessness before forces beyond his control, a total ‘submission to time and fate,’ Freedom and Fate, 103. This argument is buffered and systematised in Philip Nicoloff’s Emerson on Race and History (1961). Quotes from several of Emerson’s essays and journals from the late 1830s and early 40s are used to illustrate the ‘anti-historical’ point of view, perhaps none more fittingly than the exclamation in his 1839 journal: ‘Progress of the species! The world is a treadmill.’(43–56). Nearly twenty years later Guastaaf Van Cramphout, drawing upon Whicher and Nicoloff, perceived a shift in the mid-1840s when Emerson ceased describing heroes in conflict with their society and instead emphasised the heroes as representative of their society: ‘Emerson and the Dialectics of History,’ PMLA 91:1 (January 1976), 54–65. According to Whicher, evolutionary theories of geology by Sir Charles Lyell and others contributed to Emerson’s vision of man’s powerlessness before nature and led him to abandon transcendental idealism to a belief in an insurmountable, but ultimately benevolent collective destiny, Freedom and Fate, 141. Nicoloff, Emerson on Race and History, 106–35 and 142–57. Whicher, Freedom and Fate, 29, 77, 82, 97–103, 123, 154–5, 163–4. Nicoloff, Emerson on Race and History, 182–3. A central message of ‘History’ (1841), for instance, is that records of the past are only useful as spiritual symbols for the present. In ‘Self-Reliance’ (1841) Emerson concludes ‘Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes . . . but this change is not amelioration’ (CE, ii, 84). Nicoloff suggests that Emerson was strongly influenced by pre-Socratic non-progressive or cyclical conceptions of history at this time. Emerson on Race and History, 46–56.

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122. Neal Dolan emphasises that Emerson’s ‘liberal’ conception of history as a linear progression towards freedom can be found in his early writings. Emerson’s Liberalism, 28–9 and 35–52. 123. JMN, ix, 74. 124. AW, 41–4. 125. CE, xi, 388. The ‘Editor’s Address’ was originally published in the Massachusetts Quarterly Review 1:1 (December 1847). This was Emerson’s sole contribution to the review, which was subsequently edited by the abolitionist Unitarian minister Theodore Parker. See Paul E. Teed, ‘The Politics of Sectional Memory: Theodore Parker and the Massachusetts Quarterly Review,’ Journal of the Early Republic 21:2 (Summer 2001), 301–29. 126. E.g. JMN, ix, 430–31: ‘The United States will conquer Mexico, but it will be as the man swallows arsenic, which bring him down in turn. Mexico will poison us’; JMN, x, 79: ‘Alas for America . . . Eager, solicitous, hungry, rabid, busy-body America attempting many things, vain, ambitious . . . ’; JMN, x, 95–6 (27 June, 1847): ‘Irresistibility of the American; no conscience; his motto like nature’s is, ‘our country right or wrong’ . . . great race, but tho’ an admirable fruit, you shall not find one good sound welldeveloped apple on the tree’; JMN, x, 205 (14 October 1847): ‘Who can doubt the fate of races, who sees . . . [the] English, French, & Germans, planting themselves thus on S. America, & monopolizing the commerce of the country. But America is the commercial nation, with what resources, & powers . . . all but heart!’ 127. JMN, ix, 427, 430, 445; JMN, x, 29. 128. JMN, ix, 445–7. See Linck C. Johnson, ‘Emerson, Thoreau’s Arrest, and the Trials of American Manhood,’ in The Emerson Dilemma, Garvey, ed., 35–64; Gougeon, Virtue’s Hero, 123–5; and Robert Stattelmeyer, ‘When He Became My Enemy: Emerson and Thoreau, 1848–49,’ NEQ 62:2 (June 1989), 195–96. 129. See Maurice Gonnaud, An Uneasy Solitude: Individual and Society in the Work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, translated by Lawrence Rosenwald (Princeton, 1987), 389; Susan Castillo, ‘“The Best of Nations”? Race and Imperial Destinies in Emerson’s English Traits,’ Yearbook of English Studies 34 (2004), 101; JMN, x, 28–9, 110. 130. David P. Edgell, ‘Charles Lane at Fruitlands’ NEQ 33:3 (September 1960), 374–77; Richardson, Mind on Fire, 391–2; JMN, ix, 86. 131. See Joel Myerson, The New England Transcendentalists and The Dial: A History of the Magazine and its Contributors (Rutherford, 1980), 95–99. 132. See Taylor Stoehr, Nay-Saying in Concord: Emerson, Alcott, and Thoreau (Hamden, CT, 1979), esp. 74–86. Georgiana Kirby, a Brook Farmer, considered Emerson to be ‘an integral part of the movement.’ Lindsay Swift,

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133.

134. 135.

136.

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Brook Farm: Its Members, Scholars, and Visitors (New York, 1900), 229–33; John T. Flanagan, ‘Emerson and Communism,’ NEQ 10:2 (June 1937), 243–61; Richard Francis, Transcendental Utopias (Ithaca, 1997); Stirling F. Delano, Brook Farm: The Dark Side of Utopia (Cambridge, MA, 2004). See Joel Porte, Representative Man (New York, 1979), 209–24; Gay Wilson Allen, Waldo Emerson (New York, 1981), 491–95; Gougeon, Virtue’s Hero, 86; Robinson, Emerson and the Conduct of Life, 112; Richardson, Mind on Fire, 436–40. Rusk, Life, 324–5. JMN, x, 28–9. Nathaniel Peabody Rogers was the editor of the antislavery newspaper Herald of Freedom in Concord, NH. See Henry David Thoreau ‘Herald of Freedom,’ The Dial 4 (April 1844), 57–12. L, iii, 407.

CHAPTER 2 1. The most comprehensive work on British Athenaeums and Mechanics’ Institutions before 1851 remains James William Hudson’s History. More recent discussions can be found in Mabel Tylecote, Mechanics’ Institutes of Lancashire and Yorkshire Before 1851 (Manchester, 1957); Richard Altick, English Common Reader, 188–212; J.F.C. Harrison, Learning and Living 1790–1900. A Study of the English Adult Education Movement (London, 1961); Edward Royle, ‘Mechanics Institutes and the Working Classes, 1840–60,’ Historical Journal 14 (June 1971), 305–21 and Thomas Kelly, A History of Adult Education in Great Britain, 3rd edition (1970; Liverpool, 1992), esp. 112–33, 198–200. Also see discussions in R. J. Morris, Class, Sect and Party: The Making of the British Middle Class, Leeds, 1820–50 (Manchester, 1990), 228–79, 308–15; Lawrence Goldman, Dons and Workers: Oxford and Adult Education since 1850 (Oxford, 1995), 11–12; Martin Hewitt, Emergence of Stability, 75–76, 85–90, 123–45, 295–96; Howard Wach, ‘Culture and the Middle Classes: Popular Knowledge in Industrial Manchester,’ Journal of British Studies 27 (1988) 375–404. 2. Tylecote, Mechanics’ Institutes, 19, 47–48. Mechanics’ Institutes’ membership could be roughly divided into three classes: 1. Merchants, Artists, and Professional Men; 2. Clerks, Warehousemen, and Shopkeepers; 3. Mechanics, Millwrights, Mill-hands, and workers in handicrafts, plus Ladies and Youths. In Manchester, for example, the average membership from 1835–41 was 328 from category 1, 374 from category 2, and 309 from category 3. Hudson, History, 124, 131. 3. See Hudson, History, 118, 132; Robert H. Kargon, Science in Victorian Manchester, Enterprise and Expertise (Manchester, 1977); Arnold Thackeray,

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4.

5. 6.

7. 8.

9. 10.

11.

12.

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‘Natural Knowledge in Historical Context: the Manchester Model,’ American Historical Review 79 (1974), 672–709; Jack Morrell, ‘Wissenschaft in Worstedopolis: Public Science in Bradford, 1800–1850,’ British Journal for the History of Science 18 (1985), 1–23. Martin Hewitt, ‘Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Dawson, and the Control of the Lecture Platform in Mid-nineteenth century Manchester,’ NineteenthCentury Prose 25 (Fall 1998), 1–23; Morris, Class, Sect and Party, 242; Howard Wach, ‘Culture and the Middle Classes,’ 385–400. It was recalled in 1856 that ‘At the period of Emerson’s visit, the lecturer’s chair was too much occupied with the solution of material problems, and scientific phenomena. . . . No wonder that men turned a deaf ear. . . . No sooner, therefore, did Emerson appear, — speaking from the spiritual side of nature — than men flocked around him; for he spoke words and thoughts which found a reflex in the innermost heart of his hearers; they listened and learned.’ Joseph Johnson, ‘Emerson,’ Pitman’s Popular Lecturer n.s., vol. 1 (Manchester, 1856), 226–27. The Roscoe Club was established in 1847. James William Hudson, The History of Adult Education (London, 1851), 107. He was paid £32.0.0 for his six lectures at the Liverpool Mechanics’ Institute, £44.2.0 for the seven at the Manchester Athenaeum, £29.8.0 for four at the Manchester Mechanics’ Institute, and £5.5.0 for his talk at the Roscoe Club. See JMN, x, 410–11. Hudson’s letter is reproduced in L, iii, 407. Hudson suggests that membership of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution and the Glasgow Athenaeum were 1000 and nearly 2000 respectively, History, 79–81, 84. JMN, x, 417. His speech at the soiree of the Manchester Athenaeum and his lecture ‘The Superlative,’ which was used once in November and again in June, are discussed in the following chapter. New lectures delivered in Scotland in February and revised for the Marylebone series in June (‘Natural Aristocracy’ and ‘Spirit of the Times’) are discussed in Chapter 4. Wallace E. Williams ‘Historical Introduction’ in CW, iv, pp. xi–xlvii. On the practice of converting lectures into books see Martin Hewitt, ‘Aspects of Platform Culture,’ 6. Manchester Times, 6 November 1847. In order to assure that discussion refers exclusively to material contained in the 1847–48 versions of these lectures and not to material that may have been inserted before publication in 1849 I have used contemporary transcripts and reviews. Unless otherwise noted, I have taken all quotations from these transcripts and cited only the source

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13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

24. 25. 26. 27.

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from which the particular quote is copied. A complete list of reviews for each lecture in not given in these notes. Scudder lists at least one review for each delivery of each lecture in ‘Chronological List,’ 244–48. A full list of reviews, including all newspaper articles cited by previous commentators and new discoveries is provided in Appendix 2 of this book. The London Daily News published transcripts of each of the Representative Men lectures as delivered in Manchester which are available on the online database Nineteenth-Century British Library Newspapers. Also see Manchester Guardian, 3 November 1847. Williams, ‘Historical Introduction,’ CW, iv, p. xl. Daily News, 9 November 1847. Liverpool Mercury, 16 November 1847. Quotes in this section are taken from the version on ‘Napoleon’ published in Representative Men, which seems to resemble the lecture given to British audiences in almost all ways. I have checked each quote against the nearly verbatim transcript of the lecture in the Liverpool Chronicle of 1 December 1847 and the slightly abridged version in the Daily News of 18 November 1847. In some cases where versions show slightly different wordings, I have included both. In the opening paragraph Emerson uses ‘the masses of cultivated men.’ He begins to use the term ‘middle class’ in the second paragraph: ‘The instinct of active, brave, able men, throughout the middle class every where, has pointed out Napoleon as the incarnate Democrat.’ CE, iv, 223. Liverpool Chronicle reads: ‘dead labour, — that is, labour produced long ago in money, stock, land, and buildings, the idol of the capitalists. CE, iv, 224. CE, iv, 237, 252. CE, iv, 233. CE, iv, 255. CE, iv, 224. Liverpool Chronicle reads: ‘class of working business men of America, England, and France, — the class of industry and skill . . . those free, brave, and active men[.]’ CE, iv, 256. Cf. ‘Nominalist and Realist’ (1844): ‘The rabid democrat, as soon as he is senator and rich man, has ripened beyond possibility of sincere radicalism, and unless he can resist the sun, he must be conservative the remainder of his days,’ CE, iii, 246. CE, iv, 257. CE, iv, 258. CE, iv, 190. Quotes are from the transcript in the Sheffield Times, 22 January 1848. L, iii, 333–34. See Williams, ‘Introduction,’ xliii.

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28. Manchester Guardian, 27 November 1847. 29. The quotes in this section are taken from a Manchester Guardian report of the lecture of 24 November 1847. The version later published in Society and Solitude (1870) resembles it closely, but its selection of modern literature is expanded and reflects some of the works Emerson read after 1847. ‘Reading’ was read for the first time in England, though Emerson began drafting it early in 1847. See von Frank, Emerson Chronology, 214; JMN, x, 5. 30. In the 1847 lecture, he spoke of ‘Cromwell, who waited so long for justice, has at last got it, perhaps something more,’ referring to Carlyle’s recent work on the revolutionary leader. This sentence was omitted in the published version. 31. Manchester Times, 13 November 1847. The first recorded delivery of ‘Eloquence’ was in Manchester, MA on 9 December 1846. See Albert von Frank, An Emerson Chronology (Oxford, 1994), 210. The version of ‘Eloquence’ published in Letters and Social Aims (1875) is significantly different from the version delivered in 1847. 32. ‘Mr. Emerson’s Lectures in Worcester,’ in Worcestershire Chronicle and Provincial Railway Gazette, 5 January 1848; Manchester Times, 9 November 1847. 33. Manchester Guardian, 17 November 1847. Richardson points out that the predecessor was the 1838 lecture ‘Home’ but seems to indicate that Emerson wrote ‘Domestic Life’ on the eve of his trip to England, Mind on Fire, 447. Williams, however, notes that ‘Domestic Life’ was already a popular standby in 1844, CW, iv, xii. Albert von Frank records deliveries of a lecture titled ‘Domestic Life’ twice in 1840, once in 1841, and twice in 1843, but not again until the first delivery in England (Emerson Chronology, 152, 157, 159, 179, 180, and 220). A later version of ‘Domestic Life’ was published in 1870 in Society and Solitude. 34. Rodrick, Self-Help and Civic Culture: Citizenship in Victorian Birmingham (Aldershot, 2004), 1. Also see Jonathan Rose, Intellectual Culture, 68–9; Harrison, Learning and Living, 43–57; Altick, English Common Reader, 240–59. 35. See Karen Boiko, ‘Finding an Audience: The Political Platform, the Lecture Platform, and the Rhetoric of Self-Help,’ Nineteenth-Century Prose 29:1 (Spring 2002), 22–49. 36. Hewitt, Emergence of Stability, 87–91, 146; Morris, Class, Sect, and Party, 242–44. 37. Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, ed. and trans. W. O. Henderson and W. H. Chaloner (Oxford, 1958), 271. 38. Christopher Newfield, The Emerson Effect, 147. 39. Reynolds, referring to aspects of Emerson’s social thought in early 1848 in European Revolutions, 28.

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40. Quote from transcript of ‘Domestic Life’ in Manchester Guardian, 17 November 1847. 41. See for example Manchester Examiner, 19 and 30 October, 1847; Manchester Times, 30 October; Liverpool Mercury, 29 October and 2 November; Liverpool Chronicle and General Advertiser, 30 October. Athenaeum Gazette (Manchester) 10 November 1847. 42. See Asa Briggs, Victorian Cities (London, 1963), 104–5 and Simon Gunn, ‘The Middle Class, Modernity and the Provincial City: Manchester, 1840–80,’ Alan Kidd and David Nichols, eds. in Gender, Civic Culture and Consumerism, (Manchester, 1999), 112–28. 43. Manchester Times, 6 November 1847; Manchester Guardian, 3 November; Manchester Examiner, 30 October. 44. Howitt’s Journal, 11 December 1847, 370–1. 45. Athenaeum Gazette, 10 November 1847; ‘Emerson’s Lectures,’ Howitt’s Journal, 11 December 1847, 370–1; Von Frank, Emerson Chronology, 219. 46. Manchester Guardian, 17 November 1847 and Howitt’s Journal, 11 December 1847. The Mechanics’ Institute moved from its location on Cooper Street in the early 1850s. See Clare Hartwell, Manchester (London, 2001). 47. Quote from Manchester Times, 9 November 1847. 48. Transcripts of the lecture were printed in The Manchester Guardian, 6 November 1847; Manchester Examiner, 9 November; Manchester Times, 9 November; London Daily News, 9 November 1847. On the importance of the press and opinion in nineteenth-century Britain see Hannah Barker, Newspapers, Politics and English Society, 1695–1855 (Harlow, 2000); Laurel Brake and Julie F. Codell, Encounters in the Victorian Press: Editors, Authors, Readers (Basingstoke, 2005); Aled Jones, Powers of the Press: Newspapers, Power and the Public in Nineteenth-Century England (Aldershot, 1996); Donald Read, Press and People, 1790–1850: Opinion in Three English Cities (Aldershot, 1993); and Stephen Koss, The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain, vol. 1 (London, 1981). In addition to the Guardian, Emerson’s initial series of lectures were also paraphrased or transcribed fully in the Manchester Courier, Liverpool Chronicle, Liverpool Mercury, and Liverpool Albion in November 1847 (see Appendix 2). 49. L, iii, 444. 50. Smithson’s sermon is reproduced in the Manchester Guardian, 10 November 1847. 51. Barker, Newspapers, Politics and English Society, 34–35. 52. Manchester Courier, 10 November 1847. 53. See Hewitt, ‘Control of the Lecture Platform,’ 4–6. For a summary of the initial response to the lecture see Scudder, ‘Part II,’ 171–2; Clarence Hotson,

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54.

55. 56.

57. 58. 59. 60.

61.

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‘Emerson’s Manchester Lecture on Swedenborg,’ New-Church Magazine 52 (1934), 48–58 and idem, ‘Smithson’s Reply to Emerson’s Manchester Lecture on Swedenborg,’ New-Church Magazine 52 (1933), 174–185 and 232–243. On Stowell see Jane Garnett and A. C. Howe, ‘Churchmen and Cotton Masters in Victorian England,’ in David J. Jeremy, ed. Business and Religion in Britain (Aldershot, 1988), 72–84. Nottinghamshire Guardian, 25 November 1847. The arguments for having his lectures cancelled were answered in the following day’s edition of the liberal Nottingham Mercury in an article by Joseph Neuberg, a German merchant who would host Emerson in that city. See L, iii, 444. The Committee concluded that it ‘would not allow the rules of the Institution, excluding politics and religion, to be transgressed.’ Printed in the 1847 annual Report, quoted in Scudder ‘Part II,’ 174. See The Derby Mercury, 1 and 8 December, 1848. Note that these articles are misdated in Scudder ‘Part II,’ 174. George Gilfillan, ‘Ralph Waldo Emerson; or, The “Coming Man”,’ Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine 25 (January 1848), 22. This letter is partially reproduced in Scudder ‘Part II,’ 174. The Critic, n.s. 10 (15 July 1851), 326–8. This article by George Gilfillan was later reprinted in his Third Gallery of Literary Portraits. A copy of the article is in the Alexander Ireland Collection (Box I:25) but is falsely labeled London Literary Journal, 1851. Dozens of British newspaper and journal articles refer to the American qualities of Emerson’s thought. Some articles make a direct connection between American political structure and the genius of Emerson. An article in Blackwood’s concludes that Emerson is the best representative of the American spirit: no European could read his works ‘without tracing in them the spirit of [his] nation . . . the new democracy of the New World is apparent . . . in the philosophy of one who is yet no democrat. . . . For what is the prevailing spirit of his writings? Self-Reliance.’ William Henry Smith, ‘Emerson,’ Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 62 (December 1847), 644. Some further examples are offered in William J. Sowder’s ‘Early Impact,’ 573–6. On America as a divisive question in nineteenth-century British politics see David Paul Crook, American Democracy in English Politics, 1815–1850 (Oxford, 1965); idem, ‘Whiggery and America: Accommodating the Radical Threat’ in Michael T. Davis, ed., Radicalism and Revolution in Britain, 1775–1848: Essays in Honour of Malcolm I. Thomis (Basingstoke, 2000), 191–206; and Paul Giles, Atlantic Republic: The American Tradition in English Literature (Oxford, 2006).

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62. For a reliable short reference on religion in Scotland during this period see Callum Brown, Religion and Society in Scotland Since 1707 (Edinburgh, 1997). Also see Stewart J. Brown and Michael Fry, eds., Scotland in the Age of the Disruption (Edinburgh, 1993); Gerald Parsons, ‘Church and State in Victorian Scotland: Disruption and Reunion’ in idem, et al, eds., Religion in Victorian Britain, 5 vols. (Manchester, 1988–1997), ii, 107–123; Stewart J. Brown, Thomas Chalmers and the Godly Commonwealth (Oxford, 1982); and Andrew Drummond and James Bulloch, The Church in Victorian Scotland, 1843–1874 (Edinburgh, 1975). 63. See the ‘Prefatory Note’ in Lowe’s Edinburgh Magazine 1 (Jan. 1846), 1–5. For information on British Victorian periodicals, The Waterloo Directory of Victorian Periodicals, 1824–1900 is the essential reference. First published in 1976, with major supplements appearing in 1986 and 1989, and republished in ten volumes in 1998, this resource is now available as an online database. 64. Lowe’s Edinburgh Magazine 1 (February 1846), 169–82. 65. Tait’s 25 (1848), 17–23. The best reference on Gilfillan is Aileen Black’s Gilfillan of Dundee, 1813–1878: Interpreting Religion and Culture in MidVictorian Scotland (Dundee, 2006). 66. Scudder, Wayfaring Man, 96–9. 67. George Gilfillan, A Gallery of Literary Portraits (Edinburgh, 1845). This entry is reprinted in K.W. Cameron, Emerson Among His Contemporaries (Hartford, CT, 1967), 60–64. 68. George Gilfillan, ‘Ralph Waldo Emerson; or, the “Coming Man,”’ Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine 25 (January 1848), 17–23. 69. Macphail’s 5 (February 1848), 30–53. 70. Blackwood’s was affiliated with the Edinburgh Anglican elite and was relatively unaffected by Scottish religious disputes. See F. D. Tredrey, The House of Blackwood, 1804–1954 (Edinburgh and London, 1954); David Finkelstein, ed., Print, Culture and the Blackwood Tradition, 1805–1930 (Toronto, 2006) and idem, The House of Blackwood: Author-Publisher Relations in the Victorian Era (University Park, 2002). Kenneth W. Davis identifies the author as William Henry Smith (1808–72), a critic and regular contributor (not to be confused with the English publisher by the same name) in ‘A Bibliography of the Writings of William Henry Smith,’ Library 5:29 (1964), 166. 71. William Henry Smith, ‘Emerson,’ Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 52 (December 1847), 652. 72. Ibid., 657. Cf. ‘Emerson,’ The Dublin Review 51 (March 1849), 174–75: ‘he is, we believe, thoroughly sincere . . . he would sacrifice his life for his dreams.’ 73. Ibid., 645–46.

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74. The Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 8 January 1848; Scudder, ‘Part I,’ 23–24. 75. L, iv, 18. 76. Alexander Ireland, Ralph Waldo Emerson: His Life, Genius and Writings (London, 1882); ‘Emerson and His Visit to Scotland,’ Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine 7 (April 1848), 322–31. The article is signed ‘A Student.’ It has been suggested that the author of the article was George Cupples, the son of a prominent Scottish minister. See Scudder ‘Part II,’ 175. 77. Hudson, History, 75, 84. 78. Scudder, Wayfaring Man, 99–101; Aileen Black, ‘The Gospel of Literature: the Promotion of Culture in a Scottish Dissenting Church,’ in Culture Institutions, ed. Martin Hewitt (Leeds, 2005), 48. 79. Gilfillan wrote another entry on Emerson in his Second Gallery of Literary Portraits (Edinburgh, 1852), 120–35 and again in his Third Gallery (Edinburgh, 1854), 328–36. Both are reproduced in Cameron’s Emerson Among His Contemporaries, 71–77 and 86–88. See Scudder, Lonely, Wayfaring Man, 96–105 and his ‘Emerson in Dundee,’ The American Scholar 4 (Summer 1935), 331–44. 80. Scottish Guardian (Glasgow), 3 March 1848. 81. The paper was started by Chalmers’s student George Lewis who himself became a minister in the Free Church. See Stewart J. Brown, Thomas Chalmers, 223. On Frederick Douglass in Scotland, see George Shepperson, ‘Frederick Douglass and Scotland,’ The Journal of Negro History 38 (July 1953), 307–31 and Alaisdair Pettinger, ‘Send the Money Back: Douglass and the Free Church of Scotland’ in Allan J. Rice and Martin Crawford, eds., Liberating Sojourn: Frederick Douglass and Transatlantic Reform (Athens and London, 1999), 31–55. 82. Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine, April 1848 (op. cit.) Howitt’s was another Radical Unitarian publication. On the Radical Unitarians see Kathryn Gleadle, The Early Feminists, and Ruth Watts, Gender, Power, and the Unitarians in England, 1760–1860 (London, 1998). 83. Gleadle, Early Feminists, 18. 84. Dunlop is listed as the author in Samuel Halkett and John Laing’s Dictionary of the Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature of Great Britain, 4 vols. (Edinburgh, 1882–88). Pamphlet published by John Elder, Edinburgh, 1848. To my knowledge this pamphlet only survives in three libraries: the University Libraries of Glasgow and Edinburgh and the New York Public Library. 85. Civis, ‘Emerson’s Orations,’ 1–27. 86. Thomas Christopher Smout, The Social Condition of Scotland in the 1840s (Dundee, 1981), 20. On social conditions and fears of revolution in Scotland

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87. 88. 89.

90. 91.

92.

93.

94.

95.

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in 1847–48 see idem., A Century of the Scottish People, 1830–50 (London, 1986); Ian Levitt, ed., Government and Social Conditions in Scotland, 1845–1919 (Edinburgh, 1988); T. M. Devine, The Scottish Nation, 1800–2007 (London, 2006) and idem., The Great Highland Famine: Hunger, Emigration and the Scottish Highlands in the Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh, 1988); Alexander Wilson, The Chartist Movement in Scotland (Manchester, 1970); Robert Q. Gray, The Labour Aristocracy in Victorian Edinburgh (Oxford, 1976); Kriszta Fenyö, Contempt, Sympathy and Romance: Lowlands Perceptions of the Highlands and the Clearances During the Famine Years, 1845–1855 (East Linton, 2000). Severe rioting broke out in Scotland during March 1848. See The Times, 10 March 1848, 6. Civis, ‘Emerson’s Orations,’ 28–29. ‘Emerson,’ The Dublin Review 51 (March 1849), 156–57, 166. English Review 12 (September 1849), 139–47. A reprint of the article appeared in the American Eclectic Magazine 23 (December 1849), 546–63. This version is reprinted in K. W. Cameron, Emerson and Thoreau in Europe: The Transcendental Influence (Hartford, 1999), 24–29. Ibid. See Leslie Mitchell, ‘Britain’s Reactions to the Revolutions’ in Robert Evans and Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, eds. The Revolutions in Europe, 1848– 1849: Reform to Reaction (Oxford, 2000), 83–99. Emerson used this interpretation in English Traits (1856) but later arrived at different conclusions about 1848 during the American Civil War. On this interpretation’s rise to prominence see Hewitt, Emergence of Stability, 1–22; idem, ed., An Age of Equipoise? Reassessing Mid-Victorian Britain (Aldershot, 2000), and Cannadine, Class in Britain, 1–8. See F. A. Ridley, The Revolutionary Tradition in England (London, 1948); John Foster Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution: Early Industrial Capitalism in Three English Towns (London, 1974); Eric Hobsbawm, Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour (London, 1964); A. E. Musson, ‘Class Struggle and the Labour Aristocracy, 1830–1860’ Social History 3 (1978), 61–82. See Asa Briggs, ‘National Bearings’ in idem, ed., Chartist Studies (1959), 288–303; Dorothy Thompson, The Chartists (London, 1984) and John Saville, 1848 (1987); Edward Royle, Revolutionary Britannia? Reflections on the Threat of Revolution in Britain (Manchester, 2000). The ‘secularisation’ theory became dominant in the early 1960s. See Callum Brown’s introduction to Death of Christian Britain (2000) for a bibliographical history of this concept. On Emerson’s lasting impact on British secularists and theosophists see Sowder, ‘Emerson’s Rationalist Champions’ NEQ (1964), 147–70.

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96. See works cited in the introduction to this book, especially James Epstein, In Practice; Cannadine, Class in Britain; Bentley, ‘Victorian Politics and the Linguistic Turn;’ and Hewitt, Emergence of Stability. On the ‘linguistic turn’ in history more generally see Elizabeth A. Clarke, History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn (Cambridge, MA, 2004). 97. Gareth Stedman Jones, ‘Rethinking Chartism’ in Language of Class: Studies in English Working Class History, 1832–1982 (Cambridge, 1983), 90–178. 98. Patrick Joyce, Visions of the People: Industrial England and the Question of Class, 1848–1914 (Cambridge, 1991), 11. 99. Joyce, Democratic Subjects: The Self and the Social in Nineteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1994), passim. On the impact of Emerson on Waugh, also see Hewitt, Emergence of Stability, 150 and idem, ‘Control of the Lecture Platform,’ 4. 100. The theoretical Marxist framework in which the conditions for revolution are seen as increasingly present in Britain until 1848 was challenged by Malcolm I. Thomis and Peter Holt in Threats of Revolution in Britain, 1789– 1848 (Basingstoke, 1977), esp. 111–14. The idea that Britain was not in danger of revolution in 1848 is emphasised in Henry Weisser, ‘Chartism in 1848: Reflections on a Non-Revolution,’ Albion 13:1 (Spring 1981), 12–26; Jonathan Sperber, ‘Reforms, Movements for Reform, and Possibilities of Reform: Comparing Britain and Continental Europe’ in Burns and Innes, eds., Rethinking the Age of Reform (2003), 312–30 and in John Saville, ‘1848 — Britain and Europe’ in Sabine Freitag, ed., Exiles from European Revolutions: Refugees in Mid-Victorian England (New York, 2003), 19–31. 101. See Martin Hewitt, The Emergence of Stability; Margot C. Finn, After Chartism: Class and Nation in English Radical Politics, 1848–1874 (Cambridge, 1993); Keith Flett, Chartism after 1848 (Monmouth, 2006); Callum Brown, Death of Christian Britain (2000); and Robin Gill, The ‘Empty’ Church Revisited (Aldershot, 2003). 102. These debates were, in many ways, unique to Britain. Different platform conditions existed in America. For comparison with the American lecture platform see Angela G. Ray, The Lyceum and Public Culture in the NineteenthCentury United States (East Lansing, 2005); Kenneth Cmiel, Democratic Eloquence: The Fight over Popular Speech in Nineteenth-Century America (New York, 1990); Carl Bode, The American Lyceum: Town Meeting of the Mind (New York, 1956); D.A. Scott, ‘The Popular Lecture and the Creation of a Public in Mid-Nineteenth Century America,’ Journal of American History 66 (1980), 791–809; and M. K. Cayton, ‘The Making of an American Prophet: Emerson, His Audiences, and the Rise of the Culture Industry in Nineteenth-Century America,’ American Historical Review 92 (1987), 587–620.

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CHAPTER 3 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10.

11. 12.

13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

Cole, ‘Emerson, England, and Fate,’ 85; L, iii, 461. Ibid., 83–105. Reynolds, European Revolutions, 25–31. Bercovitch, Rites of Assent, 338–45. CEC, 432. L, vii, 133. CEC, 433; L, iii, 437; Scudder, Wayfaring Man, 64–68. L, iii, 441. See Joanna Wilkes’s introduction to Jewsbury’s The Half-Sisters (Oxford, 1994), xii; Elisabeth Anne Leonard, ‘Geraldine Jewsbury’ in NineteenthCentury British Women Writers, Abigail Bloom, ed. (Westport, CT, 2000), 222–26. Fred Kaplan, Thomas Carlyle: A Biography (Ithaca, 1983), 332–33. Also see Virginia Woolf, ‘Geraldine and Jane’ in Collected Essays, 4 vols. (London, 1932), iv, 27–39. For recent work on Jewsbury, see bibliography in E. A. Leonard, ‘Jewsbury,’ 226. Scudder, Wayfaring Man, 108–11. Ibid. Also see Manchester Guardian, 3 November 1847: ‘Amongst those present we observed Miss Jewsbury, Wm. Torrens McCullagh, Esq. author of “The Industrial History of Free Nations,” the Rev. John James Tayler, B.A. author of the “Retrospect of the Religious Life of England,” the Rev. George Vance Smith, theological tutor of the Manchester New College; W. B. Hodgson, LL.D. principal of the Chorlton High School, &c.’ See Kaplan, Thomas Carlyle, 282 and Carlyle’s note in J. A. Froude, ed., Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle, 3 vols. (London, 1883), i, 288n. Also see Joanna Wilkes’s editorial notes to Jewsbury’s The Half-Sisters (Oxford, 1994), 398. Seaforth House was demolished in 1881. CEC, 432n. L, iii, 436. L, iii, 438, 454; JMN, x, 168. Cameron’s January lecture in Manchester was titled ‘On Readers and Reading.’ In a letter home, Emerson remarked that ‘the most ridiculous panegyrics & exaggerated estimates of me may be found in print here, of which a book by Henry Sutton called Evangel of Love was shown me, where I figure with saints & mystics of many colors.’ L, iii, 444. The book was shown to him by Joseph Neuberg in Nottingham in the first days of December. On 16 December he wrote of the Evangel that ‘barring its ridiculous use of my name, and also its Hebraism, it is a strange original book, not without high merit of the moral

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18.

19.

20.

21. 22.

23.

24.

25.

26. 27. 28.

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kind.’ L, iii, 451. In addition to the opening quote, Emerson’s name is used three times in the main text of the Evangel on pages 58, 64, 84. Also see W. B. Owen, ‘Sutton, Henry Septimus (1825–1901),’ rev. Sayoni Basu, DNB. Quoted January Searle [George Searle Phillips], Emerson, 31–32. Emerson met Phillips for the first time in mid-December (L, iii, 452). On Searle see A. F. Pollard, ‘Phillips, George Searle (1816–1889),’ rev. Victoria Millar in DNB; Trygve R. Tholfsen, Working Class Radicalism in Mid-Victorian England (London, 1976), 143. Harrison discussed Searle’s ‘discipleship’ to Emerson in Learning and Living, 137–44. L, iii, 447n; Jose Harris, ‘Spencer, Herbert (1820–1903),’ DNB. Of T. H. Gill Emerson wrote that he had met ‘a man of genius . . . who outweighed all Birmingham for me.’ L, iii, 455. L, iii, 460; Joan Allen, ‘Crawshay, George (1821–1896),’ in DNB. Cambridge and Oxford demanded that students pledge allegiance to the Church of England. Several of Emerson’s followers at those universities refused to do so, as is explained further in the present chapter. Howard Lowry and Ralph Rusk, eds., Emerson-Clough Letters (Cleveland, 1934), vi. L, iii, 454. Emerson wrote that he was unable to acknowledge the effect he had produced on the English youth ‘until I yielded my assent to numerous testimonies.’ He referred to himself as a writer ‘who, it seems, has really beguiled many young people here, as he did at home, into some better hope than he could realize for them.’ Also see Scudder, Wayfaring Man, ix, 60–73. Ronald Bayne, ‘Bailey, Philip James (1816–1902),’ rev. D. E. Latané, Jr., in DNB. On Festus see Allan McKillop, ‘A Victorian Faust,’ PMLA 40:3 (September, 1925) 743–68. Emerson met Bailey twice in Nottingham and found him ‘a singularly unprofitable companion,’ L, iii, 451. JMN, x, 259. Thom’s most recently published book, The Three Grand Exhibitions of Man’s Enmity to God (London, 1845) argued that the entire human race will be saved unconditionally. CEC, 434. The line: ‘Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one,’ comes from Carlyle’s lecture on Mohammed. Emerson used the term in his post-1848 lectures on ‘Fate’ and the New York ‘Fugitive Slave Law’ (1854). It was later taken up by Gandhi, George Orwell, and others. Thomas Carlyle, ‘Thirty-five Unpublished Letters of Oliver Cromwell,’ Fraser’s Magazine 36 (December 1847), 635. See Kenneth J. Fielding, ‘Introduction’ to The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle, xxii, p. xii. L, iii, 460.

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34. 35. 36.

37. 38.

39.

40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

249

L, iii, 461. JMN, x, 181. JMN, x, 183; L, iii, 442. L, iii, 442–3. On the prominence of this mode in mid-nineteenth century Anglo-American thought see Asa Briggs, ‘Saxons, Normans and Victorians,’ in Collected Essays of Asa Briggs, 3 vols. (Brighton, 1985), ii, 215–35; Reginald Horsman ‘Origins of Racial Anglo-Saxonism in Great Britain before 1850,’ Journal of the History of Ideas 37:3 (July–September 1976), 387–410; and idem, Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (Cambridge, MA, 1981). On Emerson and ‘Saxonism’ see Samuel Kliger, ‘Emerson and the Usable Anglo-Saxon Past,’ Journal of the History of Ideas 16:4 (October 1955), 476–93; Nicoloff, Emerson on Race and History, and works cited in Chapter 5 of this book. Transcript in Manchester Guardian, 20 November 1847. Scudder, Wayfaring Man, 74–85. Athenaeum Gazette (Manchester), 10 November 1847. Also listed are ‘Richard Cobden, Esq. M.P.; The Hon. C. P. Villiers, M.P.; James Heywood, Esq. M.P., F. R. S.; Viscount Brackley, M.P.; The Rt. Hon. Thomas Milner Gibson, M.P.; John Bright, Esq. M.P.; John Bowring, Esq., M.P.; J. B. Smith, Esq., M.P.; Joseph Brotherton, Esq., M.P.; George L. Craick, Esq.; Mark Phillips, Esq.; J. McGregor, Esq., M.P.; Lord Nugent, M.P.; W. H. Ainsworth, Esq.’ Transcript in Manchester Times, 20 November 1847. Manchester Guardian, 20 November 1847. Reports and partial transcripts also appeared in the Liverpool Mercury on 22 November and The Times (London), 20 November 1847. A draft of the speech can be found in JMN, x, 505–6. The Manchester speech was published as an appendix to English Traits. Also see O. W. Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson (Boston, 1891), 220. Manchester Guardian, 1 December 1847. The version of ‘The Superlative’ which appeared in Lectures and Biographical Sketches (1884) differs considerably from the original version, of which no manuscript version is extant. Richardson, Mind on Fire, 447–48. Manchester Guardian, 1 December 1847. L, iii, 454, 452. CEC, 435. In the map appended to this book I have loosely sketched some of the main lines which existed in 1847. For more detailed maps and figures see Jack Simmons, The Railway in England and Wales (Leicester, 1978), map insert and John Langton and R.J. Morris, eds. Atlas of Industrializing Britain (London and New York, 1986).

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250 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

55. 56.

57. 58.

59. 60.

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L, iii, 453; JMN, x, 185. L, iii, 453, 458. JMN, x, 192. L, iii, 460. L, iii, 454. L, iii, 443. J.E.M. Latham, Search for a New Eden (Madison and London, 1999), 199–208. L, iii, 450. L, iii, 450; JMN, x, 185. Several newspapers took notice of Emerson’s visit to Newstead Abbey. The Manchester Times, 4 January 1848 quoted an earlier article from the Nottingham Review: ‘We regret that through offence having been given by certain foolish remarks of a Sheffield contemporary, Col. Wildman no longer allows visitors admittance to the abbey grounds. Mr. R. W. Emerson, the distinguished author and lecturer, inspected the place on Monday last, but only by particular favour.’ JMN, x, 182, 184. L, iv, 5; Joseph Leach, ‘Cushman, Charlotte Saunders’ in American National Biography. Bianca, the actress-protagonist of Geraldine Jewsbury’s The Half Sisters (1848) was inspired by her story. See Joanne Wilkes’ introduction to The Half Sisters, p. xvii. On Montgomery, see G. Tolley, ‘Montgomery, James (1771–1854),’ DNB. L, iii, 449; L, iv, 6; R.H. Evans, ‘Biggs, John (1801–1871),’ DNB. Moncure Conway, Emerson at Home and Abroad (Boston, 1882), 264: ‘At Leicester [Emerson] was so unfortunate as to leave his MS at the house of his host and the chairman, Mr. Joseph Biggs, two miles distant from the hall, and discovered the fact only on the moment announced for the lecture . . . the chairman . . . amused them [the audience] with anecdotes of absentmindedness in great men until his friend’s return.’ L, iii, 460. John O’Connell, ‘From Mechanics’ Institute to Polytechnic: Further and Higher Education, 1841–1970,’ in Huddersfield, ed. E.A. Hilary Haigh (Huddersfield, 1992), 562–66. Huddersfield was widely regarded as the most effective Mechanics’ Institute in reaching out to the working class. One of the key figures in the success of Huddersfield was George Searle Phillips, Emerson’s biographer. Emerson wrote, ‘[a]t Huddersfield, I was told that they have over-educated the men in the working class, so as to leave them dissatisfied with their sweethearts & wives; and the good Schwanns & Kehls there, were now busy in educating the women up to them.’ JMN, x, 216.

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61. Donald Read, Cobden and Bright: A Victorian Political Partnership (London, 1967), 69–70. 62. John Bright is listed as having attended both of these events in The Times, 20 November 1847 and 29 January 1848 respectively. 63. F. M. L. Thompson, ‘Whigs and Liberals in the West Riding, 1830–1860,’ English Historical Review, 74 (April 1959), 234–38. 64. The population of Leeds in 1801 was 53,000. In 1851 it had 172,000 inhabitants. R. J. Morris, Class, Sect and Party, 36. Only London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham had larger populations. See Llewellyn Woodward, The Age of Reform, 1815–1870 (Oxford, 1962), 2 and F. Tillyard, ‘English Town Development in the Nineteenth Century,’ The Economic Journal 23:92 (December 1913), 552. 65. Kaplan, Thomas Carlyle, 247, 268, 290, 297; William Gordon Rimmer, Marshalls of Leeds: Flax-Spinners, 1788–1886 (London, 1960); Morris, Class, Sect and Party (1990). 66. L, iv, 3; JMN, x, 210. It is more likely that Emerson is referring to the elder James Stansfeld (1792–1872) than to his son. See Alan Ruston, ‘Stansfeld, Sir James (1820–1898),’ DNB. John Tyndall was in the audience for one of Emerson’s Halifax lectures. See James Secord, Victorian Sensation, 337. On Emerson’s lasting impact on Tyndall see L. D. Walls, ‘If Body Can Sing,’ 334, 352–62. 67. John Hargreaves, Halifax (Edinburgh, 1999), 152; idem, ‘Crossley, Martha (1775–1854),’ DNB. 68. JMN, x, 210. 69. Hargreaves, Halifax, 73. 70. Ibid., 82, 98, 126; John Hargreaves, ‘Akroyd, Edward (1810–1887),’ DNB. 71. JMN, x, 210. 72. JMN, x, 219. Emerson visited Crawshay’s ironworks on 10 February 1848. The date of the visit to the Manchester warehouses is unknown. 73. Joan Allen, ‘Crawshay, George (1821–1896),’ DNB. 74. Religion is almost completely omitted from John P. Addis’s study of The Crawshay Dynasty (Cardiff, 1957). Subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles was mandatory at Oxford and Cambridge until 1865. Crawshay later became a member of the Anti-State Church Association. 75. Mary B. Rose, ‘Greg, William Rathbone (1809–1881),’ DNB. Marx takes issue with William Rathbone Greg in his pamphlet ‘On the Question of Free Trade,’ MECW, vi, 450–65. 76. T. Wemyss Reid, The Life of the Right Honourable William Edward Forster, 4th ed., 2 vols. (London, 1888), i, 204. The Carlyles had been guests as Forster’s home in Rawdon during the summer of 1847 and were in frequent correspondence.

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77. JMN, x, 216–17. 78. JMN, x, 196. 79. Estimated average annual wages in 1851 for the lowest income group (agricultural laborers) was £29; for general non-agricultural laborers, the estimated average was £44.8. See Appendix Table 1, ‘Annual Earnings Estimates for Males, by Occupation and/or Industry, 1827–1901,’ in Jeffrey G. Williamson, ‘Earnings Inequality in Nineteenth-Century Britain,’ Journal of Economic History 40:3 (September 1980), 457–75. 80. Patrick Jackson, Education Act Forster: A Political Biography of W. E. Forster, 1818–1886 (London, 1997), 54–5: ‘By December 1847 most of the Bradford worsted mills were working on only two days a week, and ten percent of the population was on poor relief.’ 81. Reid, Life of Forster, i, 197. 82. Ibid., 216–26; Jackson, Education Act Forster, 54–55. Forster became an M.P. in 1861. 83. Dorothy Thompson, The Chartists, 251. 84. R. G. Gammage, History of the Chartist Movement (1894; reprint, 1969), 332– 37. Also see Thompson, The Chartists, 313 and 327. 85. The speeches were delivered at a meeting of the Chartist counsel held in London on 11 January 1848 and were printed in The Northern Star. Engels reprinted the speeches in an article for La Réforme, which appeared on 19 January. MECW, vi, 473. 86. The use of the word ‘liberal’ is problematic. In the shifting pragmatic political alliances of the 1840s ‘Liberals’ could generally be described as the Cobdenite radical section of the Whig coalition in favour of free trade and ‘voluntary’ rather than state-imposed social regulation. On other issuses such as disestablishment significant divisions between liberals existed, see T.A. Jenkins, The Liberal Ascendancy, 1830–1886 (London, 1994), 58–63; Anthony Howe, ‘Introduction’ in Rethinking Nineteenth Century Liberalism (London, 2007), esp. 2–3 and 7–9. 87. H. J. Perkin, The Origins of Modern English Society, 1780–1880 (London, 1969), 221–30. Quote in R. J. Morris, Class and Class Consciousness in the Industrial Revolution: 1780–1850 (London, 1979), 13. Also see Cannadine, Class in Britain, 88–92; Simon Gunn, The Public Culture of the Victorian Middle Class: Ritual and Authority and the English Industrial City (Manchester, 2000), 14–17; R. J. Morris, Class, Sect and Party, 233–34, 320; Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey, From the Corn Laws to Free Trade: Interests, Ideas, and Institutions in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA, 2006), 102–4. On the relationship between religion and wealth see essays in David J. Jeremy, ed. Business and Religion in Britain and idem, ed., Religion, Business and Wealth in Modern Britain (London, 1998).

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88. Akroyd, Marshall, Cobden, Bright, Rathbone, Biggs, and Schwann were part of the Anti-Corn Law League Council. See Reuben, A Brief History of the Rise and Progress of the Anti-Corn-Law League: With Personal Sketches of its Leading Members (London, 1845), 21–51; Paul A. Pickering and Alex Tyrrell, The People’s Bread : a History of the Anti-Corn Law League (London, 2000). W. R. Greg wrote several anti-corn-law essays, including ‘Agriculture and the Corn Laws’ (1843). See Mary B. Rose, ‘Greg, William Rathbone (1809–1881),’ DNB. 89. Middle class ‘voluntarism,’ took many forms. On its prevalence and significance see the introduction to R. J. Morris, Class, Sect and Party, 250–56, 280–315; idem, ‘Voluntary Societies and British Urban Elites, 1780–1850,’ Historical Journal 26:1 (1983), 95–118; Geoffrey Russell Searle, Entrepreneurial Politics in Mid-Victorian Britain (Oxford, 1993), 27–28; Simon Gunn, The Public Culture of the Victorian Middle Class: Ritual and Authority in the English Industrial City, 1840–1914 (Manchester, 2000); Theodore Koditschek, Class Formation and Urban Industrial Society: Bradford, 1750–1850 (Cambridge, 1990), 252–318; Anne B. Rodrick, Self-Help and Civic Culture: Citizenship in Victorian Birmingham (Aldershot, 2004), 65–72; Peter Bailey, Leisure and Class in Victorian England (London, 1978), 47–67; Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780– 1850 (1987; rev. ed., London: Routledge, 2002), 419–45; Martin Hewitt, Emergence of Stability, 84–5; Trygve R. Tholfsen, Working Class Radicalism, 201–29; P. H. J .H. Gosden, Self-Help: Voluntary Associations in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1973); Michael E. Rose, ‘Culture, Philanthropy and the Manchester Middle Classes,’ City, Class and Culture, 103–17. 90. JMN, x, 211. 91. Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, (1842; reprint, London, 1897), 283. 92. JMN, x, 216. 93. Cole, ‘Emerson, England, and Fate,’ 88. Cole herself emphasises the retrospective nature of this development which began in the early 1850s, 91–92. Also see Merton Sealts, Emerson on the Scholar (Columbia, MO and London, 1992), 234–9. 94. Engels, Condition of Working Class in England, MECW, iv, 475–78. Two translations of this work are quoted in this chapter. Footnote references indicate the source from which the exact quotation is taken first, followed by a reference to the page number on which the same passage in the non-quoted translation can be found. In this instance, the same passage in translated in Henderson and Chaloner (op. cit.), 210–11. 95. Engels, Condition of the Working Class, trans. Henderson and Chaloner, 311; MECW, v, 562. 96. Ibid., Henderson and Chaloner, 315; MECW, v, 565.

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97. Ibid., Henderson and Chaloner, 313; MECW, v, 564. 98. Lucy Brown, ‘The Chartists and the Anti-Corn Law League,’ in Asa Briggs, ed. Chartist Studies (New York, 1959), 342–71. 99. Read, Cobden and Bright, 35–38 100. Sacvan Bercovitch highlights Emerson’s ‘unabashed endorsements . . . of what can only be called free-enterprise ideology’ from 1842 onwards and points of harmony in Emerson’s thought with modern liberal political culture in Rites of Assent, 330–52. 101. JMN, x, 143–4. 102. See, for example, CE, i, 380; CE, iii, 255. General accord with the aims of free trade is similarly present in numerous later works (see, for example, CE, vi, 211; CE, viii, 32; CE, xi, 20; CE, xi, 541). In 1862 Emerson listed the repeal of the Corn-Laws as one of the great moments in the expansion of liberty in modern history alongside the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. CE, xi, 315. 103. JMN, x, 211. 104. CE, viii, 146–7: ‘Against the terrors of the mob, which, intoxicated with passion . . . is diabolic . . . good sense has many arts of prevention and of relief. . . . Mr. Marshall, the eminent manufacturer at Leeds, was to preside at a Free-Trade festival in that city; it was threatened that the operatives, who were in a bad humor, would break up the meeting by a mob. Mr. Marshall was a man of peace; he had the pipes laid from the water-works of his mill, with a stop-cock by his chair from which he could discharge a stream that would knock down an ox, and sat down very peacefully to his dinner. . . . ’ 105. Review in the Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh), 14 February 1848. Also see Reynolds, European Revolutions, 26. It is difficult to accurately reconstruct the February version of the lecture. I have found no complete transcripts in the Scottish press. Discussion of subsequent deliveries and versions of this lecture figure into Chapters 4 and 5 of this book. 106. Scottish Guardian (Glasgow), 3 March 1848. ‘Spirit of the Times’ is similarly difficult to reconstruct. The June rewrite of the lecture as ‘Politics and Socialism’ is discussed in Chapter 4. 107. Dolan, Emerson’s Liberalism, 3, 24–7. 108. Reynolds, European Revolutions, 25–7, 31. 109. Little biographical information on Cameron exists. His obituary in the Leeds Mercury (12 December 1896) states that he was born eighty-seven years earlier, became a minister in Wakefield in 1837 where he ‘became a prominent figure in local Radicalism,’ was eventually ‘ejected’ from the ministry, and became a writer and lecturer. See F. Henderson, ‘Ballantyne,

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110. 111. 112.

113.

114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119.

120.

121. 122. 123. 124. 125.

255

Thomas (1806–1871),’ rev. H. C. G. Matthew, DNB; M. C. Curthoys, ‘Hodgson, William Ballantyne (1815–1880),’ DNB. Alexander Ireland, Recollections of George Dawson and his Lectures in Manchester, 1846–1847 (Manchester, 1882), 5–11; Briggs, Victorian Cities, 195–201. R. K. Webb, ‘Maccall, William (1812–1888),’ DNB. Harrison, Learning and Living, 140. To my knowledge, this is the first time a complete list of the guests has been compiled in one place. Various names are left out of each source. Dawson is not mentioned in Emerson’s letter to Lidian of February 9 (L, iv, 14) but, according to Phillips’ account, was there. Scudder does not mention Cameron’s presence, while Emerson’s own account does. January Searle [George Searle Phillips], Emerson: His Life and Writings (London, 1855); Alexander Ireland, Ralph Waldo Emerson: His Life, Writings, and Genius (London, 1882), 60–65; Francis Espinasse, Literary Recollections and Sketches (London, 1893), 156–68; Scudder, Wayfaring Man, 86–95. Ireland, Emerson: Life, 163. L, iv, 14. See Appendix 3. An advertisement appeared in The Critic, 18 December 1847 for William S. Orr’s edition. L, iv, 18, 26. L, iv, 26. David Knight, ‘Brown, Samuel (1817–1856),’ DNB; idem, The Transcendental Part of Chemistry (Folkestone, 1978). The painting is currently housed in the Concord Free Public Library. It was purchased from Scott’s brother in 1873. See Leslie Perrin Wilson, ‘The Tenant is More than the House: Selected Emerson Portraits in the Concord Free Public Library,’ Nineteenth-Century Prose 33:1 (Spring 2006), 73–116. L, iv, 20. Excerpts from Scott’s journals were published in William B. Scott’s Memoir of David Scott (Edinburgh, 1850). Emerson’s detractors picked up on the negative aspects of Scott’s observations in The Critic (15 July 1851), 326–68 (MFPL I.25, incorrectly labelled London Literary Journal): ‘The late David Scott, the painter, was, we know, one of the men who were disappointed and shaken by the petty cringing, and, on the whole, insincere aspect of Emerson, and his portrait — what the man should have been not what he is.’ L, iv, 19, 21; David Finkelstein, ‘Wilson, John [Christopher North] (1785– 1854),’ DNB. L, iv, 19; Joanne Wilkes, ‘Crowe , Catherine Ann (1790–1872),’ DNB. JMN, x, 220. CE, v, 4. L, iv, 23, 25.

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126. L, iv, 17–24. 127. L, iv, 21. 128. L, iv, 22. Emerson also mentions his debt to the Edinburgh Review in the opening pages of English Traits. 129. L, iv, 30. Other names include Sir John Stoddart; the painter William Allen; Henry Thomas Cockburn; frequent contributor to Blackwood’s Professor William Aytoun; a poetess named Katherine Barland, who was later chided for having made Emerson’s acquaintance (L, iv, 53); and several minor historical and literary figures. Emerson’s letter from Perth (L, iv, 17–24) lists the names of thirty people with whom he spent time in Edinburgh. Rusk’s editorial notes provide some information about many of these interesting figures, most of whom have since faded into obscurity. 130. Robert Richardson analyses the effects of Emerson’s long-term study of Adam Smith, Dugald Stuart, and especially, David Hume in Mind on Fire. Also see Susan Manning, Fragments of Union: Making Connections in Scottish and American Writing (Edinburgh, 2002), 252–66. 131. Quote from Houghton bMS Am 1280.201 (5), ‘Scotland.’ 132. Houghton bMS Am 1280.201 (5), ‘Scotland.’ Cf. CE, v, 53–54. 133. L, iv, 22. Also see JMN, x, 222 and Houghton bMS Am 1280.201 (5) ‘Scotland.’ The population of Glasgow in 1841 was 275,000, twelve times the 1755 population. 134. Thomas Christopher Smout, in The Social Condition of Scotland in the 1840s (Dundee, 1981) uses quotes from the journals and writings of Henry Cockburn and Lord Jeffrey, among others to make this argument. 135. ‘The Riots in Glasgow,’ The Times, 10 March 1848. 136. Morris, Class, Sect and Party, 320–321, 324–5, 328, and passim. For a fuller exposition of British nineteenth-century liberalism and a comparison to continental liberalism see John Breuilly, Labour and Liberalism in NineteenthCentury Europe: Essays in Comparative History (Manchester, 1992), 197–272. 137. In criticism the term ‘Victorian sage’ is usually used to identify nineteenth-century writers using certain modes and methods of discourse with particular concern to questions about man’s place in the world and the conduct of life. See John Holloway, The Victorian Sage: Studies in Argument (London, 1954), and Thaïs Morgan, ed. Victorian Sages and Cultural Discourse: Renegotiating Gender and Power (New Brunswick, NJ and London, 1990). George P. Landow discusses Emerson within this context in Elegant Jeremiahs: The Sage from Carlyle to Mailer (Ithaca, 1986), esp. 30–33. Here I have employed the term differently to mean an exulted living writer and teacher of wisdom in Victorian society, a definition that applies to the majority of ‘sages’ discussed by Holloway and others.

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CHAPTER 4 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7.

8.

9. 10.

11.

12. 13.

Reynolds, European Revolutions, 25–30. Ibid., 25, 31–6. Ibid., 36–43. Gougeon, Virtue’s Hero, 28–29. Martineau praised Emerson highly in the Retrospect. See Sowder, ‘Early Impact,’ 562. Caroline Roberts describes the radicalism of Martineau’s Society in America, which argues for the enfranchisement of women and slaves in Harriet Martineau and Victorian Ideologies, D.Phil. Dissertation, University of Oxford, 1996, 26–65. L, iv, 27; JMN, x, 558–59. L, iv, 27. See John J. Baughman, ‘The French Banquet Campaign of 1847–48,’ Journal of Modern History 31:1 (March, 1959), 1–15; Georges Duveau, 1848: The Making of a Revolution, trans. Anne Carter (London, 1965), 6–12; and Maurice Agulhon, 1848 ou l’apprentissage de la République (Paris, 1973), 29. Duveau, 1848, 12–20. Quote from Lamartine’s account of 22 February in his Histoire de la Révolution de 1848, reprinted in Roger Price, ed. Documents on the French Revolution of 1848 (New York, 1996). Duveau, 1848, 29–38 and Lamartine in Price, ed., Documents, 39–42. This account is culled from a number of sources including Reynolds, European Revolutions, 1–24; Duveau, 1848, 5–60; Agulhon, L’Apprentisage, 29–34; Roger Price, The Revolutions of 1848 (Basingstoke, 1988); Jacques Godechot, Les Révolutions de 1848 (Paris, 1971), 211–15; Peter Stearns, The Revolutions of 1848 (London, 1974), 71–79; Jean Sigmann, 1848, trans. Lovett F. Edwards (1970; London, 1973), 213–21; Jonathan Sperber, The European Revolutions, 1848–1851 (Cambridge, 1994), 114–15; and other works cited below. Albert’s real name was Alexandre Martin, but he used the name Albert L’Ouvrier (Albert the Worker) in his political and public life. The Times of 28 February omitted the names of Blanc and Albert from a listing of the members of the Provisional Government, which included short biographies of each. L, iv, 27. On British reactions to 1848 see Leslie Mitchell, ‘Britain’s Reaction to the Revolutions,’ in The Revolutions in Europe, 1848–1849, Robert Evans and Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, eds. (Oxford, 2000), 83–99; two essays in Eugene Kamekna, ed., Intellectuals and Revolution: Socialism and the Experience of 1848 (London, 1979): F. B. Smith ‘The View from Britain I: “Tumults Abroad, Stability at Home,”’ 94–120 and J. H. Grainger, ‘The View from Britain II: The Moralizing Island,’ 121–34; and Miles Taylor, ‘The 1848

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14.

15. 16.

17. 18.

19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

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Revolutions and the British Empire,’ Past and Present 166 (February 2000), 146–80, reprinted in Peter H. Wilson, ed., 1848: The Year of Revolutions (Aldershot, 2006). L, iv, 31. The Times of 7 March 1848, for example, reads: ‘ . . . the people who made Louis-Philippe King had a perfect right to unmake him . . . ’ and argues that the best course of action would be to ‘establish the present government, strengthen it against unreasonable demands . . . against the rising Hydra of political clubs, against Legitimists and Philippists. . . . ’ See for example JMN, x, 227–30; Nicoloff, Emerson on Race and History, 201–5. The Times, 1 March 1848. The editorial is by the jurist John Austin. See F. B. Smith, ‘View from Britain I,’ 97. John Forster’s Examiner attacked the French government in strikingly similar terms. See James A. Davies, ‘The Effects of Context: Carlyle and the ‘Examiner’ in 1848,’ Yearbook of English Studies 16 (1986), 54. The Times, 23 March 1848. Emerson sent the article with his letter of 24 March. See L, iv, 44. JMN, x, 297. This entry in Journal LM was probably made in early March. The entry is found on journal page 19. The next dated entry, on journal page 28 is 14 March. It is difficult to date entries with a high degree of precision as later entries are sometimes inserted in earlier pages in this journal. JMN, x, 312–13; Reynolds, European Revolutions, 27. Emerson’s journal entries are notoriously difficult to date accurately. In some cases he added material to older sections of his journal months or even years later. I refer to March entries as those entered in Journal London between observations of Wordsworth on JMN, x, 227 and the entry dated 1 April by Emerson on p. 246. The majority of entries made between p. 246 and the entry dated 3 May by Emerson on p. 260 are considered April entries. In Journal LM, entries beginning on p. 296: ‘The French Revolution just now has surprised every body,’ extending to entries clearly made in France on pp. 318–19 are considered to be either March or April. Several entries in this page range are dated by Emerson. I have made every effort to avoid using journal references which may have been added at a later date, but in many cases contextual clues are the only guide. JMN, x, 310. JMN, x, 357. JMN, x, 316. JMN, x, 237–8, 257, 251. JMN, x, 302–3. JMN, x, 314. Emerson used this sentence in a metaphorical sense in ‘The Man of Letters,’ (CE, x, 249). In ‘The Fortune of the Republic’ (1863) the

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26. 27. 28. 29.

30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37.

38.

39.

40. 41. 42. 43.

259

phrase is more literally applied to political revolution. He credits Metternich with the statement: ‘Prince Metternich said, Revolutions begin in the best heads and run steadily down to the populace. It is a very old observation; not truer because Metternich said it and not less true.’ AW, 139. JMN, x, 314, 318. Elizabeth Davis Bancroft, Letters from England, 1846–1849 (London, 1904), 167–74. L, iv, 46–51; Nye, Bancroft, 172. L, iv, 43. According to Emerson, the guests were ‘Lord & Lady Ashburton, Lord Aukland, Carlyle, Milnes, Thackeray, Lord & Lady Castlereagh, the Bishop of Oxford (Wilberforce) & one or two ladies beside.’ L, iv, 89–90. This visit occurred on 19 June. JMN, x, 530; T. Wemyss Reid, The Life, Letters, and Friendships of Richard Monckton Milnes, First Lord Houghton (London, 1890), i, 404. L, iv, 34. Nye, Bancroft, 171. JMN, x, 231: ‘Of course, this French Revolution is the best thing he has ever seen & the teaching of this great swindler Louis Philippe that there is God’s justice in the Universe after all, is a great satisfaction.’ Also see Carlyle’s article, ‘Louis Philippe’ which appeared in The Examiner, 4 March, 1848, reprinted in Percy Newberry, ed. Rescued Essays of Thomas Carlyle, (London, 1892), 1–14; James A. Davies, ‘The Effects of Context: Carlyle and the Examiner in 1848,’ Yearbook of English Studies (1986), 51–62. JMN, x, 530–33. JMN, x, 530. Greenberger, Clough, 75–88. Clough’s radical writings include his letters on political economy, published in The Balance, in 1846 and the ‘Retrenchment’ pamphlet of 1847. Anthony Kenny, God and Two Poets: Arthur Hugh Clough and Gerard Manley Hopkins (London, 1988), 127–31. The ‘Retrenchment Pamphlet’ refers to A Consideration of Objections against the Retrenchment Association (Oxford, 1847). See introduction in Emerson-Clough Letters, Howard F. Lowry and Ralph L. Rusk, eds. (Cleveland, 1934). John G. Corina, ‘Morgan, John Minter,’ DNB; Christopher Kent, ‘The Whittington Club: A Bohemian Experiment in Middle Class Social Reform,’ Victorian Studies 18:1 (September 1974), 31–55. Alexander Ireland, In Memoriam, 67. JMN, x, 313. JMN, x, 306–7. JMN, x, 308.

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44. JMN, x, 244, 258. 45. JMN, x, 312. 46. L, iv, 58, 62 and L, viii, 164. Emerson began a lecture in Manchester by expressing obligations to Wilkinson for his work on Swedenborg, see Manchester Courier 10 November 1847 and cited Wilkinson’s work with admiration in English Traits, CE, v, 250: ‘Wilkinson, the editor of Swedenborg, the annotator of Fourier and the champion of Hahnemann, has brought to metaphysics and to physiology a native vigor. . . . ’ 47. L, iv, 56, 60–61, 63. 48. L, viii, 164–65. 49. JMN, x, 318. 50. JMN, x, 311–12: ‘ . . . this preparation for a superior race is a higher omen of revolution than any other I have seen. . . . ’ 51. JMN, x, 325. 52. See, for example, the Oxford University, City, and County Herald, 1 April 1848. 53. Priscilla Robertson, in Revolutions of 1848: A Social History (Princeton, 1952), discusses the role of students in France, Prussia, Bavaria, and Hungary in the Revolutions. On the revolutionary role of students in Vienna, see pp. 206–36. Also see John G. Gallaher, The Students of Paris and the Revolutions of 1848 (Carbondale and London, 1980). 54. M. C. Curthoys, ‘The Careers of Oxford Men,’ in The History of the University of Oxford, M. G. Brock and M. C. Curthoys, eds. 8 vols. (Oxford, 1997), vi, 477–509. Table 14.A5, ‘Proportion of Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduates Ordained, 1834–1911,’ 505. 55. See P. B. Nockles, ‘The Oxford Movement and the University,’ in History of the University of Oxford, M. G. Brock and M. C. Curthoys, eds. vi, 195–267. 56. The Correspondence of Arthur Hugh Clough, ed. F. L. Mulhauser, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1957), i, 215–16. 57. CE, v, 199. 58. Evelyn Barish Greenberger, Arthur Hugh Clough: The Growth of a Poet’s Mind (Cambridge, MA, 1970), 116. He remained a fellow until autumn 1848. 59. Correspondence of A. H. Clough, i and 186. 60. Matthew Arnold, ‘Emerson’ in The Complete Prose Works of Matthew Arnold, ed. R.H. Super, 11 vols., (Ann Arbor, 1974), x, 165–87. Originally published in Discourses in America (1885). 61. He mentions Arthur Stanley (1815–1881) who, ‘around 1840, declared warm admiration for Emerson’ to some unenthused Americans in Malta. Munroe’s Boston editions had found their way to Britain before the first London publication in 1841.

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261

62. L, iv, 41–42, 51. 63. JMN, x, 525–8. See Laura Dassow Walls, Emerson’s Life in Science: The Culture of Truth (Ithaca, 2003), 174–75. Owen was later portrayed as reactionary and narrow-minded, especially in the aftermath of the 1860 WilberforceHuxley debate, though his positive contribution to nineteenth-century science is in the process of re-examination. See Roy MacLeod, ‘Evolutionism and Richard Owen, 1830–1868: An Episode in Darwin’s Century,’ Isis 56:3 (Autumn 1965), 259–80; Kevin Padian, ‘The Rehabilitation of Sir Richard Owen,’ BioScience 47:7 (July 1997), 446–53. 64. David N. Livingstone, ‘The Preadamite Theory and the Marriage of Science and Religion,’ Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 82:3 (1992), 1–78. 65. JMN, x, 255. 66. Judging by his journal entries, Emerson seems to have been unclear on what the points of the charter were until 1848. See JMN, x, 567. He noted the date of their inception (28 February 1837) in his 1855 journal. See JMN, xiii, 487. 67. Royle, Revolutionary Britannia, 123–35. The bibliography on Chartism is enormous. The most recent general works include Malcolm Chase, Chartism: A New History (Manchester, 2007); titles in Merlin Press’s Chartist Studies Series (eight to date); Miles Taylor, Ernest Jones, Chartism, and the Romance of Politics (Oxford, 2003); Gregory Claeys, ed., The Chartist Movement in Britain, 1838–1850 (London, 2001); Eric J. Evans, Chartism (Harlow, 2000). The most recently updated published bibliography of Chartism is Owen Ashton, et al., eds., The Chartist Movement: A New Annotated Bibliography (London, 1995). 68. John Saville, 1848: The British State and the Chartist Movement (Cambridge, 1987), 92–93. 69. Ibid., 88–89. 70. The Times, 7 March 1848, p. 4 and 10 March 1848, 6. 71. L, iv, 35. 72. Saville, 1848, 86. Harney began his friendship with Engels in Leeds in 1843 and ran many of his articles in the Northern Star, which he edited from 1845–50. 73. JMN, x, 235. 74. L, iv, 44. 75. The Times, 10 March 1848, p. 5. 76. The Times, 13 and 14 March 1848. 77. See for example ‘Chartist Meetings in Lancashire and Cheshire’ in The Times, 21 March 1848; ‘Socialist Meeting,’ and ‘Chartist Meeting at Nottingham,’ The Times, 25 March 1848.

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78. Saville, 1848, 92, 97; Royle, Revolutionary Britannia, 124–25. Emerson wrote in a letter home that ‘the Revolution, fixed for the tenth instant, occupied all men’s thoughts until the Chartist petition was actually carried to the Commons,’ L, iv, 54. 79. Dorothy Thompson, The Chartists, 319–24. Thompson notes that various sources cite the number of special constables sworn in as anywhere between 60 and 250,000, p. 389 n. 30. Emerson used the figure 200,000 in English Traits. Also see Saville, 1848, 105 and Royle, Revolutionary Britannia, 125. 80. R. G. Gammage, History of the Chartist Movement, 1837–1854 (1894; reprint, London, 1969), 316–18. 81. For an account of Chartist activities between May and August 1848, see Saville, 1848, 136–62; Royle, Revolutionary Britannia, 127–35. 82. JMN, x, 326. Reynolds, European Revolutions, 36. 83. JMN, x, 310. 84. See Richardson, Mind on Fire, 451–53. 85. Between 25 April and 6 May Emerson spent time with Dickens, Carlyle, Forster, Harriet Martineau, Tennyson, Coventry Patmore, and at least a dozen others whose names appear in his letters at this time. He also accepted an invitation to the famed Society of Antiquaries. 86. L, iv, 72; Jacques Hillairet, Dictionnaire Historique des Rues de Paris, 2 vols. (Paris, 1976), i and 209–10. 87. Phlarète Chasles, ‘Des Tendances Littéraires en Angleterre et en Amérique,’ Revue des Deux Mondes, 7 August 1844, 526–31. See Adrian Jaffe, ‘An Earlier French Estimate of Emerson,’ NEQ 26:1 (1953), 100–2. Chasles wrote numerous reviews of American literature. See Eric Partridge, ‘Early French Remarks on American Literature en masse,’ Modern Language Notes 40:5 (May 1925), 315–16 and Abraham Levin, ed., The Legacy of Phiarète Chasles (Chapel Hill, 1957). On the influence of La Revue des Deux Mondes see Nelly Furman, “La Revue des deux mondes” et le romantisme, 1831–1848 (Geneva, 1966). 88. Daniel Stern, ‘Emerson,’ La Revue Indépendante (July 1846), 446–456. A full translation of this article is provided by Besse D. Howard in ‘The First French Estimate of Emerson,’ NEQ 10 (September 1937), 447–63. Emerson and his wife appear to have been aware of the article: L, iv, 80. 89. See Whitney Walton, ‘Writing the 1848 Revolution: Politics, Gender, and Feminism in the Works of French Women of Letters,’ French Historical Studies 18:4 (Autumn 1994), 1001–24. Her Histoire de la Révolution de 1848 was published by G. Sandré in 1850. 90. Howard, ‘First French Estimate,’ 447. 91. Émile Montégut, ‘Un Penseur et poète américain: Ralph Waldo Emerson,’ La Revue des Deux Mondes xix (August 1847), 462–93. See Reino Virtanen,

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‘Émile Montégut as a Critic of American Literature,’ PMLA 63:4 (December 1948), 1265–75. Montégut later became the first translator of Emerson’s Essays: Essais de philosophie américaine, par Ralph Emerson (Paris, 1851). Also see Ruth Elizabeth Brown, ‘A French Interpreter of New England’s Literature,’ NEQ 13:2 (June 1940), 305–21. 92. Maurice Chazin, ‘Quinet an Early Discoverer of Emerson,’ PMLA 48:1 (March 1933), 147. 93. This course of lectures was published in 1845 as Le Christianisme et la Révolution Française, a polemic against the power of Jesuits and the Catholic church, which simultaneously exulted American-style republican democracy. See Chazin, ‘Quinet, an Early Discoverer,’ 148–59; Reynolds, European Revolutions, 4. 94. Ibid., 160–62. These lectures were originally delivered in Polish and were first published in that language under the French title De la Littérature Slave (Paris, 1845) and then in German translation by Gustav Siegfried in Vorlesungen über slawische Literatur und Zustände, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1849). Chazin used a 1914 French translation: Les Slaves, Cours Professés au Collège de France, en 1842–43, avec Préface de M. F. Strowski et Introduction de M. Ladislas Mickiewicz (Paris, 1914). No English translation exists. 95. John G. Gallaher, The Students of Paris and the Revolutions of 1848 (Carbondale and London, 1980). On Quinet see Ceri Crossley, French Historians and Romanticism: Thierry, Guizot, the Saint-Simonians, Quinet, Michelet (London, 1993) and idem, Edgar Quinet: A Study in Romantic Thought (Lexington, KY, 1983). See also W. Lednicki, ‘Adam Mickiewicz at the Collège de France,’ Slavonic Year-Book. American Series, 1 (1941), 149–172 and Ladislas Mickiewicz, La Trilogie du Collège de France — Mickiewicz, Michelet, Quinet (Paris, 1923). 96. L, iv, 80. 97. This led to a 27 April decree demanding termination of slavery in every colony within two months. 98. On the importance of this ‘failure’ see Peter H. Amann, Revolution and Mass Democracy: The Paris Club Movement in 1848 (Princeton, NJ, 1975), 175–87 and Tony Denholm, ‘Louis Auguste Blanqui: the Hamlet of Revolutionary Socialism?’ in Intellectuals and Revolution: Socialism and the Experience of 1848, eds. Eugene Kamenka and F. B. Smith (London, 1979), 14–31. 99. L, iv, 72n. They appear to have shared the hotel with Emerson on the rue des Petits Augustins. 100. Clough’s movements in Paris can be loosely traced through his journal entries. See The Oxford Diaries of Arthur Hugh Clough, Anthony Kenny, ed. (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1990), 246–49.

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101. Anthony Kenny, Arthur Hugh Clough: A Poet’s Life (London and New York, 2005), 127. The mob broke into the Tuileries Palace, where the royal throne was kept, on 24 February and paraded it through the streets before burning it at the Place de la Bastille. See Reynolds, European Revolutions, 9–10 and Clough’s letter of 11 May in Letters and Remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, Sometime Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford (London, 1865), 102–4. 102. Amann’s Revolution and Mass Democracy remains the authoritative work on the Paris clubs. On the early phase of club formation, see pp. 33–43. Karl Marx came to Paris from Brussels in March 1848 and founded the German Workers’ Club before moving to Cologne on 10 April. See Eugene Kamenka, ‘“The Party of the Proletariat”: Marx and Engels in the Revolution of 1848,’ in Intellectuals and Revolution, Kamenka and Smith, eds., 84–86. Emerson remarked that over 117 newspapers had been established since the Revolution. JMN, x, 265, 323. 103. L, iv, 73; Larry Reynolds, European Revolutions, 33–35; T. Wemyss Reid, The Life of the Right Honourable William Edward Forster, 2 vols. (London, 1888), i, 236–37. 104. JMN, x, 268, 425. Clough attended the Club des Femmes on 30 May. See Letters and Remains, 131. 105. The actual political agendas of the clubs were not always clearly defined. The Société des droits de l’homme’s allegiance was to Robespierre’s 1793 Declaration of the Rights of Man, but released no political manifesto of its own. Barbès and Blanqui, though both extreme leftists, were antagonistic to one another in 1848. Emerson was mistaken in referring to Blanqui as the leader of the Société des droits de l’homme, which had a collegiate leadership, though he may have spoken before the club. Blanqui led the Central Democratic Society. See Amann, Revolution and Mass Democracy, 43, 121, 259, and passim; and Denholm, ‘Blanqui,’ op. cit. See also Suzanne Wassermann, Les Clubs de Barbès et Blanqui (Paris, 1913). 106. L, iv, 72. 107. Amann, Revolution and Mass Democracy, 173–87; idem, ‘A “Journée” in the Making: May 15, 1848,’ Journal of Modern History 42:1 (March 1970), 42–69. 108. Ibid., 205–12. 109. Emerson thought Barbès and Blanqui to be the ringleaders of the coup attempt (L, 73; JMN, x, 262). It is generally agreed upon by historians that this was not the case. A theory that Huber was a government agent who orchestrated the events in order to eliminate the most powerful club leaders evolved. It is more likely that the successful break-in to the Bourbon

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110. 111. 112. 113. 114.

115. 116.

117.

118.

119.

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Palace was unexpected by all, but that Huber, Blanqui, and Barbès felt obligated to take control of a situation or face humiliation. See Peter Amann, ‘The Huber Enigma —Revolutionary or Police Spy?’ International Review of Social History 12 (1967), 190–203; Maurice Dommanget, Auguste Blanqui et la Révolution de 1848 (Paris, 1972), 155–56. On 15 May see Jill Harsin, Barricades: The War of the Streets in Revolutionary Paris: 1830–1848 (Basingstoke, 2002), 287–93. Blanqui, Ledru-Rollin, Albert, Louis Blanc, Huber, Thoré, Cabet, Leroux, and Raspail. L, iv, 72–73. Amann, Revolution and Mass Democracy, 212 and 240. L, iv, 73. JMN, 323. Clough recounted his part in and opinion of the day’s events in a letter to his sister on 16 May reporting that he had followed Lamartine and Ledru-Rollin as they ‘rode along the quays to finish the work, with dragoons and cannon. I was at [Lamartine’s] side for a quarter of a mile, and saw him of course distinctly. There was no firing, and scarce any fighting. The whole thing is put down for the present; and I am glad it is, on the whole. The cry was “Vive la Pologne;” but the object was to get rid of the Assembly, and set up a more democratic set of people. From 11 am to 9 pm or even later, there was nothing to be seen but crowds and excitement; fifty or sixty are arrested.’ Earlier he had described Blanqui as having ‘a certain hang-dog conspirator aspect, which did him no credit.’ Letters and Remains, 104–6. L, iv, 76. L, iv, 77; JMN, x, 269–70. On Rush’s decision see Thomas A. Sancton, America in the Eyes of the French Left, 1848–1871 (D.Phil. Dissertation, Oxford, 1978), 2. Emerson saw Rachel in Racine’s Phèdre on the 11th, in Mithridate at the Comédie Française on the 17th, and on another occasion and heard her sing the ‘Marseillaise’ more than once (L, iv, 75, 77, 79; JMN, x, 267–8; Clough, Oxford Diaries, 248). On the enormous popularity of her performances and the importance of the loyalty of the theatre to the new government see Louis Girard, Nouvelle Histoire de Paris: La Deuxieme République et le Second Empire, 1848–1870 (Paris, 1981). L, iv, 78, 80; JMN, x, 277: ‘M. Lehmann, in Paris, who made a crayon sketch of my head for Madame d’Agoult. . . . ’ The subsequent history of this picture is unfortunately unknown. L, iv, 78; JMN, x, 532. Neither Emerson nor de Tocqueville recorded their conversation or their impressions of one another. Speaking of the spring of 1848 Tocqueville described Milnes as ‘an English friend of mine . . . a Member of Parliament, who was then in Paris.’ Alexis de Tocqueville,

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120. 121. 122. 123.

124. 125. 126.

127.

128.

129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142.

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Recollections, translation of Souvenirs by J. P. Mayer and A. P. Kerr (London, 1970), 133. L, iv, 80. L, iv, 73–4. L, iv, 76. JMN, x, 266, 271. This side of Emerson’s reaction is also presented by Larry Reynolds in European Revolutions, 33–36 and by Charles Cestre in ‘Emerson et la France,’ Harvard et la France, Recueil d’Études (Paris, 1936), 54–58. JMN, x, 323. L, iv, 72n, 75. Doherty had previously met Alcott and Fuller. Doherty had taken part in the storming of the Tuileries in February. See William Hall Brock, ‘Phlanx on a Hill: Responses to Fourierism in the Transcendentalist Circle,’ (Ph.D. Dissertation, Loyola University, 1996), Chapter 5; Carl J. Guarneri, The Utopian Alternative: Fourierism in Nineteenth-Century America (Ithaca, 1991), 336–38. On Appleton in Paris in 1848 see Timothy Roberts, ‘Now the Enemy Is within Our Borders: The Impact of European Revolutions on American Perceptions of Violence before the Civil War,’ American Transcendental Quarterly 17:3 (2003), 200. L, 74, 77; JMN, x, 270: ‘We now dine daily at a table d’hôte at 16 Rue de Notre Dame de Victoires, where 500 French habitués dine at 1 franc 60 centimes.’ Letters and Remains, 102–4 and 107–9. L, iv, 73–74. JMN, x, 266, 321. JMN, x, 267. Written in French, my trans. JMN, x, 268. JMN, x, 323–24. JMN, x, 323. JMN, x, 262. JMN, x, 267. This letter is reproduced in Scudder, ‘Emerson in London and the London Lectures,’ 26. See The Times, 5 and 6 June 1848. Scudder, ‘London,’ 28. This list was compiled using seven different sources. The Examiner (London), 17 June 1848; Reproduced in Scudder, ‘London,’ 33. L, iv, 83–84. The Metropolitan Early Closing Association was essentially a lobby group whose goal was to impose restrictions on evening opening

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143. 144. 145. 146. 147.

148.

149.

150.

151.

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hours for shops. The organisation had offered to organise lectures for Emerson in January. Emerson seems to have hesitated and at no point endorsed the association’s aims, but nonetheless accepted the offer in June. L, iv, 27. L, iv, 102–3. LL, i, 130. Emerson mentions having started on the project in his letter of 2 April 1848. L, iv, 51. Reynolds, European Revolutions, 39–42. For discussion of the Marylebone series since the 2001 publication of the Later Lectures see Laura Dassow Walls, ‘If Body Can Sing,’ 346–50, which focuses on themes of science and religion in the lectures and Ronald Bosco, ‘“The Tendencies and Duties of Men of Thought” and “The Transcendency of Physics”: Ethics and Science in Later Emerson,’ in Emerson at 200, eds. Giorgio Mariani, et al. (Rome, 2004), 325–35. I have used a number of methods and materials to trace as accurately as possible the central themes and messages of the 1848 deliveries. In the case of the first three lectures, which appear to have changed relatively little between the original and later version, I have used the text provided in the Later Lectures, and assured that the all statements used correspond to the 1848 manuscript versions available in typed script in the accompanying electronic notes, available at: http://emerson.tamu.edu/textualNotes/keyTN. html [accessed 27.10.2011]. In all cases, I have compared the manuscripts and texts available to newspaper accounts of the lectures. The series of reviews that appeared in Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Magazine (possibly prepared by Jerrold himself, who was in the audience) of 10, 17, and 24 June is the most complete and thorough record of the content of the lectures. In some cases, especially in the second half of the series, when manuscripts and printed versions are too heavily altered to permit accurate inferences on how the 1848 version would have appeared, the newspaper reviews are used directly. In all cases I have endeavoured to clearly indicate from which source or sources I have drawn and to explain my use of these various documents. See the typed version of the 1848 manuscript, Houghton bMS Am 1280.200 (3), in the electronic notes to LL. These quotes correspond closely to passages in the 1850 version printed in LL, i, 137–51. Ibid. The 1850 version reads differently: ‘the curious rich man . . . as he found patriotism to be, when they found office a composing draught to the fiercest eloquence.’ LL, i, 150–51. O’Connor was MP for Nottingham from 1847 to 1852. The text used in June 1848 seems to correspond to the manuscript Houghton bMS Am 1280.200 (6), which is available in the electronic notes to

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152. 153.

154. 155. 156. 157. 158.

159. 160. 161. 162. 163.

164.

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LL. The manuscript bears the date 1842–43, though the editors of LL conclude that the text was almost certainly composed for the first time in 1847–48 and that the misdating of the manuscript occurred in the 1870s (LL, i, 153). The version published in LL is based primarily on Houghton bMS Am 1280.200 (7), a revision of the original lecture which contains material added after Emerson’s return to America. Emerson had made one significant reference to racial ‘hybridization’ in his 1845 journals. See JMN, ix, 299–300. For further commentary see Nicoloff, Emerson on Race and History, 128–29; Gougeon, Virtue’s Hero, 116–17. Houghton bMS Am 1280.200 (6) in the electronic notes to LL. The earliest manuscript version of this lecture is Houghton bMS 1280.200 (9), available in the electronic notes to LL. Quotes in this section are taken from this manuscript only. JMN, x, 306. LL, i, 103–4. Scudder, ‘London,’ 30. Quoted from Robinson’s diary, 13 June 1848. Scottish Guardian, 3 March 1848. The published version of the lecture, based on Houghton bMS Am 1280.200 (8) contains a great deal of material that does not seem to have figured into the 1848 deliveries of the lectures. There is no evidence that the classification of historical epochs into Greek, Christian, and Modern ages in the manuscript and published versions of the lecture (see LL, i, 109–110) was used in the early deliveries. This classification corresponds to journal entries made after Emerson’s return to America (see JMN, xi, 201, 207). Nor does the section discussing natural science (LL, i, 120–3) appear to have been a part of either the February or the June deliveries of the lecture. Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper, 17 June 1848, 790. JMN, x, 310–12. JMN, x, 300. Also see Cole, ‘Emerson, England, and Fate,’ 87. Jerrold’s Weekly, 17 June 1848, 790. The version of ‘Eloquence,’ which was published in Society and Solitude in 1870 appears to be similar to the version used in England. Another essay on ‘Eloquence,’ containing some of the same material but clearly finished after the conclusion of the Civil War was published in Letters and Social Aims in 1875. The version of ‘Natural Aristocracy’ used in 1848 does not correspond to the chapter ‘Aristocracy’ in English Traits. The connection between this lecture and the essay ‘Aristocracy’ published in Lectures and Biographical Sketches (1883) is discussed in the following chapter. Again, in order to avoid discussing material which might have been added after 1848, quotes in this section are taken from the Jerrold’s transcript. Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper, 24 June, 1848, 821–22.

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165. Ibid. 166. Quoted from Houghton bMS Am 1280.200 (8) in electronic notes to LL. The same passage appears with slightly different wording in JMN, x, 328; Reynolds, European Revolutions, 37. 167. Quote is taken from the 1859 edition of Plutarch’s Lives, translated by John Dryden and revised by Arthur Hugh Clough. Reprinted in Arthur Hugh Clough, ed. Plutarch’s Lives, Vol. 1 (New York, 2008), 83. 168. Daniel S. Malachuk, ‘The Republican Philosophy of Emerson’s Early Lectures,’ NEQ 71:3 (September 1998), 404–28. 169. Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh), 14 February 1848. 170. Scudder, ‘London,’ 30. 171. See editorial note by Edward Emerson, CE, x, 523. A variation of the quote was included in the version of ‘Aristocracy’ published in Lectures and Biographical Sketches discussed in the following chapter. I have found no corresponding sentence in press transcripts. Here I have here used the wording from the journal entry upon which it was based in JMN, x, 75–76. Reynolds noted that the manuscript shows that Emerson removed the ‘last half of the sentence and then the entire passage from the lecture’ (European Revolutions, 41) though it is uncertain when. 172. L, iv, 85–86. 173. Between 15 and 30 June Emerson recorded meetings with Chopin (whom he also heard perform on 24 June), Leigh Hunt, Lords Morpeth and Lovelace, the Duchess of Sutherland and others, see L, iv, 83–95. 174. JMN, x, 281n; L, iv, 98. 175. Scudder, Wayfaring Man, 71; Correspondence of Clough, i, 186; David S. Hall, ‘The Victorian Connection,’ American Quarterly 27:5 (December 1975), 565. Richardson records a different version of Emerson’s response, Mind on Fire, 444. 176. On Chartist activity in May and June 1848 see Saville, 1848, 136–49 and Royle, Revolutionary Britannia, 129–34. The largest incident was a fight in which several constables were mauled in Bradford on 29 May, resulting in nineteen arrests. Jones was arrested on 7 June. 177. Price, Documents, 95–96; Priscilla Robertson, The Revolutions of 1848, 94; Agulhon, 1848, 75.

CHAPTER 5 1. LL, i, 208–9. 2. LL, i, 219. 3. Edward Emerson, The Early Years of the Saturday Club, 1855–1870 (Boston, 1918), 5–6. This letter is fully reproduced in L, viii, 161–63.

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4. Kenneth Cameron, ‘Emerson, Thoreau, and the Town and Country Club,’ ESQ, no. 8 (1957), 2–17. Emerson was the first to speak, reciting the lecture ‘On Reading.’ Henry James, Sr. was the first invited guest speaker. All papers delivered are indexed in the Club Minutes, reproduced in Cameron’s article. 5. Edward Emerson, Saturday Club, 21. These names correspond to the first fourteen members of the club which I attempt to list here in the same order indicated above: James Russell Lowell, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edwin Percy Whipple, and Horatio Woodman, John Lothrop Motley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louis Agassiz, Benjamin Pierce, Cornelius Conway Felton, John Sullivan Dwight, Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., and Samuel Gray Ward. The historian William H. Prescott, rail magnate John Murray Forbes, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Sumner, Henry James, Charles Eliot Norton, and six others joined in the following five years. 6. Ibid., 22–23. 7. Joel Myerson, ‘A Calendar of Transcendental Club Meetings,’ American Literature 44:2 (May 1972), 197–99. 8. Emerson notes that ‘of the original fourteen of the Club, probably all were opposed to slavery except [Benjamin] Pierce and [Cornelius] Felton. The astronomer was bound to the South by strong friendships, and the scholar . . . was actively hostile to an agitation to free negroes which might endanger the peace and union of the United States . . . ’ Saturday Club, 162. 9. Edward Emerson, Saturday Club, 15–18. 10. Ellery Sedgwick, The Atlantic Monthly, 1855–1909: Yankee Humanism at High Tide and Ebb (Amherst, 1994), 3–5, 26, 40, quoted 106–8. For comparison of The Atlantic to Putnam’s, Harper’s, The Knickerbocker and other leading American magazines, see 38–43. 11. Sedgwick, The Atlantic Monthly, 98–107 and Leslie Butler, Critical Americans: Victorian Intellectuals and Transatlantic Liberal Reform (Chapel Hill, 2007), 91. 12. Robert Sattelmeyer suggests that Emerson’s ebullient praise of England, his newly acquired habits of a ‘London clubman,’ including a fondness for after-dinner cigars, conjoined with the disastrous publication of Thoreau’s Week on the Concord and Merrimack caused a serious rift in their relationship in the years after Emerson’s return in ‘“When He Became My Enemy”: Emerson and Thoreau, 1848–49,’ NEQ 62:2 (June 1989), 187–204. In 1854 Longfellow recorded after dining in ‘a select company’ in Boston with Emerson, Alcott and others that Emerson was ‘an excellent dinner-table man . . . [with] skill and tact in managing his conversations,’ and his surprise at seeing ‘these transcendentalists appearing as men of the world.’ Quoted in Edward Emerson, Saturday Club, 13.

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13. Holmes called Emerson the ‘nucleus around which the club formed itself,’ quoted in Cabot, Memoir, ii, 619. Louis Menand summarises the ironies of the connection between Holmes and Emerson in The Metaphysical Club (London, 2001), 16–22. On Emerson’s growing circle of ‘disciples’ in Boston see Albert J. Von Frank, The Trials of Anthony Burns: Freedom and Slavery in Emerson’s Boston (Cambridge, MA, 1998). 14. Emerson travelled to England, France, Italy, and Egypt in 1872. He met again with Carlyle, Alexander Ireland, and Edward Flower. He also met Gladstone, Ruskin, Max Müller, and others for the first time. See Cabot, Memoir, ii, 657–64; Richardson, Mind on Fire, 568–71. 15. L, viii, 217. On Clarke’s 1849 trip see James Freeman Clarke: Autobiography, Diary, and Correspondence, Edward Everett Hale, ed. (Boston and New York, 1891), 171–85. Emerson also wrote on behalf of his sister, the painter Sarah Clarke, when she travelled to England in 1853 (L, iv, 352). 16. L, iv, 434–35, 437; L, viii, 399. 17. L, viii, 430–31. 18. L, v, 20, 119–121, 221, 245, 508, 580–81; L, viii, 443–44; L, ix, 217, 574– 75, 579. 19. L, iv, 357–58, 367–68, 522; L, viii, 367; Richardson, Mind on Fire, 511. The book, Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded, was published in 1857. Bacon’s five-year ordeal in England is discussed at length in Theodore Bacon’s, Delia Bacon: A Biographical Sketch (London, 1888). On Emerson’s assistance see 47–59. In Prodigal Puritan: A Life of Delia Bacon (Cambridge, MA, 1959), Vivian Hopkins points out that Emerson also pressed George Bancroft and Edward Everett to write to their British contacts which resulted in Bacon’s meetings with Sir Henry Ellis, George Grote, and Anthony Panizzi, 170–71. 20. L, viii, 404–5. For Emerson’s meeting with Toynbee see L, iv, 94. Brace planned a second trip to Europe in 1854 ‘with the especial object of seeing the ragged schools, charitable institutions, model lodging-houses, etc., etc., in London and Liverpool.’ See Emma Brace, The Life of Charles Loring Brace, Chiefly Told in his Own Letters (London, 1894), 197–98. It is unclear whether Brace arrived in England in 1854 but he certainly reached Ireland, 211–15. 21. L, v, 322–23. For Conway’s wartime activities in England, which brought him into contact with Carlyle, Newman, Froude, Wilkinson, James Martineau, James Stansfeld, George Thompson, Henry Ward Beecher, Biggs, and a ‘well-dressed mob’ of Confederate sympathisers in Manchester see his Autobiography, Memories and Experiences, 2 vols. (Boston, 1904), i, 388–51 and ii, 1–94.

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22. L, v, 324–25. On Evarts’ activities in Europe see Brainerd Dyer, The Public Career of William M. Evarts (Berkeley, 1933), 62–77. Whether Emerson was fully aware of the nature of this mission is unknown. On Milnes’ and Forster’s support of the North in the Civil War see Reid, Life of Milnes, ii, 65–66. 23. L, ix, 185. Walker and Mill did meet, though it is not clear when. Mill mentioned the American George Walker as a great fighter for free trade and ‘good will among the nations’ in a speech before the Cobden Club in 1869. See The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, 31 vols. (Toronto and London, 1963–1996), xxix, 372. 24. L, iv, 100, 123–24; L, viii, 182, 194–95. 25. L, iv, 138–39, 145. 26. L, viii, 323–25; L, iv, 323. For Clough’s letter see Scudder and Lowery, eds., Emerson-Clough Letters, letter 10 (Clough to Emerson, 17 June 1852). On Clough’s banquet see Samuel Longfellow, ed., Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 3 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1887), ii, 244 and Clough, Poems and Prose Remains, 186. On Clough in America see Kenny, Poet’s Life, 240–64. 27. L, iv, 379. 28. Mackay wrote articles on America which were collected and published as Life and Liberty in America (1859). He described his first visit to America in 1857–58 as a ‘double mission — first, to see the country, make acquaintance with the people and their institutions . . . [and] secondly, to deliver a course of lectures on “Poetry and Song” in the principle cities.’ He met an array of prominent Americans, including President Buchanan. See Charles MacKay, Forty Years’ Recollections of Life, Literature, and Public Affairs, From 1830 to 1870, 2 vols. (London, 1870), ii, 375–411. Dixon’s book, New America, was published in 1867. 29. Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, xvi, 1306–7, 1326–7. 30. L, vi, 150; Buell, Emerson, 276–77. 31. William Stowe, Going Abroad: European Travel in Nineteenth-Century American Literature (Princeton, 1995), 86–87. Quote by Emerson from ‘Self Reliance,’ CE, ii, 81. 32. See letter to Caroline Wilson, 8 May 1854: L, iv, 441. 33. See, for example Emerson’s letters to Brace (L, viii, 404: ‘I hate to hear that your are going away, now, when every true hearted American abroad ought to come home & defend liberty here’), and to Bradford (L, iv, 453: ‘ . . . it seems nothing can excuse an American for leaving his disgraced & menaced home until better times. Every vote, every protest . . . is wanted’), both of 1854. 34. L, v, 277 and L, viii, 436–37.

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35. In 1855 Emerson made every effort to thwart Alcott’s planned trip to England (L, iv, 504; viii, 441). Also see letter to Alexander Ireland, 12 May 1850 (L, viii, 252) discouraging the emigration to America of an unnamed Englishman whom he had met on his tour. 36. L, v, 324. 37. The unpublished manuscripts are archived in Houghton Library, Harvard under the heading ‘Lectures, etc., 1849–1852’ (bMS Am 1280.201). This collection of some 1,100 handwritten pages is divided into twenty-five subfolders. Of these twenty-five, at least thirteen (bMS Am 1280.201 (1–13)) appear to contain draft material for English Traits, many of which are grouped under titles identical or close to chapter titles which were used in the finished book. With the exception of Robert D. Richardson, who commented briefly on bMS Am 1280 201 (7) in Mind on Fire, 452, no previous scholar has made reference to the manuscripts discussed in this section. As in earlier chapters, I will explain my use of these manuscript sources in footnotes. 38. LL, i, 194. 39. LL, i, 196–99, 204. 40. LL, i, 205. A similar passage was used in the lecture ‘London.’ See LL, i, 218. 41. Houghton bMS Am 1280.201 (10) ‘Talent’ [1849]. As with the majority of Emerson’s unpublished manuscripts it is difficult or impossible to provide a fully accurate date. In this case there is nothing in the manuscript which would suggest that the catalogue date is incorrect, though it may have been on his desk into the early 1850s. This history relates to a wide range of reading which Emerson undertook between 1848 and 1855 on the early history of the various natives and conquerors of England. Among the works Emerson is known to have consulted are Paul Henri Mallet, Northern Antiquities: or, a Description of the Manners, Customs, Religion and Laws of the Ancient Danes (1770), trans. Bishop Thomas Percy; Edward Davies, Mythology and Rites of British Druids; John M. Kemble, The Saxons in England: A History of the English Commonwealth till the Period of Norman Conquest (1852); and Benjamin Thorpe, Northern Mythology, Comprising the Principal Popular Traditions and Superstitions of Scandinavia, North Germany and the Netherlands (1851–52). Details on when and where Emerson found these titles can be found in Von Frank, Emerson Chronology, and in Topical Notebooks, ii, 334–37. 42. Houghton bMS Am 1280.201 (10) ‘Talent.’ Page numbers are not given for Houghton manuscript references as the majority are not numbered or have inconsistent numberings. 43. Houghton bMS Am 1280.201 (10) ‘Talent.’ As further evidence, he cites some enduring Austrian, Bohemian, and French traits. In other manuscripts,

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44. 45.

46. 47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

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Emerson gathered representative anecdotes illustrating Scottish and Irish traits. See Houghton bMS Am 1280.201 (5) ‘Scotland’ and Houghton bMS Am 1280.201 (6) ‘Ireland.’ Both of these manuscripts are catalogued by the date 1849. ‘France,’ LL, i, 309–32. See Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (Cambridge, MA and London, 1981), esp. 139–57: ‘The Dissemination of Scientific Racialism’ and idem, ‘Origins of Racial Anglo-Saxonism in Great Britain before 1850,’ Journal of the History of Ideas 37:3 (July–September. 1976), 387–410. Also see Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Cambridge, MA and London, 1998); George M. Frederickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817–1914 (New York, 1971); and William Stanton, The Leopard’s Spots: Scientific Attitudes toward Race in America, 1815–1859 (Chicago, 1960). Robert Knox, Races of Men: A Fragment (London, 1850), v. Emerson was particularly interested in Knox’s theory of the deterioration of races once detached from the original stock. See Houghton bMS 1280.201 (4) ‘England and America’ and JMN, xi, 392: ‘Knox’s law of races, [is] that nature loves not hybrids, & extinguishes them. That the colony detached from the race deteriorates to the crab,’ later used in ‘Fate’ (CE, vi, 16). Laura Dassow Walls, Emerson’s Life in Science: The Culture of Truth (Ithaca and London, 2003), 176–87. Emerson also read James Cowles Prichard, The Natural History of Man (1843) in 1855. See Topical Notebooks, ii, 323. Edward G. Lengel, The Irish Through British Eyes: Perceptions of Ireland in the Famine Era (Westport, CT, 2002), 109–21. Also see Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color, 48–52; Horsman, ‘Origins of Racial Anglo-Saxonism,’ 398– 99; and Lewis Perry Curtis, Anglo-Saxons and Celts: A Study of Anti-Irish Prejudice in Victorian England (Berkeley, 1968). Reginald Horsman, ‘Origins of Racial Anglo-Saxonism,’ 399. For a broader history of the Saxon-Norman myth see Marjorie Chibnall, The Debate on the Norman Conquest (Manchester, 1999), esp. 53–68. On race and literature in the nineteenth century see Eric J. Sundquist, To Wake the Nation: Race in the Making of American Literature (Cambridge, MA, 1993); Arthur Riss, Race, Slavery, and Liberalism in Nineteenth-Century American Literature (Cambridge, 2006); Dana D. Nelson, The Word in Black and White: Reading ‘Race’ in American Literature, 1637–1867 (New York and Oxford, 1992); and Shearer West, ed., The Victorians and Race (Aldershot, 1996). Latter-Day Pamphlets, published in London by Chapman and Hall and in Boston by Phillips, Sampson, and Company in 1850. In 1849 ‘Occasional

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NOTES

53.

54.

55.

56. 57.

58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

275

Discourse on the Nigger Question’ was published in at least two American periodicals, the overtly racist Commercial Review of the South and West (soon to be renamed De Bow’s Review), and the Boston periodical Littell’s Living Age in 1850. Agassiz, ‘The Diversity of Origin of the Human Races,’ Christian Examiner 49 (July 1850), 110–45. See Walls, Life in Science, 183 and Nicoloff, Emerson on Race and History, 123–24. Neal Dolan notes in Emerson’s Liberalism (2009) that English Traits is ‘seldom written about, and rarely taught’ largely because of its difficult political and racial messages. Dolan’s reading provides unique support for the interpretation here by arguing that Emerson’s intention in the book is to portray England as the leader in the whig history of liberty. Dolan similarly argues that racial categories are used in English Traits in a non-literal way to delineate a mythic Anglo-Saxon ‘mentalité of liberty,’ 262–67. Houghton bMS Am 1280.200(1) ‘Natural Aristocracy.’ This folder is one of two compilations of fragments and rough notes on the subject of his 1848 lecture in the Houghton archives. Neither contains a complete lecture manuscript and both contain large amounts of material which does not figure in the newspaper reports of the lectures delivered in Edinburgh and London. The catalogue dates (1848 for both) are probably only partially accurate. Reference is made in Houghton bMS Am 1280.200 (2) to the Saturday Review, a periodical which began publication in 1855. The sheer quantity of material, nearly 250 pages in total, suggests that Emerson compiled these notes over a number of years. Houghton bMS Am 1280.201 (3) ‘Race.’ Richard Bridgman, ‘From Greenough to “Nowhere”: Emerson’s English Traits,’ NEQ 59:4 (1986), 469–85. Also see Nicoloff, Emerson on Race and History, 31–33. CE, v, 39. CE, v, 167. CE, v, 304, 308. CE, v, 313. The Whig Interpretation of History (London, 1931), v, 45–46. The Englishman and his History (Cambridge, 1944), 3, 7, 31, 69, and 111. Studies of nineteenth-century Anglo-American historians influenced by Butterfield’s work are numerous. See John Burrow, A Liberal Descent: Victorian Historians and the English Past (Cambridge, 1981); Joseph Hamburger, Macaulay and the Whig Tradition (Chicago, 1976); Margarita Mathiopoulos, History and Progress: In Search of the European and American Mind (New York,

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65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86.

87. 88.

89. 90. 91. 92.

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1989); Michael Bentley, Modernizing England’s Past: English Historiography in the Age of Modernism, 1870–1970 (Cambridge, 2005); and Brian Young, The Victorian Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 2007). CE, v, 47. CE, v, 76–78, CE, v, 82, 92. CE, v, 116–18. CE, v, 44–51. CE, v, 48–49. CE, v, 52. CE, v, 74–76. Gougeon, Virtue’s Hero, 144–50. United States Statutes at Large, Act of September 18, 1850, Chapter 60. Gougeon, Virtue’s Hero, 166–69 AW, 62. LL, i, 218. CE, v, 113 AW, 65–67. LL, I, 293–94. AW, 85–86. AW, 92. Dolan, Emerson’s Liberalism, 292. For a useful chronology of these events see Jonathan Sperber, The European Revolutions, 1848–1851 (1994; 2nd ed., Cambridge, 2005), xii–xx. JMN, x, 267. JMN, xi, 74: ‘Perhaps the French Revolution of 1848 was not worth the trees it cut down on the Boulevards of Paris.’ This undated entry was most likely made in March 1849. The following page is dated 19 March. JMN, xi, 148 (August 1849). On Emerson’s reaction to these events see Gougeon, Virtue’s Hero, 151–55. On Shadrach see Gary Collison, ‘“This Flagitious Offense”: Daniel Webster and the Shadrach Rescue Cases, 1851–1852,’ NEQ 68:4 (December 1995), 609–25 and idem, Shadrach Minkins: From Fugitive Slave to Citizen (Cambridge, MA, 1997). JMN, x, 326. JMN, xi, 377; The Leader, 3 May 1851, 422. J. A. S. Grenville, Europe Reshaped, 1848–1878 (1976; 2nd ed. Oxford, 2000), 75–78. George J. Billy, Palmerston’s Foreign Policy, 1848 (New York, 1993), 99–100, 145–48.

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93. JMN, xiii, 118 (1852/3). 94. AW, 86. Nine years later in ‘Fortune of Republic,’ Emerson again rebuked American statesmen for not having taken a more uncompromising stance towards the European powers after 1848: ‘Our foreign policy has not been republican, not in the interests of freedom and humanity. . . . We belied our sympathy with Hungary, by greeting her oppressor: our sympathy with French liberty, by striking hands with her usurper. . . . ’ AW, 143. 95. JMN, xiii, 16. 96. JMN, xi, 345 (1851). 97. JMN, xi, 348. Russia intervened against Hungary on behalf of Austria. 98. JMN, xiii, 118. 99. JMN, xv, 394. 100. LL, i, 256. 101. See Kossuth: His Speeches in England, with a Brief Sketch of his Life (London, 1851); ‘Kossuth and “The Times”’ (London, 1851); and Kossuth in New England: A Full Account of the Hungarian Governor’s Visit to Massachusetts (Boston, 1852). On ‘Kossuth Fever’ see Reynolds, European Revolutions, 153– 170. More recent discussions of Kossuth’s American tour are cited further in this chapter. 102. CE, xi, 397–401. Emerson’s speech was printed in Middlesex Freeman, 14 May 1852 and in Kossuth in New England, 222–31. 103. The only direct reference to the 1848 revolutions and the Chartist agitation in English Traits is used to demonstrate the power of the London Times which he credits with having ‘discredited the French Republic of 1848, and checked every sympathy with it in England, until it had enrolled 200,000 special constables to watch the Chartists and make them ridiculous on the 10th April’ (CE, v, 264). In two other passing references to Chartism Emerson cites the revealingly English ‘delusion’ that the 10 April Chartist demonstration ‘was urged or assisted by foreigners,’ (CE, v, 123) and illustrates the traditionally safe position of the English aristocracy, which ‘had never been obliged to think of its own defence until the 10th April’ (CE, v, 184). Emerson contrasts England where ‘Life is safe, and personal rights [also]’ to France, where ‘“fraternity” “equality” and “indivisible unity” are names for assassination’ in the chapter ‘Race’ (CE, v, 82). His earlier contention that England would not ‘arrive at any desperate revolution, like their neighbors’ is repeated in ‘Manners’ (CE, v, 106). 104. Houghton bMS 1280.201 (7) ‘Chartism’ [1849] 12f. (17p.) This manuscript is archived with others under the heading ‘Lectures, etc., 1849–1852.’ ‘Chartism’ is primarily a list of facts and anecdotes that Emerson recorded after his return to America. It is possible that Emerson added to the list

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105. 106. 107.

108. 109. 110.

111.

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over a number of years. On one page Emerson cites an article from the July 1849 edition of the Edinburgh Review. Some pages further on he records an anecdote which suggests that at least some of the entries were written long enough after the outbreak of the Crimean War that he was able to look back on its opening stages: ‘In 1854 though numbers of volunteers offered themselves to the recruiting officer at Manchester it was found few of them were up to the medical standard although the standard had been reduced. The majority were too stunted or sickly.’ More statistics of the nature of those cited in the text above are recorded in a section headed ‘Aristocracy and Chartism’ in the manuscript ‘Natural Aristocracy,’ Houghton bMS 1280.200 (2). Houghton bMS 1280.201 (7) ‘Chartism.’ RE, ix, 197. Three essays by Len Gougeon discuss Emerson’s feelings regarding the mixed British reaction to the Civil War. See ‘Emerson, Carlyle, and the Civil War,’ NEQ 62:3 (1989), 402–23; ‘Emerson’s Circle and the Crisis of the Civil War,’ in Emersonian Circles: Essays in Honor of Joel Myerson, eds. Wesley T. Mott and Robert E. Burkholder (Rochester, 1997), 29–51; and ‘“Fortune of the Republic”: Emerson, Lincoln, and Transcendental Warfare,’ ESQ 45:3–4 (1999), 259–324. LL, ii, 284–85, 315. JMN, xv, 404–5. Versions of both of these entries were incorporated into ‘Fortune of the Republic’ (1863). See AW, 144, 146. AW, 140. In journal entries from this time he expressed his disappointment with other English writers and statesmen whose response to the war he found unacceptable: ‘Could we have believed that England should have disappointed us thus? That no man in all that civil, reading, brave, cosmopolitan country, should have looked at our revolution as a student of history, as philanthropist, eager to see what new possibilities for humanity were to begin . . . Edinburgh Quarterly, Saturday Review, Gladstone, Russell, Palmerston, Brougham, nay Tennyson; Carlyle, I blush to say it; even Arnold . . . No; but, on the other hand, every poet, every scholar, every great man, as well as the rich, thought only of his own pocket book, & to our astonishment cried Slavery forever! Down with the North!’ JMN, xv, 433–4. AW, 141. Carlyle’s short allegory, ‘Ilias (Americana) in Nuce’ (The American Iliad in a Nutshell), appeared in August 1863 and was reprinted in America, prompting responses from several American writers. Emerson had been urged by Cyrus Bartol, a younger colleague, to make a public response. In 1864 after a two-year silence Emerson urged Carlyle to reconsider his position, evidently without success. See Gougeon, ‘Emerson, Carlyle, and the Civil War,’ 412–14, 421–23.

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112. AW, 151–53. 113. AW, 141. Emerson drew from an earlier journal entry, possibly from 1862: ‘government & people, throughout Germany, took no primary step, but waited for Paris, & made that their mode’ (JMN, xv, 179). 114. AW, 141–42. 115. The most complete survey of the American response to 1848 is Timothy M. Roberts’s Distant Revolutions: 1848 and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism (Charlottesville, 2009). André Fleche’s Revolution of 1861: The Legacy of the European Revolutions of 1848 and the American Civil War (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Virginia, 2006) argues that questions raised in 1848 influenced both Northern and Southern thought about the sectional conflict. Also see Timothy M. Roberts and Daniel W. Howe, ‘The United States and the Revolutions of 1848,’ in The Revolutions in Europe, 1848–1849, Robert Evans and Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, eds. (Oxford, 2000), 157–80; Timothy M. Roberts, ‘Now the Enemy Is within Our Borders: The Impact of European Revolutions on American Perceptions of Violence before the Civil War,’ American Transcendental Quarterly 17:3 (2003), 197–216; and Michael A. Morrison, ‘American Reaction to European Revolutions, 1848–1852: Sectionalism, Memory, and the Revolutionary Heritage,’ Civil War History 49:2 (2003), 111–32. Larry Reynolds’s, European Revolutions and the American Literary Renaissance, shows that in addition to Emerson and Fuller, Melville, Whitman, Hawthorne and others responded to the 1848 revolutions in their work. On the wave of German ‘48ers’ who arrived in America after the revolutions see Bruce Levine’s The Spirit of 1848: German Immigrants, Labor Conflict, and the Coming of the Civil War (Chicago, 1992). 116. Roberts and Howe, ‘The United States and the Revolutions of 1848,’ 165– 67; Roberts, ‘The United States and the European Revolutions of 1848,’ 77–82; idem, ‘Now the Enemy is Within,’ 199–200; Morrison, ‘American Reactions to European Revolutions,’ 116–18. 117. Roberts, Distant Revolutions, 81–104. 118. Morrison, ‘American Reaction to European Revolutions,’ 121; Roberts, ‘Now the Enemy is Within,’ 197–99, 203–7. 119. All of the works listed above discuss Kossuth’s tour. Timothy Roberts points out that in thirty-eight student essays written to welcome Kossuth to Philadelphia, nineteen compared the Hungarian revolutionary to George Washington (Distant Revolutions, 155). Morrison’s ‘American Reaction to European Revolutions’ emphasises that the initial fanfare accompanying Kossuth’s tour in both North and South rapidly gave way to indifference, see pp. 111–12, 123–32. The Young America movement, which supported intervention in Hungary was energized by Kossuth’s visit, but had limited influence.

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120. A general consensus exists on this point. See Roberts, Distant Revolutions, 16–19 and passim. In ‘Now the Enemy is Within’ Roberts shows how the latter strain became increasingly widely held by Northerners especially after the eruption of violence in Kansas (pp. 207–12). Michael Morrison, in ‘American Reaction to European Revolutions,’ similarly argues that responses to the European revolutions ‘laid bare’ a growing inability among Americans to agree about the essence and legacy of their own revolution (131–32). 121. André Fleche, Revolution of 1861 (2006), quoted 9–10. Fleche uses the poignant example of St Louis where many liberal and left-leaning German fourty-eighters supported the antislavery Republicans out of a feeling that ownership of one human by another was a principle that they had fought against at home, while many Irish immigrants flocked to the support of the Confederacy with its aim of fighting for home government. However, thousands of Irish immigrants also fought for the North in the Civil War. Martin W. Öfele estimates that more than 5,000 participants in European revolutionary movements emigrated to America from a variety of classes, occupations, and religions faiths in True Sons of the Republic: European Immigrants in the Union Army (Westport, CT, 2008), 13. For this reason it is difficult to generalise about the connection which immigrant fortyeighters saw between events in their home countries and in America. A significant literature exists on the post-1848 wave of German immigrants in America, most of whom settled in the North. Levine’s Spirit of 1848 (1992) shows that the German-American party affiliations and opinions on slavery were divided along class and sectional lines, but that German workers largely voted Republican in the second half of the 1850s (pp. 149–55, 211–31). 122. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller d’Ossoli, eds. W. H. Channing, J. F. Clarke, and R. W. Emerson, 2 vols. (Boston, 1852), ii, 283–86, 292. On Fuller and the Roman Republic see Reynolds, European Revolutions, 54–78; idem, ‘Subjective Vision, Romantic History, and the Return of the “Real”: The Case of Margaret Fuller and the Roman Republic,’ South Central Review 21:1 (Spring 2004), 1–17; Berthold, Margaret Fuller: From Transcendentalism to Revolution (New York, 1978); and Joseph Jay Deiss, The Roman Years of Margaret Fuller: A Biography (New York, 1969). Fuller’s reports for the New York Tribune are compiled in These Sad but Glorious Days: Dispatches from Europe, 1846–1850, eds. Larry Reynolds and Susan Belasco Smith (New Haven and London, 1991). Fuller and Giovanni Angelo Ossoli had one child together and was considered to be her husband, though they had not married officially. 123. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller, ii, 313–18.

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124. Isaiah Berlin, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ (1958). In relating these to the Civil War I am following an approach used by James McPherson in Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution (New York, 1991), 61–64. As McPherson explains, the essential difference in these two terms can be understood as a function of the two different meanings produced when the prepositions from and to variously are appended to the noun ‘freedom.’ 125. AW, 115. 126. Emerson’s lack of interest in Kossuth after 1852 may also be related to the latter’s refusal to speak against American slavery. See Steven Béla Vardy, ‘Louis Kossuth and the Slavery Question in America,’ East European Quarterly 39:4 (Winter 2005), 449–64 and Timothy Roberts, Distant Revolutions, 152–54. 127. AW, 118. 128. See David Reynolds, John Brown, Abolitionist (New York, 2005), esp. 406– 15 and 464–79. 129. Stanley Elkins’s condemnation of Emerson and the radical abolitionists as ‘men without responsibility’ in Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life (1959; 3rd ed., Chicago and London, 1976), 140–222, is written from such a perspective.

APPENDIX 2 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

MFPL I: 12. MFPL I: 13. Includes a quotation from Emerson’s Essays. MFPL I: 16. Short discussion of Emerson’s New York lecture on Napoleon. Open letter from R. Barnette Barry to Peel in protest of taxation of the poor quoting Emerson’s ‘Man the Reformer’: ‘I would respectfully ask if, in this enlightened age, when hoary-headed monopoly bows down before the triumphant march of free trade, when even the gigantic exclusiveness of the Bank of Ireland is compelled to fly before the more liberal policy of the day, are the poorest of the poor, to be ground down under the weight of this toll’s injustice? . . . an American writer, of our own day, R. W. Emerson, also states, “that the whole interest of history lies in the fortunes of the poor.”’ 7. MFPL III: 2. Previously uncited. Incorrectly catalogued in the Alexander Ireland collection as Walter Lewin, ‘Ralph Waldo Emerson,’ The Edinburgh Magazine (1846). 8. Reprinted in Joel Myerson, ed. Emerson and Thoreau: The Contemporary Reviews, (New York, 1992), 148–49. 9. Announcement of Emerson’s sailing for England.

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10. ‘Sketch of Ralph Waldo Emerson,’ extracted from Gilfillan’s Literary Portraits 11. Announcement of Emerson’s coming lectures in the Yorkshire Union of Mechanics’ Institutes. 12. MFPL IV: 14. Unlisted in catalogue. Glued between Manchester Guardian articles from 10 and 20 November (see below). 13. MFPL III: 3. Catalogued in the same file with a 10 November article in the same paper. Only the 1 November article is listed in the catalogue. 14. MFPL IV: 10. Catalogued correctly as a report on the first lecture in the Representative Men series but without date or name of newspaper source. A second report from 17 November is glued in the same file and is unlisted in the catalogue, see below. 15. The Daily News published transcripts of each of Emerson’s Representative Men lectures on 4, 9, 11, 16, 18, and 23 November. 16. MFPL IV: 11. Catalogued correctly as a report on the first lecture in the Representative Men series but without date or name of newspaper source. 17. Review of ‘Swedenborg.’ 18. MFPL III: 3. Found in the same file with the 1 November article in the same paper, see above. 19. MFPL IV: 14. Catalogued correctly as a report of the reply by J. H. Smithson to Emerson’s lecture ‘Swedenborg,’ but without date or source. Glued to the same file are an unlisted 29 October article from the Manchester Examiner (see above) and a listed report on Emerson’s Manchester soirée speech (listed as IV 14 (ii) but without date or source), see below. 20. MFPL IV: 2 (ii). 21. MFPL IV: 10. This article is glued in the same file with the 3 November Guardian article listed above. 22. Review of Manchester delivery of ‘Shakespeare.’ 23. Review of Manchester Athenaeum Soiree Speech. 24. MFPL 1V: 12 (ii). Catalogued correctly as ‘Report of Emerson’s lecture on “Reading”,’ but without date or name of newspaper source. 25. Review of Manchester delivery of ‘Shakespeare.’ 26. Review of Manchester Athenaeum Soiree speech. 27. Mistakenly dated 1 January in Scudder. 28. MFPL IV: 6. 29. Discussion of Blackwood’s article on Emerson: ‘ . . . Comprehensive, candid – free from all prejudice – the critic has brought forward the noblest features of the great American’s writings. . . .’ 30. This and other Reasoner articles listed in WS II (16) are mistakenly dated 1847 rather than 1848. 31. MFPL IV: 2 (i).

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32. Mistakenly dated 15 January in TS II but correct in TS IV. 33. Reprinted in Joel Myerson, ed. Emerson and Thoreau: The Contemporary Reviews (New York, 1992), 190–91. 34. MFPL III: 4. 35. MFPL IV: 7 (i). Catalogued correctly as a report of Emerson’s lecture at Worcester but without newspaper source. 36. MFPL IV: 7 (ii). Catalogued correctly as a report of the lecture ‘Napoleon’ delivered at the Odd Fellows Hall, Halifax, but without date. 37. Probably MFPL IV: 5 (ii). Catalogued incorrectly as report of Emerson’s lecture ‘On the Use of the Mechanics’ Institution’ [1844]. 38. Transcript of Emerson’s ‘Shakespeare.’ 39. Review of Beverly Mechanics’ Institute lecture. 40. Mistakenly paginated 177–120 in Sowder. 41. Short review of ‘Shakespeare’ in Newcastle. 42. I was unable to locate this article in the 16 February edition cited in LL. 43. Review of Emerson’s lecture ‘England’ delivered in Boston. Articles in the Preston Guardian and Liverpool Mercury of 17 March and 17 April also review this lecture. 44. ‘L’homme religieux réformateur,’ translation of ‘Man the Reformer.’ First French translation of Emerson. Published serially 19 and 20 March, 8 and 16 April. 45. ‘Criticism Run Mad’- Defence of Emerson against American critics: ‘He drops nectar – he chips out sparks – he exhales odours. . . . ’ 46. Review of new pirated version of Emerson’s works. 47. Only the US version of this publication is cited in Burkholder and Myerson.

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BIBLIOGR APHY

I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII.

Manuscript and Archival Sources Writings by Emerson British Newspaper and Contemporary Press Sources American and French Newspapers and Magazines Printed Primary Sources Electronic Sources and Databases Printed Secondary Sources Unpublished Theses

I.

MANUSCRIPT AND ARCHIVAL SOURCES

Alexander Ireland Collection on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Manchester Free Public Library, Manchester, UK. The British Library Newspaper Archive, Colindale, UK. Emerson Family Papers and Collections, Houghton Library, Harvard, Cambridge, MA. bMS Am 1280.197 (10, 18) bMS Am 1280.200 (1–3, 6, 7) bMS Am 1280.201 (3–7, 10) Emerson Holdings, Concord Free Public Library, Concord, MA.

II. WRITINGS BY EMERSON Emerson’s Complete Works [Riverside Edition]. James Elliot Cabot, ed. 12 vols. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1883–93; London, 1884–93. The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson [Centenary Edition] with a biographical introduction and notes by Edward Waldo Emerson. 12 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903–4; London, 1904. The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. 9 vols. to date. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971–. The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ralph L. Rusk and Eleanor M. Tilton, eds. 10 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1939, 1990–1995.

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285

The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson. William H. Gilman, Ralph H. Orth, et al., eds. 16 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960–1982. The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Stephen E. Whicher, Robert E. Spiller, and Wallace E. Williams, eds. 3 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959–1972. The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ronald A. Bosco and Joel Myerson, eds. 2 vols. Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 2001. Emerson-Clough Letters. Howad F. Lowry and Ralph L. Rusk, eds. Cleveland: Rowfant Club, 1934. Emerson’s Antislavery Writings. Len Gougeon and Joel Myerson, eds. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995. The Political Emerson. David M. Robinson, ed. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. The Correspondence of Emerson and Carlyle. Joseph Slater, ed. New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1964. Emerson in His Journals. Joel Porte, ed. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1982. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. Ralph Waldo Emerson, William E. Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. 2 vols. London: R. Bentley, 1852. The Dial: A Magazine for Literature, Philosophy, and Religion. George Ripley, Margaret Fuller, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, eds. 4 vols. Boston 1840–44. Reprint, New York: Russell and Russell, 1961. Collected Poems and Translations. Harold Bloom and Paul Keane, eds. New York: Library of America, 1994. The Topical Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson. 3 vols. Columbia, MO and London: University of Missouri Press, 1990–94. Uncollected Writings: Essays, Addresses, Poems, Reviews and Letters by Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1912. Port Washington, NY: Kinnikat Press, 1973.

III.

BRITISH NEWSPAPER AND CONTEMPORARY PRESS SOURCES

Athenaeum (London) Athenaeum Gazette (Manchester) Biblical Review and Congregational Magazine Birmingham Journal and Commercial Advertiser Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine Bradford Observer British and Foreign Antislavery Reporter British Banner Caledonian Mercury

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Christian Rembrancer Critic Darlington and Stockton Times Derby Mercury Derbyshire Courier Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper Dublin Review Dundee Courier Dundee, Perth, and Cupar Advertiser Eclectic Review

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English Review Era Examiner (London) Foreign Quarterly Review Fraser’s Magazine Gateshead Observer Glasgow Herald Globe Halifax Guardian Howitt’s Journal Hull Advertiser Inquirer Intellectual Repository and New Jerusalem Magazine Leeds Mercury Leeds Times Leicestershire Mercury Literary Gazette Literary Examiner (London) Liverpool Albion Liverpool Chronicle and General Advertiser Liverpool Mercury London and Westminster Review Lowe’s Edinburgh Magazine Machphail’s Edinburgh Ecclesiastical Journal and Literary Review Manchester Courier Manchester Examiner Manchester Guardian Manchester Times Monthly Review Morning Advertiser Newcastle Courant

IN

EUROPE

Northern Star Nottingham Guardian Nottingham Journal Nottingham Mercury Nottingham Review Nottinghamshire Guardian Oxford University, City and County Herald People’s Journal of Literature, Art, and Popular Progress Perthshire Advertiser and Strathmore Journal Preston Chronicle and Lancashire Observer Preston Guardian Prospective Review Reasoner Renfrewshire Advertiser Scottish Guardian Sheffield and Rotherham Independent Sheffield Iris Sheffield Mercury Sheffield Times Spectator Sun Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine The Times (London) Weekly Times Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review York Courant York Herald Yorkshire Gazette Yorkshireman

IV. AMERICAN AND FRENCH NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES The Liberator Middlesex Freeman New York Observer and Chronicle New York Times

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The New Yorker Revue des Deux Mondes Revue Indépendante Tribune des Peuples

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BIBLIOGR APHY

V.

287

PRIMARY PRINTED SOURCES

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Addis, John P. The Crawshay Dynasty: A Study in Industrial Organization and Development. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1957. Agulhon, Maurice. 1848 ou l’apprentissage de la République. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1973. Allen, Gay Wilson. Waldo Emerson: A Biography. New York: Viking, 1981. Altick, Richard. The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public, 1800–1900. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957. Amann, Peter H. ‘The Huber Enigma – Revolutionary or Police Spy?’ International Review of Social History 12 (1967): 190–203. ———. ‘A “Journée” in the Making: May 15, 1848.’ Journal of Modern History 42:1 (March 1970): 42–69. ———. Revolution and Mass Democracy: The Paris Club Movement in 1848. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975. Andeleke, Tunde. ‘Afro-Americans and Moral Suasion: The Debate in the 1830s.’ Journal of Negro History 83:2 (Spring 1998): 127–42. Anderson, Patricia J. and Jonathan Rose, eds. British Literary Publishing Houses: 1820–1880. Detroit and London: Gale, 1991. Ashton, Owen, et al., eds. The Chartist Movement: A New Annotated Bibliography. London: Mansell, 1995. Ashton, Rosemary. 142 Strand: A Radical Address in Victorian London. London: Chatto and Windus, 2006. Augst, Thomas. ‘Composing the Moral Senses: Emerson and the Politics of Character in Nineteenth-Century America.’ Political Theory 27:1 (February 1999): 85–120. Bailey, Peter. Leisure and Class in Victorian England. London: Methuen, 1978. Baker, Carlos. Emerson Among the Eccentrics: A Group Portrait. New York: Viking, 1996. Barker, Hannah. Newspapers, Politics and English Society, 1695–1855. Harlow: Longman, 2000. Baughman, John J. ‘The French Banquet Campaign of 1847–48.’ The Journal of Modern History 31:1 (March, 1959): 1–15. Bedeau, Adam, ed. Civil Disobedience: Theory and Practice. New York and London: Macmillan, 1969. Bentley, Michael. Modernizing England’s Past: English Historiography in the Age of Modernism, 1870–1970. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ———. ‘Victorian Politics and the Linguistic Turn.’ The Historical Journal 42:3 (1999): 883–902. Bercovitch, Sacvan. Rites of Assent: Transformations in the Symbolic Construction of America. New York, London: Routledge, 1993.

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Berthold, Dennis. Margaret Fuller: From Transcendentalism to Revolution. New York: Delacorte, 1978. Bestor, Arthur E. Jr. ‘The Evolution of the Socialist Vocabulary.’ Journal of the History of Ideas 9.3 (June 1948): 259–302. Billy, George J. Palmerston’s Foreign Policy, 1848. New York: Peter Lang, 1993. Bilwakesh, Nikhil. ‘John Brown and Arjuna: Translating the Baghavad Gita in a Time of War.’ ESQ 55:1 (2009): 27–58. Birch, Thomas D. ‘Toward a Better Order: The Economic Thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson.’ NEQ 68:3 (September 1995): 385–401. Black, Aileen. ‘The Gospel of Literature: the Promotion of Culture in a Scottish Dissenting Church’ in Martin Hewitt, ed. Culture Institutions. Leeds: Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies, 2005. ———. Gilfillan of Dundee, 1813–1878: Interpreting Religion and Culture in MidVictorian Scotland. Dundee: Dundee University Press, 2006. Bloom, Abigail, ed. Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. Bode, Carl. The American Lyceum: Town Meeting of the Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, 1956. Boiko, Karen. ‘Finding an Audience: The Political Platform, the Lecture Platform and the Rhetoric of Self-Help.’ Nineteenth-Century Prose 29:1 (Spring 2002), 22–49. ———. ‘Samuel Smiles: Preaching the Gospel of Self-Help’ In Martin Hewitt, ed. Platform-Pulpit-Rhetoric. Leeds: Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies, 2000. Bosco, Ronald A. ‘“The Tendencies and Duties of Men of Thought” and “The Transcendency of Physics”: Ethics and Science in Later Emerson’ in Giorgio Mariani, et al., eds. Emerson at 200. Rome: Aracne, 2004. ——— and Joel Myerson, eds. Emerson Bicentennial Essays. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2006. ———, eds. Emerson in his Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of his Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2003. Boulton, Alexander O. ‘The American Paradox: Jeffersonian Equality and Racial Science.’ American Quarterly 47:3 (September 1995): 467–92. Brake, Laurel and Julie F. Codell. Encounters in the Victorian Press: Editors, Authors, Readers. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2005. Breuilly, John. Labour and Liberalism in Nineteenth-Century Europe: Essays in Comparative History. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992. Brewer, Priscilla J. ‘Emerson, Lane, and the Shakers: A Case of Converging Ideologies.’ NEQ 55:2 (June 1982): 254–75. Bridgman, Richard. ‘From Greenough to “Nowhere”: Emerson’s English Traits.’ NEQ 59:4 (1986): 469–85. Briggs, Asa, ed. Chartist Studies. London: Macmillan, 1959. ———. The Collected Essays of Asa Briggs. 3 vols. Brighton: Harvester, 1985.

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Stoehr, Taylor. Nay-Saying in Concord: Emerson, Alcott, and Thoreau. Hamden, CT: Archon, 1979. Stowe, William. Going Abroad: European Travel in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. Sundquist, Eric J. To Wake the Nation: Race in the Making of American Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Tacke, Charlotte, ed. 1848: Memory and Oblivion in Europe. New York: Peter Lang, 2000. Taylor, Miles. ‘The 1848 Revolutions and the British Empire.’ Past and Present 166 (February 2000), 146–80. ———. Ernest Jones, Chartism, and the Romance of Politics, 1819–1869. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Teed, Paul E. ‘“A Brave Man’s Child”: Theodore Parker and the Memory of the American Revolution.’ Historical Journal of Massachusetts 29 (2001): 170–93. ———. ‘The Politics of Sectional Memory: Theodore Parker and the Massachusetts Quarterly Review.’ Journal of the Early Republic 21:2 (Summer 2001): 301–29. Thackeray, Arnold. ‘Natural Knowledge in Historical Context: the Manchester Model.’ American Historical Review 79 (1974): 672–709. Tholfsen, Trygve R. Working Class Radicalism in Mid-Victorian England. London: Croom Helm, 1976. Thomas, Joseph M. ‘“The Property of My Own Book”: Emerson’s Poems (1847) and the Literary Marketplace.’ NEQ 69:3 (September 1996): 406–25. Thomis, Malcolm I. and Peter Holt in Threats of Revolution in Britain, 1789–1848. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1977. Thompson, Dorothy. The Chartists. London: Temple Smith, 1984. Thompson, F. M. L. ‘Whigs and Liberals in the West Riding, 1830–1860’. The English Historical Review 74:291 (April 1959): 234–38. Thompson, Guy, ed. The European Revolutions of 1848 and the Americas. London: Institute of Latin American Studies, 2002. Tillyard, F. ‘English Town Development in the Nineteenth Century.’ The Economic Journal 23:92 (December 1913): 547–60. Tredrey, F. D. The House of Blackwood, 1804–1954. Edinburgh and London: Blackwood, 1954. Tudesq, André Jean. L’Election Présidentielle de Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, 10 Décembre 1848. Paris: A. Colin, 1965. Turley, David. ‘British Unitarian Abolitionists, Frederick Douglass, and Racial Equality,’ in Allan J. Rice and Martin Crawford, eds. Liberating Sojourn: Frederick Douglass and Transatlantic Reform. 1999. Tylecote, Mabel. The Mechanics’ Institutes of Lancashire and Yorkshire Before 1851. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1957. Vardy, Steven Béla. ‘Louis Kossuth and the Slavery Question in America.’ East European Quarterly 39:4 (Winter 2005): 449–64.

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Vaughan, Alden T. Roots of American Racism: Essays on the Colonial Experience. New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995. Vincent, David. Literacy and Popular Culture: England, 1750–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Virtanen, Reino. ‘Émile Montégut as a Critic of American Literature.’ PMLA 63:4 (December 1948), 1265–75. Wach, Howard. ‘Culture and the Middle Classes: Popular Knowledge in Industrial Manchester.’ Journal of British Studies 27:4 (1988): 375–404. Walls, Laura Dassow. Emerson’s Life in Science: The Culture of Truth. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003. ———. ‘“If Body Can Sing”: Emerson and Victorian Science,’ in Ronald Bosco and Joel Myerson, eds. Emerson Bicentennial Essays. 2006. Wassermann, Suzanne. Les Clubs de Barbès et Blanqui. Paris: Cornély, 1913. Watts, Ruth. Gender, Power, and the Unitarians in England, 1760–1860. London and New York: Longman, 1998. Weedon, Alexis. Victorian Publishing: The Economics of Book Production for a Mass Market, 1836–1916. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003. Weintraub, Andrew. ‘The Economics of Lincoln’s Proposal for Compensated Emancipation.’ American Journal of Economics and Sociology 32:2 (April 1973): 171–177. Weisbuch, Robert. Atlantic Double-Cross: American Literature and British Influence in the Age of Emerson. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1986. ———. ‘Postcolonial Emerson and the Erasure of Europe,’ in Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, eds. Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1999. Wellisz, Leopold. The Friendship of Margaret Fuller d’Ossoli and Adam Mickiewicz. New York, 1947. West, Shearer, ed. The Victorians and Race. Aldershot: Scolar, 1996. Whicher, George F. and Gail Kennedy, eds. The Transcendentalist Revolt. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1968. Whicher, Stephen E. Freedom and Fate: An Inner Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1953. Wider, Sarah Ann. The Critical Reception of Emerson: Unsettling All Things. Rochester: Camden House, 2000. Williamson, Jeffrey G. ‘Earnings Inequality in Nineteenth-Century Britain’. The Journal of Economic History 40:3 (September 1980): 457–75. Wilson, Leslie Perrin. ‘“No Worthless Books” Elizabeth Peabody’s Foreign Library, 1840–1852.’ The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 99:1 (March 2005): 113–52. ———. ‘“The Tenant is More than the House”: Selected Emerson Portraits in the Concord Free Public Library.’ Nineteenth-Century Prose 33:1 (Spring 2006): 73–116. Wilson, Peter H., ed. 1848: The Year of Revolutions. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.

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Woodward, Llewellyn. The Age of Reform, 1815–1870. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962. Woolf, Virginia. Collected Essays. 4 vols. London: Hogarth Press, 1966–1967. Young, Brian. The Victorian Eighteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Ziser, Michael. ‘World Revolutions,’ in Joel Myerson and Sandra Petrulionis, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Transcendentalism. 2010. Zwarg, Christina. Feminist Conversations: Emerson, Fuller, and the Play of Reading. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997.

VIII. UNPUBLISHED THESES Brock, William Hall. Phalanx on a Hill: Responses to Fourierism in the Transcendentalist Circle. Ph.D. Dissertation, Loyola University, 1996. Fleche, André. Revolution of 1861: The Legacy of the European Revolutions of 1848 and the American Civil War. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Virginia, 2006. Frederick, Michael J. Transcendental Ethos: A Study of Thoreau’s Social Philosophy and Its Consistency in Relation to Antebellum Reform. M.A. Thesis, Harvard, 1998. Roberts, Caroline. Harriet Martineau and Victorian Ideologies. D.Phil. Dissertation, University of Oxford, 1996. Sancton, Thomas A. America in the Eyes of the French Left, 1848–1871. D.Phil. Dissertation, University of Oxford, 1978.

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INDEX

abolition, see antislavery movement Adams, Abel, 11 Adult education movement (UK), 49–50, 61, 65, 102, 107 Agassiz, Louis, 125, 171, 172 Akroyd, Edward, 93, 96 Albert L’Ouvrier, 112, 156 Alcott, Amos Bronson (aka Bronson Alcott), 18, 24, 35, 36, 45, 89, 103 Allingham, William, 163 Amann, Peter, 134 Ambleside, 93, 111 American Revolution, 3, 29, 30, 31, 38, 41, 172, 191, 193 Anti-Corn-Law League, 92, 97, 99 antislavery movement, 3, 41, 164 see also Emerson, antislavery movement and Appleton, Thomas Gold, 137 Arnold, Matthew, 2, 124, 163 Ashburton, Lord and Lady, 117 Ashurst, William, 166 Athenaeum Club, 118 Atlantic Monthly, 155, 160, 162, 163, 188 Austin, Charles, 160

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Bacon, Delia Slater, 164 Bailey, Philip James, 84 Ballantyne, Thomas, 101, 163 Bancroft, Elizabeth, 19, 22 Bancroft, George, 16, 19, 20–22, 23, 116, 118, 135, 176, 196 Bangs, William, 164 Barbès, Armand, 133–4, 135 Barmby, Goodwyn, 36 Bercovitch, Sacvan, 6, 81, 201 Biblical Review, 27 Biggs, Joseph, 91, 96, 163, 165, 167 Biggs, Matilda, 166 Birch, R. W., 89–90 Birmingham, 81, 84 Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 70–71, 75, 79, 103, 104 Blanc, Louis, 132, 134, 137, 156 Blanqui, Auguste, 133–4, 135, 138, 141 Blumenbach, J. F., 171 Brace, Charles Loring, 164 Bradford, George P., 164 Bray, Charles, 155, 163, 164 Bridgman, Richard, 173 Briggs, Asa, 63 Bright, Jacob, 91 Bright, John, 92, 96, 99, 126 Brook Farm, 5, 9, 45, 164, 199

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INDEX Brown, John, 194 Brown, Samuel, 102–3, 104, 105 Butterfield, Herbert, 175–6 Byron, Lord, 90 Caledonian Mercury, 154 Cameron, John, 83, 101 Cambridge, University of, 93 Canada, 46 Carbutt, Francis, 92 Carlyle, Jane, 17 Carlyle, Thomas, 2, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16–18, 20, 22–23, 24, 25, 27, 31, 58–59, 60, 68, 76, 82, 83, 84–85, 94, 97, 98, 104, 108, 116, 118, 124, 139, 155, 164, 172, 189, 196 Chambers, Robert, 42, 105, 124, 171 Channing, William Ellery, 31, 34, 68, 73 Chapman, John, 17, 24, 25, 102, 120, 163, 164 Chartism, 36, 47, 76, 77, 78, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 106, 109, 125–30, 155 see also Emerson, British lecture tour of Chasles, Philarète, 131 Cherokee Removal Act, 21 Christian Examiner, 172 Civil War (American), 2, 23, 47, 125, 163, 165, 166, 181, 183, 188, 193, 194–5, 199 Civis, see Dunlop, Alexander Clarke, H. G., 24, 25 Clarke, James Freeman, 163 Clough, Arthur Hugh, 84, 118, 121, 123–4, 133, 135, 137, 163, 164 Cobden, Richard, 99, 126 Cole, Phyllis, 6, 80, 81, 98, 200 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 14, 15, 20, 104 Combe, George, 105 communism, 6, 39, 114, 155

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313

Comte, Auguste, 26 Concord, Mass., 29, 30, 102, 111, 161 Condition of the Working Class in England (Engels), 98–9 Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (De Quincey), 104 Conway, Moncure Daniel, 7, 165 Cooper, Thomas, 130 Cornwall, Barry, 160 Courier (Manchester), 64 Crawshay, George, 84, 93, 96 Crimean War, 163 Critic, 66 Cromwell, Oliver, 17, 23, 85 Crossley, John, 92–3, 96 Crowe, Catherine Ann, 103, 104, 105 Cushman, Charlotte Saunders, 91 Darwin, Charles, 124 Daubeny, Charles, 124 Dawson, George, 50, 101 De La Beche, Henry, 125 Democratic Party (U.S.), 20, 21, 22 Democratic Subjects (Joyce), 78 De Quincey, Thomas, 104–5 Derby, 65–6, 84, 89–90 Dial, 31, 33, 35–7, 45, 120, 161 Dickens, Charles, 2, 12, 86, 139 Disraeli, Benjamin, 117 Doherty, Hugh, 36, 137 Dolan, Neil, 100, 180 Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine, 27, 73 Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Paper, 148, 149, 151 Douglass, Frederick, 73, 190, 192 Dundee, 72 Dunlop, Alexander, a.k.a ‘Civis,’ 74, 79, 100 Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, 51, 71 Edinburgh Review, 14, 105 Eichthal, Gustave d’, 14

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314

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Eliot, George, 155 Emancipation Act (1833), 38 Emerson, Edward, 160 Emerson, Lydia (née Jackson), 15, 19, 102 Emerson, Ralph Waldo on Anglo-Saxon or ‘English race,’ 7, 76, 86, 87, 107, 157, 158, 167–81, 182, 183, 189, 192, 198–9 as opposed to ‘Celtic’ race, 169–70, 173, 179 as opposed to French race, 171, 177, 183 antislavery movement and, 3, 7, 37–41, 43, 44, 46, 144, 152, 155, 157, 158, 179–81, 182, 183–90, 192–3 and Boston “Brahmins,” 155, 159, 160–3, 197 democratic views, 60 as facilitator of Anglo-American exchanges, 157, 163–6 first trip to Europe (1833), 1, 13–15 on history/progress, 41–4, 144–5, 147, 152, 153 on ‘moral suasion,’ 31, 33, 34–5 political views of, 3 on poverty, 60, 62 on race, 8, 40, 47, 125, 143–4, 152, 157, 158, 168–81 on reform, 32–9, 40, 60 on revolution, 28–32, 40–1, 115–16, 117, 121, 149, 153, 188–90 on the role of the state, 39–40 on self-improvement, 61–2 on violence/war, 30–1, 32, 38, 116, 121, 153, 189, 193–5 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, British lecture tour of (1847–48), 1–2 anti-Emerson activity, 65–6 and aristocracy, 89, 90, 100, 102, 151–2, 179–80

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British press reaction to, 9, 27, 49, 50, 51, 59, 62–76, 79, 147–8, 154 on Chartism, 110, 125–30, 184, 187, 188, 197 class composition of audiences, 3, 49–50, 76–7, 79, 139–40, 154 contact with working-classes, 94–6 controversy in Glasgow, 71–2 departure, 11, 155 and English ‘middle class’, 89–93, 96–7, 99–101, 107–8, 167 exposure to scientific debates, 124–5 on the French Revolution of 1848, 110, 113, 114–15, 117, 120, 121, 135, 136–9, 141–2, 146, 153, 168, 181–90 interpretations of, 77–8 on leadership/civic duty, 107, 129–30, 147, 151–2, 153–5 legacy of the trip, 157–95 literary renown before arrival, 23–7 London Lectures, 110, 130, 139–54, 197 Mind and Manners of the Nineteenth Century, 139, 140–54 ‘Politics and Socialism,’ 147–50, 153, 156 ‘The Powers and Laws of Thought,’ 142–3 ‘The Relation of the Intellect to Natural Science,’ 143–5, 150 ‘The Tendencies and Duties of Men of Thought,’145–147 observations of poverty, 85–6, 106, 115, 136–7, 169 observations on industry, 91–3, 97–9 in Oxford, 122–4 in Paris, 131–9 piracy of works in the U.K., 23–7 reasons for, 12–13, 46–7 Representative Men [lectures], 50, 52, 60, 86, 107

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INDEX ‘Domestic Life,’ 59–60, 61, 63, 66, 140 ‘Eloquence,’ 59, 67, 150 ‘Goethe,’ 57, 58 ‘Montaigne,’ 55–6, 63 ‘Napoleon,’ 56–7, 66, 96, 140 ‘On the Uses of Great Men’, 54–5, 63 ‘Reading’ 50, 58, 61, 66, 67 ‘Shakespeare,’ 57–8, 66, 140 ‘Spirit of the Times,’ 72, 100, 107, 147, 150, 167 ‘Swedenborg,’ 55, 63–4, 66, 69 Reverence of England, 88–9, 159–60, 168–9, 175 in Scotland, 102–6 Society in England, 116–18, 119, 120–1, 160–1 Society in Manchester, 82–3 as turning point, 5–6 warnings regarding content, 66 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, works of ‘The American Scholar,’ 25–6, 34, 146 Antislavery Writings, 7 ‘Character,’ 40 ‘The Chartist’s Complaint,’ 188, 199 ‘Compensation,’ 31, 69 ‘Concord Hymn,’ 30 ‘The Conservative,’ 34 ‘Divinity School Address,’ 34 ‘Editor’s Address’ for The Dial, 31, 45 ‘Editor’s Address’ for the Massachusetts Quarterly Review, 44 ‘Emancipation in the British West Indies,’ (1844), 24, 37–9 ‘Emancipation in the British West Indies,’ (1845), 40–1 ‘English Reformers,’ 35–7 English Traits, 8, 10, 14, 15, 88, 111, 123, 157, 166–70, 172–81, 187, 188, 193, 194, 197, 198, 200 ‘England,’ 159–60, 168–9, 171, 179

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315

Essays (First Series), 23, 24, 25, 43, 71, 75, 83, 84, 131 Essays (Second Series), 24, 25, 40, 65 ‘Fate’ (1851 lecture), 187 ‘Fortune of the Republic,’ 189 ‘Fourierism and the Socialists,’ 35 ‘France, or Urbanity,’ 170–1 ‘Fugitive Slave Law Address,’ 180 ‘Historical Discourse at Concord,’ 20, 28–9, 38, 43 Human Life (lecture series), 147 The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 141, 147, 148, 167 Lectures and Biographical Sketches, 140 ‘London,’ 159–60, 168, 179 ‘Man the Reformer,’ 24, 33–4, 39, 132 ‘The Method of Nature,’ 25, 29 ‘Moral Forces,’ 189 Nature, 15, 20, 24 ‘New England Reformers,’ 37, 39 ‘Nominalist and Realist,’ 65 Poems, 25, 46 ‘Politics,’ 30, 40 ‘The Protest,’ 33 Representative Men (1850), 52 ‘Resources,’ 100 ‘Self-Reliance,’ 71 ‘Talent,’ 169–70, 171 ‘The Times,’ 34, 37 ‘War,’ 30 ‘The Young American,’ 39 Emerson, William, 11, 102 Emerson Bicentennial Essays, 3 Emerson’s Impact on the British Isles and Canada (Sowder), 4 ‘Emerson’s Orations to the Modern Athenians’ (Civis), 73–5 Engels, Friedrich, 61, 77, 96, 98–9, 127, 148 English Civil War, 172 The Englishman and his History (Butterfield), 176 The English Review, 75–6

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Epaminondas, 60 Espinasse, Francis, 101, 163 European Revolutions and the American Literary Renaissance (Reynolds), 4, 109, 141 European Revolutions of 1848, 3, 74, 123, 134, 176, 181–2, 184–5 American reactions to, 181, 190–2 Evangel of Love (Sutton), 84 Evarts, William Maxwell, 165 evolution, 42

Gilfillan, George, 68–9, 72 Gill, Thomas Hornblower, 84, 101 Glasgow, 2, 71, 72, 105, 106, 109, 126 Glasgow Athenaeum, 51, 71–2 Goethe, Johan Wolfgang von, 58 Gougeon, Len, 6, 7, 37, 200 Greenough, Horatio, 14, 165 Greg, William Rathbone, 93, 96, 99, 111 Grimm, Hermann, 164 Guizot, François, 111, 112 Guyot, Arnold, 172

Faraday, Michael, 5 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 68 Flauvigny, Marie de (aka the Comtesse d’Agoult and Daniel Stern), 131, 136 Flower, Edward Fordham, 163, 164, 165 Fourier, Charles, 35 Fourierism, 35, 39, 45, 120, 149 Forster, William Edward, 94, 95, 96, 133, 135, 163, 165, 167 Fox, George, 21 Fraser, James, 23 Fraser’s Magazine, 17, 172 Freedom and Fate (Whicher), 5, 7, 41 Free Trade, 39, 92, 99, 100–1 Free Trade Hall (Manchester), 86, 92 Free-Soil Party (U.S.), 155, 162, 179, 187, 200 Frémont, John, 21 French Revolution (1789), 31, 97, 176 French Revolution (1848), 1, 74, 109, 111–13, 132–3, 134–5, 156, 176 The French Revolution (Carlyle), 31 Froude, James Anthony, 124, 163, 166 Fruitlands, 18, 23, 45 Fugitive Slave Act (1850), 7, 179, 180, 183–4, 198, 200 Fuller, Margaret, 11, 110, 111, 191, 192

Halifax, 92–3, 96 Hallam, Henry, 22, 160, 176 Ham Common, 89, 120 Hampden, Renn Dickson, 124 Harney, George Julian, 96, 98, 127 Harvard, 13, 20 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 165 Helps, Arthur, 155, 163, 164 Hewitt, Martin, 8–9, 50, 61, 201 History of Adult Education (Hudson), 72 History of the United States of America (Bancroft), 20, 22 Hoar, Elizabeth, 85, 89, 164 Hodgson, William B., 101 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 7, 163 Horsman, Reginald, 172 Howitt’s Journal, 36, 63 Huddersfield, 84 Huddersfield Mechanics’ Insitute, 91 Hudson, James William, 46, 51, 72

Gallery of Literary Portraits (Gilfillan), 68 Gilbert, Alan D., 77

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Ireland, 1, 11–12, 118, 168 Ireland, Alexander, 12, 46, 71, 82, 90, 101, 102, 119, 163, 164, 165 Jackson, Andrew, 21 Jacobson, William, 124 Jamaica, 40 James, Henry, 164 James, William, 164 Jeffrey, Lord, 105 Jewsbury, Geraldine, 82–3, 133, 137, 163

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INDEX Jones, Ernest, 96, 98, 106, 127, 128, 155 Jones, Gareth Stedman, 77 Joyce, Patrick, 77–8 Knox, Robert, 171, 177, 180 Kossuth, Louis, 182, 186, 191, 199 Lafayette (General), 14, 189 Lamartine, Alphonse de, 133, 135, 136, 142 Lancashire, 51, 91 Lane, Charles, 18–19, 23, 36, 45, 120 Landor, Walter Savage, 14, 15 Languages of Class (Jones), 77 Latter-Day Pamphlets (Carlyle), 172 Ledru-Rollin, Alexandre Auguste, 112, 133, 135 Leeds, 66, 92, 96, 100 Leeds Times, 84 Leicester Mechanics’ Institute, 91, 92 Lehmann, Henri, 136 Leverrier, Urbain Jean Joseph, 135 liberalism, 81, 99, 100, 107–8, 180 Liberal Party (U.K.), 92 Liverpool, 12, 15, 50, 82, 85, 155 Locke, John, 20, 21 Lonely, Wayfaring Man, The (Scudder), 4, 139 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 165 Longfellow, Samuel, 164 Louis-Philippe I, 112, 113 L’Ouverture, Toussaint, 40 Lowell, James Russell, 165 Lowe’s Edinburgh Magazine, 67–8, 70 Lycurgus, 150, 153–4 Lyell, Charles, 5 Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 22, 116, 160, 176 Maccall, William, 101 Mackay, Charles, 166 Macphail’s Edinburgh Ecclesiastical Journal and Literary Review, 68, 69–70, 73

Koch_Index.indd 317

317

Manchester, 63, 82, 93, 101, 118 Manchester Athenaeum, 50, 63, 64, 85, 86, 92 Manchester Central Library, 78, 83 Manchester Examiner, 12, 90, 101, 139 Manchester Guardian, 64 manifest destiny, 41, 43 Mansfield, Lord, 38 Marshall, John, 92, 100 Martin, Alexandre, see Albert L’Ouvrier Martineau, Harriet, 20, 111 Martineau, James, 12 Marx, Karl, 76, 77, 96, 127, 141 Marylebone Literary and Scientific Institute, 109, 139 Massachusetts Quarterly Review, 44 Mazzini, Joseph, 165, 166, 176, 182, 187, 192, 199 McGrath, Philip, 127 Michelet, Jules, 135 Metternich, Klemens von, 123, 185 Mexican War, 9, 19, 21–2, 23, 28, 41, 43–4 Mickiewicz, Adam, 131–2 Mill, John Stuart, 165, 166 Milman, Henry Hart, 19, 22, 176 Milnes, Richard Monckton, 116, 118, 136, 160, 163, 165 Minkins, Shadrach, 183 Montaigne, Michel de, 55 Montégut, Émile, 131 Montgomery, James, 90 Morgan, John Minter, 119 Morley, John, 166 Morpeth, Lord, 116, 154, 160 Morris, R. J., 61, 107 Mott, Lucretia, 191 Mudie, C. E., 25, 27 Napoleon, 56–7, 148 Napoleon III (Louis Napoleon), 181, 182, 186, 189 Neuberg, Joseph, 84, 91, 96, 101 Newcastle, 84, 93

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318

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New Jerusalem Swedenborgian Church, 64 Newfield, Christopher, 62 Newman, J. H., 123, 124 Newstead Abbey, 90 Nichol, John Pringle, 82 Nicholson, William, 165 Nicoloff, Philip, 5, 42, 43, 107, 200 North, Christopher, see Wilson, John Northern Star, 126 Nottingham, 65, 82, 84 Nottinghamshire Guardian, 65 O’Connor, Feargus, 128–9, 143, 187 Oken, Lorenz, 171 On Heroes and Hero-Worship (Carlyle), 85 Orr, William S., 102 Owen, Richard, 5, 124–5, 142 Oxford, 118, 122–4, 125 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 102, 116 Oxford movement, 123 Palfrey, John G., 179 Palgrave, Francis, 124 Palmerston, Lord (aka Henry John Temple), 22, 118, 184 Paracelsus, 103 Parker, Theodore, 165, 190, 192 Past and Present (Carlyle), 97 Patmore, Coventry, 163 Paulet, Elizabeth, 83, 91, 133, 163 Penn, William, 21 Perkin, H. J., 97 Phalanx, 36, 137 Phillips, George Searle (aka January Searle), 84, 101–2, 108 Phocion, 60 Polk, James K., 19, 21, 41 Promethean, 36 Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph, 141 Quinet, Edgar, 131–2, 136

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Races of Men (Knox), 171 racialism, 171–2 Rathbone, Richard, 83, 91 Red Republican, 96 Revolution, see American Revolution; European Revolutions; French Revolution Revue des Deux Mondes, 131 Reynolds, Larry, 4, 5–6, 62, 81, 101, 109, 110, 141, 153 Richardson, Robert, 88 Ripley, George, 45 Roberts, Timothy, 191 Robinson, Crabbe, 147, 154 Robinson, David, 6, 200 Rodrick, Anne B., 61 Rogers, Samuel, 19 Rome, 182, 186 Rush, Richard, 135–6 Rusk, Ralph, 7 Russell, Lord John, 96 Saturday Club, 160, 161, 162, 163 Scarsdale, Lord, 90 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph, 68 Schwann, John Frederic, 91, 96 Scotland, 66, 67–75, 79 Scott, David, 103, 104 Scottish common-sense philosophy, 105 Scottish Guardian, 72–3 Scudder, Townsend III, 3–4 Searle, January, see Phillips, George Searle secularization, 77 Self-Help (Smiles), 61 Selkirk, Lord, 125 Shakespeare, William, 57–8, 164 Sharp, Granville, 38 Sheffield, 90–1 Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 71 Smiles, Samuel, 61 Smith, W. H. (critic), 70 Smith, W. H. (publisher), 23, 24, 25

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INDEX Smithson, J. H., 64 socialism, 6 Emerson’s attitude towards, 35, 45, 60, 62, 81, 114, 115, 118–21, 127, 132, 149–50, 190, 193, 197 in French revolution, 137 Sowder, William, 4 Spencer, Herbert, 84 Stanley, Arthur, 124, 137 Stansfeld, James, 92 Stephenson, George, 149, 167 Stowe, William, 166 Stowell, Hugh, 65 Sumner, Charles, 165 Sutton, Henry, 83–4, 101, 108 Swedenborg, Emmanuel, 55, 63–4 Swedenborgianism, 55, 82, 137 Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, 66, 68–9, 70, 104 Tappan, Caroline Sturgis, 164 Taylor, Zachary, 21 Tennyson, Lord Alfred, 2, 160, 163 Texas annexation, 41, 43 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 160 Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, 93, 123 Thom, David, 84 Thoreau, Henry David, 11, 44, 162, 194 Times (London), 88–9, 106, 110, 112–15, 116, 120, 126, 127–8, 139, 140, 189 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 136 Town and Country Club, 160, 161, 163 Toynbee, Joseph, 165 Transcendental Club, 161 Turner, J. M. W., 124

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319

unitarianism, 13, 73, 79, 91, 92, 162, 164 Van Buren, Martin, 21 Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (Chambers), 42, 105, 107, 171 Virtue’s Hero (Gougeon), 7 Visions of the People (Joyce), 77 Wales, 170 Walker, George, 165 Ward, Anna, 164 Ward, Samuel Gray, 83, 165 Washington, George, 40 Waugh, Edin, 78 Webster, Daniel, 180, 184, 186 Whicher, Stephen, 5, 6, 7, 31, 32, 41, 42, 43, 199 Whig Interpretation of History (Butterfield), 175–6 Whig Party (U.S.), 21, 41, 162, 182, 184 Wickham, E. R., 77 Wilberforce, William, 38 Wildman, Colonel, 90 Wilkinson, J. J. Garth, 120, 130, 163, 164 Wilson, John (aka Christopher North), 103 Wordsworth, William, 14, 15, 58, 104, 111 Wright, William, 36 Yorkshire Union of Mechanics’ Institutions, 46, 51, 82 Zoe: A History of Two Lives (Jewsbury), 83

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