To Miss Grace Norton.

Aug. 18, 1874.

When I say that any thing is not true, I generally mean that I think the statement inadequate, inexact, or even logically misleading, — a naming of what is true, perhaps, but a darkening, not an illuminating naming. I am often wholly engrossed in the interest of the form of truth. What does not tally with the balance of accurate statements seems, in my dissatisfaction, of little or no account, or to belong to the confused infinite of what we do not at all know. This Socratic disposition is apt to disregard the feeling for truths which, though inadequately embodied in words, are yet not the less — are perhaps even the more — deeply interesting.

But I also have the feeling which made Socrates, as he testifies in the “Apology,” very annoying to those with whom he discussed; namely, that there is no merit in any really known truth, however sacred to any one, greater than clearness and adequacy of expression. Many truths are, perhaps, better worth knowing than those which may have acquired this merit; but their worth is not really attained without it, though often involved in our personal worth, — in our experience, insights, and latent powers of giving birth, or external form, just proportions, and objective value to truth.

In discussions about abstract matters, in which one’s views are as inseparable from one’s self as our features are, the dialogue sometimes seems to me like that of the half-enchanted people in the “Tempest,” — each seeing and talking unintelligibly

about a different unexplored world. So I never aim at attacking any persons, though doubtless I seem to, since you so judge, — no real persons at least, or even imaginary ones, that could possibly stand for any real ones I know. Much less am I inclined to say to any one, as you suggest, “I think you are greatly mistaken;” for I think that the saying of this, though conventionally a civil or perhaps gallant way of conducting a discussion or closing it, does not lead to that end of discussion which seems to me desirable when I get into it. I think, on looking back by the light of your letter upon, the mood in which I wrote mine, that I could not make entirely clear to you, far less justify to you, what it was, — what idiosyncrasy of nature it came from, but, as it seems, did not fairly represent. It seems to me now a curious mixture of that which Dr. Walker alluded to in characterizing his friend — as having “an irritable intellect,” with an unsteady, flickering desire for friendly discussion, —not a desire for apparent conquest in discussion. . . . The letter, or essay, was a sort of preaching, not at all considerate, as I now see, — but not, as I venture to hope, essentially more disrespectful than that kind of literature is apt to be, although turned in an opposite direction. This style does not apply truths, or mean to apply them, but only utters applicable truths on general themes. . . . From the opinions of no persons that I know do I pretend to comprehend the personality in its springs so well as to be much surprised at the unexpected in what they may say or do. What is said by another, I am often disposed to cavil at, but not at all as charging thorough misconceptions or culpable confusions in any way peculiar. I am sure I have not imagination enough to adequately grasp or to sympathize with or assume for myself temporarily the mental history and life of another, so as to lead out of these to what might seem to me a better way of looking at things. I have only imagination enough to feel that I have not enough for this.

Impersonality seems to me to belong to the very essence of truth. To quote texts and criticise what is said, doing this without malice and without wilfully perverting its obviously intended meaning, and to test statements by the only tests that are valid, namely, what both parties believe clearly, or accept without question of fact or meaning, —is not to my feeling a personal attack. . . . Perhaps that was the effect on my style of the mood I was in. I had on Sunday, at Miss -----’s, just such a mood, and drove -----, in a discussion on art, not exactly to refusing to speak to me further, but to the perception, I imagine, of the true cause. It was, I suppose, a mad perversion, through emphasis, of an enthusiasm for exactness and systematic understanding, which forgets for the time the rights of persons.