April 2, 1841.

The story of Venus and Cupid and Psyche was discussed.

Margaret said that of Venus she had less to say than of either of the preceding Deities! She was not the expression of a thought, but of a fact. She was the Greek idea of a lovely woman,—the best physical development of woman. When we have said, “It is,” we have said all. The birth of Beauty was the only ideal thing about her. She sprang from the wave, from the flux and reflux of things, from the undulating line. On this Venus, transitoriness had set its seal. As we look at her, we feel that she must change. Her loveliness is too fair to last. Her beauty would pass next moment. She could not live a year, we think, without losing something of her full grace. It was peculiarly Greek to create a beautiful symbol, and to pause in the symbol. The Greeks were very apt to do this. They did it effectually in the Goddess of Love. She was sportive in all her amours. They had no idea of an Everlasting Love. They enjoyed themselves too much to abstract themselves. Venus seemed to Margaret a merely human creature. She was not the type of Universal Beauty: the Greek eye was closed to that. Still, their own embodiment did not satisfy their own need. They filled out their ideal with Venus Urania, Hebe, and all the attendant Hours and Graces, yet were not satisfied. Then came the fable of Psyche and her three Cupids. Venus was only a pretty girl! Her cestus, her doves, her pets, her jealousies, all betray it. The Venus Urania was more. She was the child of Celestial Light. Hebe was born of immortal bloom. To fill out the gaps in their conception, Eros, or Love in Sadness, Cupid a frolicsome boy, and the more noble, more creative Love which brooded over Chaos were evolved from their consciousness. Psyche, who did not appear until the age of Augustus, who was too modern to be mythological, yet glowing with mythic beauty, was only another evidence of their imperfect idea. Her story expresses more than that of Venus. It tells not only the story of human love, but represents the pilgrimage of a soul. The jealousy of Venus was that which the good must always feel toward the better which is to supersede it, and as soon as Psyche looked upon her sleeping lover she became immortal. The soul in the fulness of Love became conscious of Destiny.

James Clarke asked what was the difference between the girl-mother—the Madonna—and the Greek Venus.

Margaret replied, with more patience than I was capable of, that the Madonna represented more than passing womanly beauty. She was prophetic, and lived again in her child.

Then, persisted James F., why was Vulcan the husband of Beauty, to which Margaret gave no satisfactory answer. He then gave his own thought, to which I can do no justice, although it was what I tried in vain to say at the last conversation. It amounted to this,—that in seeking for beauty we lose it, but in aiming at utility through hard labor we find perfect proportion—and consequently perfect beauty. He said that he and his sister Sarah had often spoken to each other about this, and he felt that the time would come when essays would be written about our ships, as we now write essays about the Pyramids and the Greek Art. Posterity might find the proof of our search after beauty in the graceful prow and swelling hold and tall, tapering mast or shrouds of shredded jet; in the bellying canvas and the patron saint which watches the wake from the stern. But we know that the ship, the most beautiful object in our modern world, was the product of labor, gradually evoked, according to the law of fitness, compass, and general proportion. To bring its form into a natural relation to wind and wave, was to find perfect harmony and beauty. At first the prow was too sharp, and the water had rushed over it; the hold was too shallow, and she sat ungracefully where she now rides as mistress.

Emerson quoted some German author to the same effect.

Mr. Clarke said there was something in one of R. W. E.’s own Essays which expressed the same thing.

Emerson laughed and said, “Very important authority,” and would have changed the subject, when—

William White said that it did not tally well with James Clarke’s theory that the ugly steamer had succeeded the beautiful clipper.

Mr. Clarke said the theory failed only because there was no noble end in view. The steamer was not intended to be in harmony with Nature.

Emerson asked if the Greeks had no symbol for natural beauty. Several were suggested that he would not accept, but he finally took Diana on Charles Wheeler’s suggestion.

Wheeler then spoke of the birth of Venus. He said many writers thought the story as late as that of Psyche, and the line of Hesiod relating to it an interpolation.

Margaret thought she should have suspected this if she had never heard it. The thought it expressed was too comprehensive to be in keeping with the remainder of her story.

Charles Wheeler would not accept the criticism, but went on to talk about the marriage of Venus with Mars, which had amazed Olympus.

Margaret said the Olympian Deities were like modern men, who talk to women forever about their softness and delicacy, until women imagine that the only good thing in man is a strong arm. The girl elopes with a red coat, and the indignant lords of creation wonder why she did not appreciate their modest merit and unobtrusive virtues. Poor Beauty weeps out the crimson stain upon her escutcheon in a long age of suffering.

A laugh followed this bright sally, and then somebody said that Venus once married Mercury.

Margaret declared that must be an interpolation, for there were no points of sympathy between the Goddess of beauty and the God of craft.

James Clarke did not know about that; he thought that the finish and completeness of the late robbery of Davis, Palmer, & Co. constituted a kind of beauty!

Margaret said that affair was altogether grand; she had never heard of anything so Greek as Williamson’s exclaiming, “Gentlemen! you will not deprive me of the implements of my trade?” She could not help respecting his impudence! The Greeks ought to be respected for developing every human faculty into deity. She thought lying, stealing, and so forth only excesses of a good faculty; and so did the Greeks, for in their mistaken way they had deified Mercury. The Spartans taught their children to steal, and the Greeks universally acknowledged that to cheat was honorable if it could be concealed.

I remembered the passage in the “Republic” where Polemarchus confesses that he had learned from Homer to admire Autolycus, grand sire of Ulysses, distinguished above all men for his thefts and oaths! Thrasymachus said that the unjust were both prudent and good, if they were able to commit injustice to perfection! Is the immortality of Autolycus the destiny of Williamson?

Wheeler said there certainly was a well authenticated marriage between Venus and Mercury.

I could not help thinking it might be an astral connection that was indicated. On that remarkable day of his birth, Mercury was not content with stealing the divining-rod from Apollo; he took also the cestus from Venus, the voice from Neptune, the sword from Mars, the will from Zeus, and his tools from Vulcan! Sagacity compassed all the deeps of divinity to reach its end.

Ida Russell asked if Venus and Astarte were not the same.

Margaret said Astarte belonged to the stars.

Did not Venus, I wonder? But of course they are creations far asunder as the poles.

Charles Wheeler thought Astarte and Venus Urania were the same.

Ida said that could not be. The first statues of Astarte were rough blocks of wood, with veiled heads.

So, I said, were all first statues of Deities; so that was no argument.

When James Clarke asked Margaret to compare Venus with the Madonna, a curious talk arose between Alcott, Margaret, Charles Wheeler, and Emerson.

Alcott wanted to know why Christ was not as much an impersonation of a human faculty as either of the Greek Deities!

Margaret said Jesus was not a thought. He was born on the earth, and lived out a thought. He was no abstraction to her, but a brother.

Alcott wanted to know whether a purer mythology, suited to the wants of coming time, might not arise from the mixed mythology of Persians, Greeks, and Christians!

A very confusing and tiresome talk arose thereupon, which Charles Wheeler smiled at, but did not join in, and which profited nobody.

CAROLINE WELLS HEALEY.

April 3, 1841.

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