Henry Adams - Your Heart (lyrics) WORK

...There, dear Fanny, this is all I can do today in return for yourseven glorious epistles. Take a heartful of love and gratitude from bothof us. Remember us most affectionately to your Mother and Mary. Writeagain soon, I pray you, but always to Brown, Shipley and Co. Stir upJim Putnam to write when he can, and believe me, lovingly yours,

Henry Adams - Your Heart (lyrics)

I have given nine of my lectures and am to give the tenth tomorrow. Theyhave been a success, to judge by the numbers of the audience (300-odd)and their non-diminution towards the end. No previous "Giffords" havedrawn near so many. It will please you to know that I am stronger andtougher than when I began, too; so a great load is off my mind. You havebeen so extraordinarily brotherly to me in writing of your convictionsand in furnishing me ideas, that I feel ashamed of my churlish and charyreplies. You, however, have forgiven me. Now, at the end of this firstcourse, I feel my "matter" taking firmer shape, and it will please youless to hear me say that I believe myself to be (probably) permanentlyincapable of believing the Christian scheme of vicarious salvation, andwedded to a more continuously evolutionary mode of thought. The reasonsyou from time to time have given me, never better expressed than in yourletter before the last, have somehow failed to convince. In theselectures the ground I am taking is this: The mother sea andfountain-head of all religions lie in the mystical experiences of theindividual, taking the word mystical in a very wide sense. Alltheologies and all ecclesiasticisms are secondary growths superimposed;and the experiences make such flexible combinations with theintellectual prepossessions of their subjects, that one may almost saythat they have no proper intellectual deliverance of their own, butbelong to a region deeper, and more vital and practical, than that whichthe intellect inhabits. For this they are also indestructible byintellectual arguments and criticisms. I attach the mystical orreligious consciousness to the possession of an extended subliminalself, with a thin partition through which messages make irruption. Weare thus made convincingly aware of the presence of a sphere of lifelarger and more powerful than our usual consciousness, with which thelatter is nevertheless continuous. The impressions and impulsions andemotions and excitements which we thence receive help us to live, theyfound invincible assurance of a world beyond the sense, they melt ourhearts and communicate significance and value to everything and make ushappy. They do this for the individual who has them, and otherindividuals follow him. Religion in this way is absolutelyindestructible. Philosophy and theology give their conceptualinterpretations of this experiential life. The farther margin of thesubliminal field being unknown, it can be treated as by TranscendentalIdealism, as an Absolute mind with a part of which we coalesce, or byChristian theology, as a distinct deity acting on us. Something, not ourimmediate self, does act on our life! So I seem doubtless to my audienceto be blowing hot and cold, explaining away Christianity, yet defendingthe more general basis from which I say it proceeds. I fear that thesebrief words may be misleading, but let them go! When the book comes out,you will get a truer idea.

I am having a happy summer, feeling quite hearty again. I congratulateyou on being settled, though I know nothing of the place. I congratulateyou and Mrs. Starbuck also on airy fairy Lilian, who makes, I believe,the third. Long may they live and make their parents proud. With bestregards to you both, I am yours ever truly, 041b061a72