488 MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS-II 



over a certain class of ineffective people as &quot;weak and 

 literary,&quot; something of his feeling took possession of me. 

 Then, too, I was much under the influence of Thomas 

 Carlyle: his preachments, hortatory and objurgatory, 

 witty and querulous, that men should defer work in litera 

 ture until they really have some worthy message to de 

 liver, had a strong effect upon me. While I greatly ad 

 mired men like Lowell and Whittier, who brought exqui 

 site literary gifts to bear powerfully on the struggle 

 against slavery, persons devoted wholly to literary work 

 seemed to me akin to sugar-bakers and confectionery- 

 makers. I now know that this view was very inadequate ; 

 but it was then in full force. It seemed to me more and 

 more absurd that a man with an alleged immortal soul, 

 at such a time as the middle of the nineteenth century, 

 should devote himself, as I then thought, to amusing 

 weakish young men and women by the balancing of 

 phrases or the jingling of verses. 



Therefore it was that, after leaving Yale, whatever I 

 wrote had some distinct purpose, with little, if any, care 

 as to form. I was greatly stirred against the encroach 

 ments of slavery in the Territories, had also become 

 deeply interested in university education, and most of 

 my thinking and writing was devoted to these subjects; 

 though, at times, I took up the cudgels in behalf of various 

 militant ideas that seemed to need support. The lecture 

 on &quot;Cathedral Builders and Mediaeval Sculptors,&quot; given 

 in the Yale chapel after my return from Europe, often 

 repeated afterward in various parts of the country, and 

 widely circulated by extracts in newspapers, though ap 

 parently an exception to the rule, was not really so. 

 It aimed to show the educational value of an ethical 

 element in art. So, too, my article in the &quot;New Eng- 

 lander&quot; on &quot;Glimpses of Universal History&quot; had as its 

 object the better development of historical studies in our 

 universities. My articles in the &quot;Atlantic Monthly&quot; 

 on &quot;Jefferson and Slavery,&quot; on &quot;The Statesmanship of 

 Eichelieu,&quot; and on &quot;The Development and Overthrow of 



