Late in her life,Caroline Wells Healey Dall wrote and delivered an address called, "TRANSCENDENTALISM IN NEW ENGLAND: A LECTURE" which was "DELIVERED BEFORE THE SOCIETY FOR PHILOSOPHICAL ENQUIRY, WASHINGTON, D. C, MAY 7, 1895." In this excerpt, she describes the continuing influence of Transcendentalism...
"Do you ask, further, what influence the gospel of "exaltation " had upon the homes of those who accepted it ? Some of you will remember the home of Parson Allen, as described by Saxe Holme [Helen Hunt Jackson.] I will quote it as the best answer to your inquiry. It was, I believe, a tribute to Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Ripley:
" The Plato that I read I may have forgotten, but the Plato he read became part of my life. While he compelled us unconsciously to assimilate intellectual verities, his wife subjected us to spiritual tests and aroused in us a need of the highest living. We did not know, as the noiseless days slipped by, what immortal treasures of beauty and truth they bore, nor did we fully recognize their charm ; but when we went into the homes of those who lived on a lower plane for smaller ends with less change in the atmosphere, as one does who comes suddenly from the free outer air into the confined atmosphere of a chamber. Into all their traits, and every act springing from these, there entered a deep significance, a spiritual vitality. The smallest thing had its soul as well as its body, and the soul radiated until that body was transfigured."
Sounds just like my house...
Blessings
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