Recollections and Impressions, 1822-1890Frothingham, Octavius Brooks
Religion
Recollections and Impressions, 1822-1890
Frothingham, Octavius Brooks
Frothingham, Octavius Brooks, 1822-1895; Unitarians -- New England -- Biography
High-minded he was rather than deep-souled; devout in sentiment,
chivalrously moral in principle and in practice; ideal, poetic, delicate
of sensibility, but not soaring of spirit; certainly not a spiritual
enthusiast, as little a prosaic plodder; no mystic but no disciple of
"common-sense." For the dignity, decency, purity, propriety of the
clerical profession he had great regard, but as much on account of its
social position as on account of its sanctity. It indicated the highest
type of gentlemanliness, the finest style of personal character, a kind
of exquisite courtliness of manhood, humanity of a finished stamp of
elegance; and he resented everything like an admixture of ordinary
philanthropy. It was in his view a descent to enter the arena of strife
even for the purpose of removing an evil. Thence his dislike of
Channing; his disapproval of Pierpont, otherwise a particular favorite
of his; his disagreement with Parker, of whom he was fond. When the
"Miscellanies" were published the writer sent a copy to his friend, who
acknowledged the volume by a letter in which expressions of personal
affection were curiously blended with antipathy towards the class of
speculations with which Mr. Parker was identified. George Ripley and
R. W. Emerson won and held his attachment to the end, but he never
visited Brook Farm, and was deaf to solicitations to join the
Transcendental Club.
His friends were many and various--Emerson, Ripley, Francis, Hedge,
Bartol, Stetson, Parkman, Longfellow, Felton, Hillard,--the list is
long, for the sunny temper of the man drew all hearts to him and his
warm affectionateness of disposition made him tenacious of good-will. He
was interested in men as individuals not as members of a clique or
party, and was not repelled by differences of opinion where his heart
was engaged. On the whole, his sympathies were with conservatives like
George Ticknor and W. H. Prescott, and the literary spirit mainly kept
him in association with those. Where this spirit was wanting and there
was divergence of sentiment there was no attempt at intimacy.
Of interest in the denomination, the sect, the party name, he was
absolutely devoid. He never attended the conventions or conferences of
the Unitarian body or spoke in their deliberations. On anniversary week
it was for many years his custom to visit New York, where no
professional responsibility rested upon him, and where he could find
recreations of a purely social kind. But at the "Boston Association"
where he met friends one by one, and could talk half confidentially,
with perfect freedom, in a conversational tone, he delighted to be
present.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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