Sacraments, sacrifice, and ritual: High Church mysticism in the letters of Jane Ellen Harrison and ''Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion''

THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCE

SACRAMENTS, SACRIFICE, AND RITUAL: HIGH CHURCH MYSTICISM IN THE LETTERS OF JANE ELLEN HARRISON AND PROLEGOMENA TO THE STUDY OF GREEK RELIGION

By MARGARET M. ARMSTRONG

A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Awarded: Spring Semester 2007

Copyright © 2007 Margaret Armstrong All Rights Reserved

UMI Number: 3263841

UMI Microform 3263841 Copyright 2007 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346

The members of the Committee approve the dissertation of Margaret M. Armstrong defended on February 16, 2007.

____________________ Barry Faulk Professor Directing Dissertation

____________________ Francis Cairns Outside Committee Member

_____________________ Karen Laughlin Committee Member

_____________________ Nancy B. Warren Committee Member

Approved:

_______________________________________ David Johnson, Chair, Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.

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To my husband, John, for his unfailing patience and support. To my mother and Shirley. To Patti Jean, my sister and best friend

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to thank the Principal and Fellows, Newnham College, Cambridge University for their kindness in allowing me to access the letters of Jane Ellen Harrison and for permission to use them in this dissertation. I would also like to acknowledge the kind help given to me by Anne Thomson and Pat Ackerman while I was reading Jane Harrison’s letters at the Newnham Archive.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures ............................................................................................................. viii Abstract ..........................................................................................................................ix . INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................1 I. Methodology ...........................................................................................2 II. Primary Source Material .........................................................................4 II. Archival Bias ..........................................................................................9 IV. Conclusion ............................................................................................10 TIMELINE OF JANE HARRISON’S LIFE ................................................................11 CHAPTER 1. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE .......................................................18 Introduction.............................................................................................................18 I. The Study of Greek Myth and Religion in Victorian England .............................................................................20 II. Jessie Stewart and Robert Ackerman....................................................22 III. The Biographical Literature..................................................................30 IV. Harrison and Religion ...........................................................................37 V. Reminiscences of a Student’s Life.........................................................44 VI. Conclusion ............................................................................................48

CHAPTER 2. THE VICTORIAN HIGH CHURCH AS RELIGIOUS BACKDROP.........................................................................................50 Introduction.......................................................................................................50 I. The Victorian High Church: An Overview...........................................52 II. High Churchism: Politics and Sacraments............................................60 III. The Evolution of Ritual ........................................................................65 IV. Conclusion ............................................................................................72

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CHAPTER 3. A WILD BRAND OF HIGH CHURCHISM: 1867-1874.....................73 Introduction.......................................................................................................73 I. Reminiscences of a Yorkshire Girl, 1867 .............................................78 II The First Yorkshire Vignette ................................................................80 III. The Second Yorkshire Vignette............................................................85 IV. The Third Yorkshire Vignette...............................................................92 V. Harrison, Her Father, and Ritual...........................................................98 VI. High Church Teachings at Cheltenham Ladies College: 1867-1870 ............................................................100 VII. A Cheltenham Vignette.......................................................................108 VIII. Postscript to Cheltenham, 1870-1874 .................................................113 IX. Conclusion ..........................................................................................116 CHAPTER 4. POETIC RESERVE AND SACRAMENTAL IMAGES IN HARRISON’S LETTERS: 1888-1914 ...............................................117 Introduction.....................................................................................................117 I. The Doctrine of Reserve......................................................................121 II. Tractarian Poetry and Sacramental Symbols .....................................127 III. The Cross as a Sacramental Symbol....................................................139 IV. Sacramental Allusions from the Liturgy and Prayer Book..................149 V. Two Letters: An Extended Eucharistic Metaphor and Anglo-Catholic Imagery.........................................................151 VI. Conclusion .........................................................................................157 CHAPTER 5. POETICIZING THE EUCHARIST IN PROLEGOMENA TO THE STUDY OF GREEK RELIGION.........................................................158 Introduction.....................................................................................................158 I. Economy and Typology: The Seeds of Prolegomena ......................163 II. A New Reading of Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion.....166 III. Dionysos as Type, Christ as Antitype, and Eucharistic Images .......176 IV. Conclusion ........................................................................................185

CHAPTER 6. ANGLO-CATHOLIC RITUALIST: Letters from 1876-1924............187 Introduction.....................................................................................................187 I. Anglo-Catholic Ritual......................................................................189 II. Liturgical References ......................................................................203 III. Direct References to Anglican Ritual ..............................................211 IV. A Letter from Virginia Woolf to Jacques Raverat...........................214 V. Conclusion .......................................................................................217

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CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................218 APPENDICES ............................................................................................................222 APPENDIX A: APPENDIX B: APPENDIX C: APPENDIX D: APPENDIX E:

The “Conversion” Letters ................................................222 Ritual Arrests...................................................................232 Two Versions of a Letter from Dorothea Beale ...............238 Additional Excerpts from Harrison’s Letters that Indicate an Intense Interest in Anglican Ritual............242 Permission Letter from Newnham College, Cambridge .252

BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................................................................................256 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ......................................................................................283

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Picture of Jane Ellen Harrison circa 1875 ....................................................69 Figure 2. An Ancient Eucharist?................................................................................175 Figure 3. Mirrlees and Harrison late 1920s ...............................................................216

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ABSTRACT

A gap exists in the biographical scholarship on Jane Ellen Harrison’s own personal religious beliefs that has affected how her work on ancient religion has been interpreted. Front and center in the discussion of Harrison’s religious beliefs has been her disdain of the Evangelical upbringing administered by her stepmother; this hatred of Evangelicalism has been interpreted as proof of her antagonism against all Victorian religion with no attention paid to the intricacies of Victorian Anglicanism. Harrison herself helped to muddy the waters. For instance, she often paradoxically referred to herself as a “religious atheist” and joined societies with names such as the Heretic Society. For all her bluster, however, allusions to the Anglican Church and it symbols and sacraments appear in her letters throughout her life. This bluster and the emphasis on Evangelicalism have made researching her religious background appear to be a futile undertaking. A close reading of Harrison’s letters and work, however, reveals that as a young girl in Yorkshire she discovered her own brand of religion far removed from that of her evangelical stepmother—a religion that made her intensely aware of ritual and the religious impulse. In fact, Hope Mirrlees the companion of her latter years, called Harrison’s religion a “very wild brand.” In short, around the age of 17 Harrison became a High Church ritualist replete with all the “papist” paraphernalia so feared by evangelicals like her stepmother. Harrison’s letters, her autobiography Reminiscences of a Student’s Life, and Mirrlees’ notes combine to help piece together a puzzle about an undetected aspect of her life–the High Church Movement that swept through Mid-Victorian England, and became synonymous with what was called Anglican “ritualism.” There is a simple reason why this aspect of Harrison’s life has never been interrogated: Harrison’s deliberate silence on her ritualistic roots was part and parcel of her religious dogma and has misdirected the scholarship, which resulted in a misinterpretation of the her work.

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INTRODUCTION

Jane Ellen Harrison was the central figure in a group, which came to be known as the Cambridge Ritualists. Working with Gilbert Murray, best known for his translations of Euripides, and Francis Cornford, whose interest rested mainly in philosophy, Harrison is most noted for her work on religion in Archaic Greece. Rejecting the Olympian gods, her research revealed that before Zeus ruled Hellas there existed a more primitive chthonic religion, which she believed was rooted, neither in myth nor in any sort of creed or doctrine, but in ritual practice. The ritualistic theory was expanded by Cornford to include the idea that ancient comedy was based on a ritual structure and by Murray to explain the origins of drama. Harrison’s ritualistic interpretation of religion has been attributed to many influences including Robertson-Smith’s Religion of the Semites, Lang’s theory on myth, Frazer’s Golden Bough, the new archaeological discoveries that poured into the British Museum while Harrison worked there, and the curriculum at Newnham College, Cambridge. And certainly, these were all strong influences that she used and molded for her own work. But the evidence points to a ritualistic interest long before these books were published, before she set foot in the door at the British Museum, and before she entered Newnham. One question has never been thoroughly investigated: Was Harrison’s ritual interpretation of ancient Greek religion merely an intellectual exercise or could the focus on ritual have had a more personal element? Within the critical literature, Harrison’s strict Evangelical upbringing replete with a hateful stepmother has been isolated as the only force in her religious development and blamed as the source for her supposed hostility to religion. Suppose for a moment though, that this Evangelicalism was only a small part of a larger religious

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mosaic─suppose that Harrison harbored religious views that she, ironically, kept to herself due to her religious beliefs. What if as young woman, she discovered an exciting new religion wholly different from that of her stepmother—a religion closely akin to Roman Catholicism heavily steeped in symbols and ritualism. Would this not require us to view Harrison’s ritualistic theories and her life through a different lens? Although couched in words that have almost lost their meaning, her writing hints of another more mystic ritualistic religion. As she wrote in Alpha and Omega (1915): I reacted into rather extreme High Churchism. I was always a ritualist at heart (that form of Churchmanship still holds me by sentiment), but there was too much Protestant blood in my veins for it to take full possession; so I lapsed into Broad Churchism, and finally, as I thought, into complete Agnosticism.”. . . (184). This is an important statement because in 19th century parlance the term “High Church” became synonymous with a ritualistic movement that began to introduce Catholic doctrine into the Protestant church—doctrine in which the sacraments and the Eucharist, in particular, became a mystical ceremony filled with magical ritual. Consider the supposition that from this High Church experience, Harrison learned the emotion and power inherent in religious ritual and the emotional resonance stayed with her long after she rejected the dogma and creed of Christianity. Could her defense of ancient ritual in Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion be interpreted as an apologia for her own experiences and a search for the origins of her own ritual? In her memoirs in 1925 she confesses, “I mention these ritual dances, this ritual drama, this bridge between art and life, because it is things like these that I was all my life blindly seeking. A thing has little charm for me unless it has on it the patina of age” (Reminiscences of a Student’s Life 86).

I. Methodology The object of this dissertation, therefore, is to investigate Harrison’s off-the-cuff remark about High Churchism and to determine if, within the corpus of her correspondence and her work, there are other clues that can lead us to discover more about this High Churchism, or as it was also called, Anglo-Catholic, experience. Was this a passing fancy, an act of rebellion against her stepmother, or a rich religious experience? 2

What would “extreme High Churchism” entail? And most importantly how would the addition of a personal ritualistic element add to our understanding of Harrison and her life’s work? Interrogating primary sources, such as Harrison’s personal letters and notes of her friends, provides a record of her life and a window into a private side that reveals her biases as well as religious allusions and symbols that remain amazingly consistent throughout the years. Primary sources from the High Church such as John Newman’s autobiography, the writings of Hurrell Froude, John Keble, Edward Pusey, and a myriad of other sources can serve as a sort of religious exemplar with which to compare Harrison’s writings and determine if there exists any sort of cross pollination between the two. For instance, does Harrison utilize the symbols of High Church ritual? Does she use the words and phrases that became “badges” of High Churchmanship? Does she refer to writings of the High Church and seem familiar with their teachings? Is there any evidence of Harrison having close ties with a member of the High Church or any training in its dogma? Can any pro-Catholic/anti-Protestant bias be detected? Is there any hint that she correlates Anglican ritual with ancient ritual in Prolegomena? And, in particular, is there evidence of an intimate knowledge and reference to the rites and ceremonies of the High Anglican church? This dissertation will attempt to answer these questions throughout six chapters by digging through strata of symbols and language found in Harrison’s autobiography, her personal letters, and Prolegomena. 1 Because this is not a biography that details Harrison’s life and does not provide a year-by-year accounting of her activities, I have included a detailed timeline at the outset, which provides a broad overview of her professional life, academic appointments, publication of major books, travels, and landmark dates concerning her High Church affiliations. The first chapter will then proceed with a discussion of the scholarship as it pertains to influences in general and religious influences in particular. Have any scholars detected a hint that Harrison may have been involved in Anglican ritual? If so, how have they interpreted this information?

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Although much of the same type of imagery is present in Themis and other writings, this study will focus on Prolegomena, which was written before she became engulfed in the theories of Bergson and Durkheim.

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The second chapter establishes the framework for examining Harrison’s work in terms of the High Church movement by discussing the history of the movement, its rise, and the turmoil caused throughout England by a new interpretation of the Eucharist and the introduction of the rites associated with it. Interspersed within this chapter will be examples of the Anglican ritual controversies as they are illustrated in Harrison’s life and writings. The third chapter utilizes the information from Chapter 2 and applies it to provide an understanding of allusions and words that have specific High Church connotations in Harrison’s autobiography—words and allusion that closely tie her to the movement. Relying upon sources including Hope Mirrlees’ notes, Dorothea Beale’s biographies, and memoirs from the Skene family, this chapter sheds new light on a part of Harrison’s life (the years 1867-1874) that has been largely ignored. Chapters 4 turns to Harrison’s personal letters to examine the evidence for High Churchism in the years during which she was writing Prolegomena and in later years. Letters to D.S. MacColl, Mable Malleson, Gilbert Murray, Lady Mary Murray, Jessie Stewart, and Lytton Strachey will be mined to detect any High Churchism. This chapter will focus upon how she utilizes the poetic tradition of the High Church to “reservedly” reference the Eucharist. Chapter 5 offers a new interpretation of Prolegomena. By carefully examining the High Church symbols of the Eucharist, the chapter will argue that many of the ancient sacrificial images throughout Prolegomena are actually High Church Eucharistic images drawn from poets such as Keble, Christina Rossetti, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and the Bible. Chapter 6 will then turn back to the rituals of the High Church to illustrate how they are referenced in both her letters and subtly throughout Prolegomena. In addition, the final chapter will illustrate how the 19th century religious controversies form a stratum in Prolegomena that lies underneath the ancient religion.

II. The Primary Source Material This dissertation is based primarily on the letters of Jane Ellen Harrison and the notes of her friend Hope Mirrlees, which are housed at the Newnham College Archives at Cambridge University. The Newnham Archive contains over 800 letters from Jane 4

Harrison to Gilbert Murray in addition to letters to various other friends and acquaintances. Hope Mirrlees’ notes about Harrison’s life are also housed there along with Jessie Stewart’s notes and drafts of her biography of Harrison, A Portrait from Letters. Harrison’s Letters Spontaneous and lively, Harrison’s letters span a period of approximately 50 years (1876 to 1927 2 ) and create a window through which we can catch glimpses of her daily life. Her language, symbols, and metaphors, often involving the Anglican sacraments and ritual, reveal that she was a poet at heart, and a religious one at that, albeit on her own terms. The majority of the surviving letters, some 800, are addressed to Gilbert Murray and were saved because his wife, Mary, recognized their value and saved every letter and postcard that arrived in the Murray household. Unfortunately, Harrison was not so scrupulous about keeping Murray’s letters, having burnt most of them when she left Cambridge in 1922. Only three letters from Murray survive in the archive. Although the Murray letters have garnered the lion’s share of attention in the literature, letters to others, including Mary Murray; the art critic, D.S. MacColl; and Harrison’s friends, Mable and Hope Malleson, also are housed in the archive, having been gathered as a result of the efforts of Jessie Stewart (another of Harrison’s students) and Mirrlees for fodder for their planned biography of Harrison’s life. Written long before Harrison met Murray and before Greek religion became her life’s work, the images in these earlier letters help establish a baseline for the types of “high church sacramental and ritual” that she consistently uses from as early as 1881. Combined with Mirrlees’ notes, the symbols can be traced back as far as the 1870s and continue through her letters to the Murrays early in the 20th century. Also of importance in the archive are letters that Harrison wrote to Stewart and Mirrlees. Another letter from Dorothea Beale, Harrison’s headmistress at Cheltenham, will also be discussed in this dissertation.

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This study will cover the letters from 1876 until 1910, well after the publication of Prolegomena to illustrate that the High Church influence started long before and continued well after its publication.

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Hope Mirrlees Material In addition to Harrison’s letters, this dissertation will utilize the materials written and gathered by Hope Mirrlees. Mirrlees became friends with Harrison around 1914 and this friendship lasted until Harrison’s death in 1928. Mirrlees’ writings in the Harrison archive are comprised of three separate sets of materials: 1) a notebook, 2) a set of loose pages, and 3) a set of biographical notes written in chapter form. The notebook, with the archival designation of “Harrison 4/3/1: Hope Mirrlees: notebook: [1930s - 1940s]” is comprised of 210 pages of Mirrlees’ remembrances and observations along with interviews with Harrison’s friends and family after her death including her sister, Lucy Bootes; her cousin, Marian Harrison; a friend from Cheltenham, Caroline Mitchell; D.S. MacColl; and various friends from Newnham. The Jane Harrison Full Catalog, which details the collection at Newnham, states, “Many entries are under the name of individuals to whom Mirrlees has spoken, has received information from, or whose letters she has quoted . . . , and include her own views and recollections from talking with JEH on these same people or on the times they describe” (32). Although Mirrlees did not number the pages, Pat Ackerman who catalogued the collection, numbered them in 2004 to “ensure that loose pages do not end up in the wrong place” (Harrison Full Catalog 34). This dissertation will reference those page numbers. In addition to the Notebook are 40 loose pages that the Newnham catalog describes as “biographical material, mostly single sheets or folios, some numbered, no sequence” (35). These pages were inside the back cover of the notebook and were numbered separately and catalogued as “Harrison 4/3/5.” The third set of Mirrlees material—designated “Harrison 4/3/2 –4/3/4” appear mostly in the form of chapters, composed by Mirrlees during the 1930s and 40s, which were to be used in a biography of Harrison (which was never written). Written on large, yellowing blotter sheets, they are in a fragile state and crumble when removed from their protective covers. Composed in a rambling, repetitious manner, the notes stretch over 240 pages and are replete with strikethroughs, scribblings, and often times illegible handwriting. One redeeming value of this repetitive style is that if a word or phrase is illegible (as often is the case), it is sure to be repeated in a slightly altered sentence a few 6

pages later, providing the researcher a second chance to solve the riddle of Mirrlees handwriting. Very disappointingly, Mirrlees describes poetry written by Harrison as a young girl and then does not reproduce the poetry. To make matters worse in some places, she tantalizes researchers by describing something Harrison had written and saying, “reproduced below,” only to leave a blank space. It is nearly impossible to reference specific pages from this material; however there are some chapter titles, which will be cited and when those are not present, “the first words of the text introduces the material” (Jane Harrison full catalog 32). For instance a citation may read, Harrison 4/3/3 “Newnham Nightingales” or “Chapter VIII: Noble Simplicity & Serene Greatness.” Further specificity is not possible. Problems with Mirrlees as a source. Challenges do exist in using the Mirrlees materials. First of all, she did not know Jane Harrison until 1914, when Harrison was 64 years old; thus, her impressions of Harrison’s early life are secondhand from Harrison and Harrison’s family and friends who are recalling events some 50 years in the past. Secondly, when Mirrlees wrote her remembrances and notes, she decided which aspects of Harrison’s life to interrogate; what we find in the archive doesn’t tell the whole story, but what merely Mirrlees thought was important. As Beard succinctly puts it, “Mirrlees must be as loaded a witness of Harrison’s career as she is a privileged one. If it is easy for us to forget that simple point, it is precisely because Mirrlees was committed to making her story the authorized version, the only possible story (not) to tell” (157). Robinson is critical of Mirrlees’ because of the bias as well as for the fact that Mirrlees “writes in an effusive, cloying style, with little understanding of the subject matter. There is not much here for the biographer” (6). (The subject matter being Harrison’s intellectual tradition.) Whether or not there is any relevant material in Mirrlees’ notes depends upon which area of Harrison’s life one is researching. For information about Harrison and the Oxford, or High Church movement, Mirrlees is a veritable gold mine. And the beauty of Mirrlees work is that she really doesn’t seem to understand what Harrison’s connection to the Oxford movement may have meant to the larger picture. Mirrlees’ lack of knowledge also strikes at the heart of the bias question. Mirrlees’ overall bias does not constitute a particular problem here because her opinion was that Harrison’s “High Church” days were a thing of the distant past and thus of little value to the overall theme of Harrison’s

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life. Robinson is correct in noting that without seeing the original letters from which Mirrlees took her material we have no way of knowing how much was deleted or edited out (5). In essence we don’t know what isn’t there. The information she does provide on Harrison’s connection to the High Church, however, is an excellent complement to Harrison’s own writing, which itself is rather selective in its facts. Combining the two sources provides a much comprehensive picture. Keeping Mirrlees’ bias in mind, she can, with care, function as a valuable source. Whenever possible, statements have been checked for accuracy; some, such as certain assumptions, or memories, or stories from Harrison herself cannot be independently verified. Because of the nature of this work, however, not being able to verify a statement does not necessarily nullify its value. Mirrlees did spend many years with Harrison and recalls many things told to her by Harrison herself. This in itself makes her a valued source of information. Physical Condition of the Sources Some of the letters are now over one hundred years old and are showing some signs of wear and tear. This, combined with Harrison’s notoriously bad handwriting, makes some of the letters barely legible. Fortunately, when Stewart wrote A Portrait from Letters she had the letters transcribed and typed. However, the transcripts contain mistakes and are in some instances incomplete, with entire sentences left out and many post scripts missing. In one instance, a letter exists only in its transcribed state without the original letter. In addition, one letter to a Miss Wilson from 1876 reproduced in Stewart’s book is not in the archive. Any deviation from the original letters or illegible or hard to read passages will be noted. Cataloging The letters have recently been catalogued and assigned numbers according to their dates. As is stated in the “Jane Harrison Full Catalog,” “Jane Harrison rarely dated her letters. In most cases dates have been added either from internal evidence or personal knowledge by Jessie Stewart and/or Hope Mirrlees. Many still remain without dates, but are in the chronological order that Stewart and Mirrlees imposed” (4). For instance, the

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earliest letters to Gilbert Murray are catalogued, Harrison 1/1/1: Jane Harrison to Gilbert Murray: Aug 1900 - Dec 1901 and the latest are catalogued 1/1/38 August 1926 – 8 Jan 1928. Throughout the dissertation, I will refer to the letters by the “1/1/1” type designations. For the sake of specificity and ease of reference, I will refer to the letters by their dates as referenced in the archive. Undated letters will be identified as such. Previous works referencing the Harrison archive refers to “box numbers”; the new cataloging has superseded the box number system.

III. Archival Bias Mary Beard has written about the Jane Harrison collection in the Newnham College and her caution about archival work is well taken, “No archive is neutral; every document saved is always saved by choice, and every choice is a loaded one” (Invention of Jane Harrison 157). Beard argues that the Jane Harrison known in the scholarly literature grew first from a set of myths cultivated by Harrison in her autobiography and that Jessie Stewart and Hope Mirrlees 3 further shaped the myth as they decided which material found its way into the Newnham Archive and which did not. As Beard sees it, these myths were then picked up in the scholarship that followed (129-160). The bias of the archive is an important aspect that must be considered; however, this study depends much more heavily on Harrison’s own words in her personal letters than on the story created by the archive. In fact, in many ways this is a study of what has been left out of the previous studies and downplayed in the archive, and with what Harrison herself hid within her writings in the form of symbols and irony. Although it is true that Stewart and Mirrlees may have deliberately held back items from the archive, the number of recipients of letters, the number of letters, and the time span of the letters is ample to provide enough samples for a study of Harrison’s High Church affiliations. In addition, some additional letters housed at the British Library will also be discussed. There exists another bias in archival research—the bias of the researcher. Items from an archive do present unique problems because their interpretation is not merely an 3

Stewart and Mirrlees were two of Harrison’s students at Newnham and became lifelong friends with her. Harrison spent her last years living with Mirrlees.

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analytical process; reading personal letters and scraps of paper with fading ink resurrects lives—long-since silenced voices speak again and tell of long forgotten feuds, academic battles, college gossip. Personalities come alive and the passage of time becomes eclipsed as years pass silently within an afternoon of archival research. An exchange of letters between Frances Darwin Cornford and Eric Gill contained in The Cornford Collection at the British Library provides an excellent example (Add 58424, ff21. British lib). Gill has written a long and rather eloquent letter to Cornford about a paper her husband had presented to the Heretic Society. In the span of time it takes to read Gill’s beautiful handwritten letter, the reader feels as if he or she has gotten to know him, at least a bit. Just a few pages later, however, suddenly and jarringly a letter of condolence from Cornford to Gill’s widow appears. Intellectually, of course, one knows that these people have long been dead, but reading their letters made them seem so recently alive and vibrant. And, of course, this is representative of one of the problems of archival research; the researcher needs to become involved in the subjects’ lives, learn the intricacies of their writing styles, learn to interpret their handwriting, recognize irony and humor, and try to discern when as Freud would say a “cigar is only a cigar.” On the other hand, the researcher also needs to maintain an objective distance and be able to evaluate evidence with a nonbiased eye.

IV. Conclusion This study will focus on a narrow aspect of Harrison’s life—her involvement with the High Church Movement and how that is reflected in her letters and autobiography and in her writings on Greek religion. A concentration on any one area of Harrison’s life will, by its very nature, push other aspects of her life into the background. The intent is not to argue that the High Church was the only force behind her work but that it was an important influence that needs to be considered when evaluating Harrison, her life, and her work.

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TIMELINE OF JANE HARRISON’S LIFE Yorkshire 1850─1867 1850 •

Born in Cottingham on September 9

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Mother, Elizabeth Nelson Harrison, dies from puerperal fever a few weeks afterwards.

1855 •

Father, Charles Harrison, marries the governess, Gemini Meredith

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Attends Evangelical services at St. Laurence in Scalby

1867 •

Meets Mr. Houseman, the High Church curate at Scalby’ and “reacts into High Churchism”

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Attends church at St. Martin’s on the Hill, the High Church in Scarborough

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Stepmother discovers love affair with Houseman and sends Harrison to Cheltenham Ladies College

_________________________________________________________________ Cheltenham Ladies College 1867-1870 1867 •

Arrives at Cheltenham Ladies College

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Studies under the very High Church Dorothea Beale

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Attends Sacramental Lessons under Miss Beale

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Reads Life of Archbishop Laud

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Attends High Church Services at Prestbury

1870 • Completes studies at Cheltenham • Takes London matriculation test _________________________________________________________________

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Wales and Yorkshire 1870-1874 1870 • Goes to Wales where the family has relocated to teach her siblings • Returns with family to Scalby in Yorkshire 1871 •

Turns 21 and begins receiving an annuity left to her by her mother

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Goes to Europe for the first time with a retired governess from Scarborough

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Takes the University of London exam for women

Circa 1873 •

Cuts off relationship with Dorothea Beale

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Reads Strauss; becomes an agnostic

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Becomes friends with Janie Skene Bruce, who is from a very prominent High Church family and is the sister in law of William Thomson, the Archbishop of York

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Writes High Church poem “Three in One”

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Reads Bishop Butler

________________________________________________________________________ Newnham College, Cambridge 1874-1879 1874 •

Arrives at Newnham College, Cambridge

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Attends one of the two High Churches in Cambridge―All Saints or St. Clement’s

1875-1876 •

Returns to Scalby to nurse her sister Jessie who died on April 23 from appendicitis

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Is photographed wearing an Anglo-Catholic cross

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Returns to Newnham 12

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Breaks up her romance with H.S. Butcher

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Writes only extent letter from second year at Newnham

1879 •

Sits for Tripos at Newnham

Oxford/London 1880-1889 1880 •

Briefly lived in Oxford and taught Latin and Greek for one semester at Oxford High School

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Moves to London, teaches at Notting Hill High School

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Begins to study art and archaeology at British Museum under Charles Newton

1881 •

Studies Greek vases in Germany

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Visits Italy and Greece with Mable Malleson, Henry Butcher, and his wife Rose Trench

1882 •

Returns to London

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Begins “perambulating” lectures on art at the British Museum

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Begins lecturing in London and throughout England

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Publishes Myths of the Art and Odyssey in Literature and dedicates the book to Janie Bruce

1883 •

Performs the part of Penelope in The Tale of Troy (performed in ancient Greek)

1885 •

Publishes Introductory Studies in Greek Art

1886 •

Travels to Russia

1888 13

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Travels to Greece with MacColl and others

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Applies for Yates Professorship of Classical Archaeology at the University College, London; does not get job

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Publishes Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens: Being a Translation of a Portion of the ‘Attica’ of Pausanias. Margaret Verrall did the translation and Harrison wrote the Introduction and Commentary

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Henning Parr, vicar of St. Martin’s dies; Harrison writes letter to MacColl from Yorkshire the week of Parr’s funeral

1894 •

Father dies

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Charles Newton dies

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Close friend Eleanor Butcher dies

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Publishes Greek Vase Paintings with D.S. MacColl

1895 •

Travels again to Greece

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Spends summer in France with MacColl, his sister, and Roger Frye

1896 •

Becomes the first woman to receive an honorary LL.D. from University of Aberdeen (1895)

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Spends summer in France with MacColl, his sister, and Roger Frye, again

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Applies again for and is turned down for the Yates Professorship Activities in London with no specific year recorded

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Attends Stepford Brooke’s Broad Church services; is offered a pew and refuses

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Attends early morning mass at the ritualistic High Church on St. Margaret Street to try to get a glimpse of Christina Rossetti

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Becomes friends with Walter Pater, an avid ritualistic

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Becomes friends with Edward Burne-Jones who designed the 14

westernmost window at St. Martin’s-on-the-Hill that illustrates the legend of SS Dorothea and Theophilus

____________________________________________________________ Newnham College, Cambridge 1898-1922 1898 •

Returns to Newnham College with a research position; gives one lecture per week

•

Awarded the first Associate Research Fellowship at Newnham

Circa 1899 •

Becomes friends with Francis MacDonald Cornford

1900 •

Meets Gilbert and Lady Mary Murray

•

Meets Jessie Crum, (Jessie Stewart)

•

Goes on an extended tour of Greece and Italy; Jessie goes to Greece with her

1902 •

Newnham extends her scholarship

1903 •

Travels to Italy with Gilbert Murray to study Orphic tablets

•

Publishes Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion

1904 •

Travels to Algeria with A.W. Verrall and his wife, Margaret

•

Goes to Surrey with Cornford (July)

1905 •

Travels to Athens for conference with Cornford

•

Spends long vacation in Teckenham with Cornford

•

Publishes The Religion of Ancient Greece

1906 •

Travels to France with Cornford (July) 15

•

Sees the Vierge du Pilier at Chartres (July)

•

Returns to Chartres in September for the festival of the Birth of the Virgin Mary

1908 •

Introduces Francis Cornford to Frances Darwin, daughter of her late friend Ellen Crofts Darwin

1909 •

Cornford and Darwin marry

•

Harrison begins to suffer from physical and emotional problems

•

Augustus John paints portrait of Harrison, which now hangs at Newnham College

1910 •

Goes to a Swedish spa for emotional and physical treatment

•

Hope Mirrlees arrives at Newnham

1912 • Travels to Geneva to be treated for arthritis and heart problems • Is treated with electricity and serum • Publishes Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion 1913 •

Publishes Ancient Art and Ritual

1914 •

Takes various trips with Mirrlees to Paris during these years; begins to study Russian

1915 •

Publishes Alpha and Omega

1921 •

Publishes Epilegomena to the Study of Greek Religion

•

Burns letters and leaves Newnham

_________________________________________________________________

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Paris 1922-1926 1922 •

Harrison and Mirrlees move to Paris

1924 •

Publishes “Yorkshire Days,” “Cambridge and London,” and “Greece and Russia” in the Nation and Athenaeum—these will appear the next year as part of Reminiscences of a Student’s Life.

•

Meets Prince Mirsky

•

Publishes translation of The Life of the Archpriest Avvakum, By Himself from the Russian

1925 •

Attends annual session at Cistercian Abbey de Pontigny with young Christians, mystics, and metaphysicians; attends sessions on St. Paul and autobiographical writing

•

Publishes Reminiscences of a Student’s Life.

__________________________________________________________________ England 1926-1928 1925 •

Returns to England

Late 1920s •

Is photographed with Mirrlees wearing a lace mantilla like those worn to mass

1928 •

Dies from leukemia on April 15

Information compiled from Robinson, Stewart, Peacock, and sources from the Newnham Archive.

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CHAPTER 1 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Introduction

The literature on Jane Ellen Harrison’s work is extensive and stretches across a wide array of academic fields including mythology, women’s education, sociology, feminism, archaeology, gender studies, art, and literature. In Shelley Arlen’s The Cambridge Ritualists: An Annotated Bibliography of the Works by and about Jane Ellen Harrison, Gilbert Murray, Francis M. Cornford, and Arthur Bernard Cook, (1990) the citations of Harrison’s critical, biographical, and miscellaneous works begin at entry 284 and end at 405 (63-79). In the 2003 Web Supplement to Arlen’s work, a significant number of entries were added. The bibliography in the Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon spans about ten pages. Many articles illustrate the influence that Harrison’s work cast over the next generation of writers including T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf. Others focus on women’s studies and address issues such as matriarchy, suffrage, lesbianism, and feminism as they relate to Harrison and her work. And of course, much of the scholarship relates to the art and archaeology and religion of the ancient world. One major area of scholarship focuses on Harrison’s intellectual pedigree, i.e., the theories that influenced her thinking with much attention being paid to Nietzsche, Sir James Frazer, William Robertson Smith, Emile Durkheim, and Henri Bergson, among others. The influence of Harrison’s own native Anglican religion, however, has been largely ignored, having been almost exclusively limited to discussions in the biographical material concerning her Evangelical upbringing. Although thorough in detailing

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Harrison’s career, these works cast only glancing blows at the subject of Victorian religion and fail to identify the importance of Harrison’s connection to the High Church ritualistic movement so prominent in mid-to-late 19th century England. The biographical material features two full-blown biographies, The Mask and the Self by Sandra Peacock (1988) and The Life and Work of Jane Ellen Harrison (2002) by Annabel Robinson; a narrated collection of letters, A Portrait from Letters by Jessie Stewart (1959); and a book detailing a small portion of Harrison’s life in London, The Invention of Jane Ellen Harrison (2000) by Mary Beard. The entry on Harrison in Classical Scholarship: A Biographical Encyclopedia (Schlesier 1990) glosses over the intricacies of Victorian religion as do the four articles that focus on religion: “Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion” by Renate Schlesier (1991); “An Awful Warmth about Her Heart. The Personal in Jane Harrison's Ideas on Religion” (1991) by Peacock; “Jane Ellen Harrison’s Contribution to the Study of Religion” (1994) by Burnside; and to a lesser extent as far as religion is concerned “For Love of an Idea: Jane Ellen Harrison, Heretic and Humanist” (1996) by Arlen. Although two works mention the term “High Church” in connection to Miss Beale at Cheltenham, there exists no study to explain what significance this might have had. Nor are the references to John Henry Newman’s autobiography questioned, although two authors mention it. This first chapter will provide a survey of both the intellectual and personal influences that have been credited in the development of Harrison’s religious thought. The chapter will begin by examining the broad cultural and intellectual influences that were afoot in the 19th century study of Greek myth and then move to a much more narrow view to focus on Harrison, her life, and her religious and ritualistic influences. A separate section will be devoted to examining the critical literature on Reminiscences of a Student’s Life, Harrison’s autobiography. Therefore, this chapter will be divided into five sections: I. A short overview of the study of Greek myth and religion in Victorian England. II. An analysis of the earliest scholarship on Harrison—I will examine Jessie Stewart’s A Portrait from Letters (1959) and Robert Ackerman’s The Myth and Ritual

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School 1 (1991) along with another work by Ackerman, “Origins and Composition” (1991). III. A review of the three biographies. IV. A survey of the articles that specifically deal with Harrison and religion. V. A review of the various views on Harrison’s autobiography.

I. The Study of Greek Myth and Religion in Victorian England

Frank Turner’s The Greek Heritage in Victorian Britain details the evolution of the Victorian study of Greek myth and how that study laid the foundation for Harrison’s work on ritualism. The Greek Heritage in Victorian Britain by Turner Turner argues that a combination of elements, including a willingness to critically analyze Greek mythology, the advent of archaeology, and the premiere of the comparative folklore method of James G. Frazer, set the stage for Harrison’s work (121). Turner’s work illustrates how the Victorians molded their interpretation of Greek myth, religion, and politics to reflect their own interests and their own values. Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy is cited as an example of the tendency to interpret other cultures as being identical to their own, “Arnold’s Hebrews were not Jews but rather contemporary English Protestant Noncomformists” (21). According to Turner, the Greeks became Victorians in all but name. Turner quotes J.P. Mahaffy a scholar from Trinity College in Dublin who said, “If one of us were transported to Periclean Athens, provided he were a man of high culture, he would find life and manners strangely like our own, strangely modern, as he might term it” (10). This interpretation helps illustrate how the overlap that this dissertation suggests between Harrison’s professional and personal interest in Greek ritual was in keeping with her culture.

1

Although The Myth and Ritual School was published in 1991, it is essentially the same (with some slight text modification and additions) as Ackerman’s 1969 dissertation, The Cambridge Group and the Origins of Myth Criticism. Because this book is much more readily available than the dissertation, it is being used as a source rather than the dissertation.

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Myth and Religion. Very pertinent to the background of Harrison’s work is how Greek myth and religion were analyzed and viewed. Turner discusses the British tendency, not only to overlook the more brutal parts of the myths but to disregard their religious nature and interpret them merely as stories with very little critical analysis. European intellectuals had begun to critically analyze Greek and Roman mythology and the history of Christian church in the late 17th century and when this method reached England, it opened up previously-closed avenues of interpretation for both myth and Christianity (83). Turner relates “not until anthropologists began to study primitive myths late in the century did Victorian commentators consider the genuinely religious character of the Greek mythical narratives” (80). Importantly, Turner notes that when the Victorians did come to realize that the Greek myths contained religious thought, they considered it with great care, recognizing “that what they said about Greek myths and religious experience might bear directly on Christianity and the moral and intellectual life derived from it” (83). The general critical view of Harrison’s theories very much reflects this attitude with most scholars suggesting that her interpretation of Greek myth and ritual served as a personal vendetta against Christianity. Until about 1875, the study of myth and religion was based primarily upon “literary sources, ancient sculpture, and surviving coins” (115). The advent of archaeology and the turn to anthropology as a way to describe and understand the myths, Turner believes, was paramount in importance to Harrison’s work. Turner relates how she studied vases and other pottery at the British Museum and used them as sources to investigate Greek religion. Daily life and rituals were often depicted on the pottery and Harrison drew upon these for a new interpretation of Greek religion. She also, Turner states, drew “often uncritically from Nietzsche, Durkheim, Bergson and others associated with turn-of-the century revolt against positivism” (123). Anthropology. Andrew Lang, Turner writes, was the first to employ the science of anthropology to myth and religion, applying the comparative folklore method to Greek mythology (117). The work that welded anthropology and classics, however, was The Golden Bough. Here Frazer took Dionysus “the happy god of the vine” and turned him into a god who “was consumed by ecstatic votaries” (119); Harrison and Murray would, Turner suggests, pick up this interpretation.

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Ritual. Turner also notes very specific influences upon Jane Harrison—that of the “biblical critic William Robertson Smith,” Émile Durkheim, Fustel de Coulanges who had emphasized the religious basis of Greek society, and Wilhelm Mannhardt who before Frazer had written about rituals and cults (121). Robertson Smith’s Lectures on the Religion of the Semites was, in particular, a large influence on Harrison, as he argued that the people of the Old Testament had no theology but relied on ritual. The emphasis was not on saving the soul but toward “preserving the well-being of the society” (122). According to Turner, Harrison adapted Robertson Smith’s “philosophy of religion to the study of Greek myth and ritual. What had been true of ancient Hebraism became true for ancient Hellenism” (122). Absent from Turner’s discussion is any mention of Victorian religion and how it may have shaped attitudes and lives. He does mention John Henry Newman as participating in an “idyllic” view of Greece (41), but does not connect Harrison to Newman.

II. Jessie Stewart and Robert Ackerman

Jessie Stuart’s A Portrait from Letters (1959), and Robert Ackerman’s various works have helped to shape the story of Harrison and her attitude toward religion and life as it has been told up to this point. Stewart, and Ackerman who relies heavily upon Stewart, set the tone for the later biographers in determining the major themes, influences, and even what come to be considered turning points in Harrison’s life. A Portrait from Letters by Jessie Stewart Background on Stewart’s Text. The first published biographical work on Harrison, A Portrait from Letters was written by Jessie Crum Stewart, Harrison’s student and long-time friend. As the title implies, the book is more a narrated collection of letters, which allow the reader to glimpse Harrison in her day-to-day life, rather than a biography. Gilbert Murray’s advice to Stewart was well taken, “There are far too many biographies. They imply a sort of attempt to make eternal a thing that is really transient. What you want to give is the impression of a character very completely and in a form that

22

can be remembered” (Stewart xi). Throughout the book, Stewart acts as a narrator and moves it along by adding context to the published letters. Within this narrative, Stewart provides information concerning Harrison’s life, and like most of the critical scholarship, she focuses on the particulars of Harrison’s major works. As she admits, she has ignored Murray in this respect, “One piece of advice I fear I have partially disregarded: not to go into Jane’s doctrine in detail” (xiii). And the book very much reflects that comment—the letters are chosen and narrative written to accommodate and highlight Harrison’s “doctrines.” Some caveats do exist in using Stewart’s text. She, along with Mirrlees collaborated (up to a point 2 ) on which letters to include in the book and which to exclude, which did, as Beard suggests, lend a certain bias to the book. To compound the problem, only Harrison’s side of the correspondences is extent. As Stewart notes: The eight hundred letters preserved by Lady Mary Murray supply the gaps in Jane’s Reminiscences and give a vividly human portrait. Unfortunately Jane made a holocaust of letters and papers when she left Cambridge in 1922. So it is a onesided story but it is none the less revealing of both correspondents (12). And there is another caveat to keep in mind: for unknown reasons whether accidental or otherwise, Stewart edited some of the letters themselves; numerous letters as they appear in the archive do not match the letters as they are published in Stewart’s book. 3 And as Stewart relates, the letters were also edited by Murray before publication because he felt that Harrison may have been too enthusiastic in his praise, “He deprecated adulation and his blue pencil marks have deprived this volume of some of its jewels, especially when the Euripides translations were appearing in rapid succession from 1903 onwards” (xiii). Harrison’s Religious Views. Concerning Harrison’s personal religious views, most of the pertinent material comes early in the book in the Introductory section. First, is Stewart’s description of Harrison’s stepmother, which came from Harrison’s autobiography and has become the beginning and end for all subsequent discussion on Harrison’s personal religious views. To quote Stewart: 2

For a full discussion of the sometimes-contentious process involved between Stewart and Mirrlees in collaborating on Harrison’s biography see Peacock, Mask and Self, 245-248. 3 Since the letters in this dissertation are taken directly from Harrison’s letters as they appear in the archives, a close reader may notice discrepancies between the letters as they appear here and in Stewart’s book.

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She never lost the scar caused by her father’s remarriage. His three little girls were left in the charge of a voluble Welsh lady, as governess, later to become their stepmother. She was a fervent semi-Revivalist and saw to it that their religious education was not neglected. Jane describes her Sabbath: two Sunday schools, two services, two sermons committed to memory, Latin and Greek texts to follow prayers and lessons (5). However, there is another statement that has been overlooked. Stewart remarks that Harrison’s father was, “a silent serious man with deep prejudices: against Rome, against ritual, against noise, against all things modern” (5). This statement provides an important insight into the Harrison household: the phrase “against Rome” did not refer to the city of Rome nor did “against ritual” refer to Harrison’s writings on ancient ritual. As I will discuss in Chapter 3, these references almost certainly refer to young Jane Harrison’s High Church proclivities. And, it is interesting to note that in Peacock’s book, for reasons unknown, the phrase has been changed to read “against Rome, against noise, against all things modern” (7) with “against ritual” being totally expunged even though she cites page 5 of Stewart’s book. Stewart reproduces a letter written to Gilbert Murray in September 1912, in which Harrison claims to have had a “conversion.” A dramatic letter, written when Harrison suffered a near breakdown due to Francis Cornford’s marriage to Frances Darwin, it is one of only two letters to which subsequent scholars have pointed when discussing Harrison’s religion. Stewart calls it Harrison’s “ mystic experience” and credits it with having been the spark of an essay entitled “Unanimism and Conversion.” Stewart relates that the paper on “Conversion” and the letter “coincide with a period of intense study of religious thought.” In 1908 Stewart remarks that Harrison “retired wounded, after physical and mental strain” to Aldeburgh “laden with books” including William James’s Psychology and Varieties of Religious Experience, von Hugel’s Christian Mysticism, and a German book on Aberglaube. During this time, Stewart describes Harrison as “soaked in religion and Biblical language” (115). The other letter relates a crisis, which Harrison supposedly suffered 25 year earlier and which Stewart termed “a similar conversion.” In a series of letters written in November 1887, after receiving a sharp rebuke from D.S. McColl regarding her lecturing

24

style, Stewart relates that Harrison describes a “time of deep depression, of remorse and failure followed by ‘a flood of light’ and ‘a Holy Peace’ (115). The result of this letter, according to Stewart, was a dramatic change in her focus, moving from art to an emphasis on religion. This, along with the Cornford letter becomes one of the two “religious” experiences to which later biographers will point in discussions of her religion. 4 Influences. As Harrison’s student, Stewart was strategically positioned to detail the works that were important in Harrison’s work. Three books that were prescribed for Stewart’s preparatory work for the Classical Tripos were Roberson Smith’s Religion of the Semites, Maine’s Ancient Law, and Hermann Oldenberg’s Kultus und Mythus. Stewart remarks: Later I realised their importance and that she had found them fundamental in her own work. From Robertson Smith’s splendid blaze of imagination came the explanation of sacrifice and the communal character of primitive religion. Oldenburg, the Buddhist Scholar, showed how myth arose out of cult; and Sir Henry Maine , . . is still the standard authority on Ancient Law and the “Themistes” . . .(14). Stewart also recognizes the influence of Durkheim stating that the subtitle that Harrison chose for Themis (A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion) indicates the debt of the group to Emile Durkheim who had sent them back to “Social structure.” He had, Jane wrote, ‘formulated perhaps the greatest discovery yet made in the scientific study of religion, its social origin.’ (85). Stewart remarks, “To their conclusions Jane owed the conception underlying Themis, that religion and philosophy are part and parcel of man’s social life and must be studied in their origins” (86). Bergson, Stewart credits for the contrast Harrison made between the Mystery Gods and the Olympians. Stewart relates that Harrison associated Dionysos and the mystery religions with Bergson’s concept of durée, which Harrison defined as a continuous ever changing stream in the life of man (91). On the other hand, the Olympian gods for Harrison were static, unchanging and man made.

4

These two letters are reproduced in Appendix A, accompanied by a different view on their importance and interpretation.

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The Work of Robert Ackerman Robert Ackerman, in a very literal sense, can be considered the father of the critical scholarship on the Cambridge Ritualists. In “By Myth Begotten” a 2001 review of Beard’s book, The Invention of Jane Harrison, Ackerman acknowledges, “As far as the ‘resurrection of Jane’ is concerned, I am the principal creator, or mythmaker, of the received view that Beard is attacking” (70). Ackerman further states that when he wrote his 1969 dissertation, material on classical scholarship was distinctly lacking and that “from the lack of competing voices as much as anything else, I tended to take Harrison’s and her friends’ accounts more or less at face value, and in so doing ‘innocently’ created the account of Harrison that has more or less occupied the field ever since” (70). Ackerman has written extensively on the Cambridge Ritualists and this section will examine The Myth and Ritual School and “The Cambridge Group: Origins and Composition” (1991). The Myth and Ritual School. This is the definitive source of the intellectual influences on the Cambridge Ritualists. Ackerman begins with a chapter entitled the Eighteenth Century—Rationalism and Reaction and traces influences through the nineteenth century. The chapter titles are illustrative of their content: Chapter 2: Romantic Historicism and Philology; Chapter 3: The Rise of Anthropology: Lang, Tylor, and Smith; Chapter 4: J.G. Frazer; Chapter 5: Jane Ellen Harrison: The Early Work; Chapter 6: Jane Ellen Harrison and the Cambridge Ritualists; Chapter 7: Years of Achievement—1912-1914; and Chapter 8: Aftermath. In Chapter 3 Ackerman outlines the work of three scholars whom he considers to be the major influences on Harrison: Andrew Lang, Edward Burnett Tylor, and William Robertson Smith, whom Ackerman describes as the “founding fathers of British anthropology” (30). Ackerman relates the battle between Max Müller, who thought that mythology was the result of a “disease of language” of the Aryan people, and Lang who believed that myth represented a stage in human cultural evolution. Next, he discusses Tylor’s view of “survivals”—that some objects or attitudes that had a particular purpose in one developmental stage become obsolete or misunderstood in the next stage, i.e., “the magician’s rattle and the warrior’s bow and arrow” became children’s toys (38).

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Last is a discussion of Robertson Smith’s belief that primitive religion was composed of rituals, not creeds. Here Ackerman makes a very interesting observation about the personal religion of William Robertson Smith: More immediately, it was Smith who placed the study of ritual in primitive religion in the forefront of scholarly consciousness by arguing that the rite in antiquity took the place of creed. This was all the more remarkable in that Smith was brought up in the puritanical Free Church of Scotland, which had denigrated, more than most of British Protestantism, the importance of ritual as “Romish,” and therefore the work of the devil (43). Since Harrison conjectured the same point, perhaps even before she read Robertson Smith, one wonders why her own personal religion has not been more closely examined. Ackerman’s observation about Robertson Smith’s religion points to how differently Harrison’s work might have been interpreted had she been considered part of the AngloCatholic “Romish” community, instead of the Evangelical one. For this dissertation, Chapter 5 Jane Ellen Harrison: The Early Work 5 is the most important. Ackerman discusses some aspects of Harrison’s personal life, and as he admits, follows Stewart’s prototype very closely. Calling the Harrison family an “uppermiddle-class Nonconformist family” (67), he relates the story of her childhood and her time at Cheltenham in one paragraph. The main storyline for his version of her life is that “Miss Harrison was, at every period of her adult life, always connected in a deeply emotional way with some male scholar of superior philological attainments who acted as a technical adviser and, just as importantly, as an essential emotional support” (68). Ackerman believes that the reason the group came together was that “Jane Harrison had a need for making passionate intellectual friendships” (68). He states that the “evidence for this interpretation of Miss Harrison’s life is abundant but difficult to summarize,” citing Stewart’s book and the letters to Gilbert Murray (69). Following Stewart’s storyline he relates that around 1887, Harrison passed through a profound crisis, which “seems to have toppled’ her whole life as she went through a “kind of ‘mystical’ conversion.” To quote:

5

This chapter was published in a slightly different version in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies in 1972.

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Such an experience, so typical of the nineteenth century, has as its characteristic rhythm ‘depression, loneliness, a sense of disaster bringing a ‘conviction of sin,’ which leads without the conscious intervention of the will, to ‘exaltation, peace, and joy, a new focus, a sensation of oneness’ (79). He adds, “. . . it suffices to note it as the watershed after which everything is new and different” (79). Ackerman believes that this experience, this “new birth through which she went was in fact a rite de passage, a death and rebirth, which she would come to understand in Themis as the paradigmatic Greek religious ritual” (80-81). Most importantly, Ackerman must be credited for understanding that ritual represented a very personal aspect of her life: Nevertheless, her scholarly work and her personal life were inextricably interwoven in a way that is rare for most intellectuals. And I have no doubt that she later embraced initiation and rebirth as enthusiastically as she did because her own experience must have given her the subjective feeling of ‘rightness’ that she apparently needed before making an idea completely her own (81). “The Cambridge Group: Origins and Composition.” As the name implies, this lecture from the Oldfather Conference, is a discussion of how the Cambridge Ritualists came to work together, who exactly was part of the group, and who influenced them. Ackerman believes the group consisted of Harrison, Gilbert Murray, A.B. Cook, and Francis Cornford. Naming William Robertson Smith as the starting place for the intellectual history of the Cambridge Ritualists, Ackerman wonders how and why Robertson Smith came to reject the “dominant rationalist assumptions of British historiography of religion” (5). Part of the answer he suggests is related to Robertson Smith’s “own religious position” (5). Ackerman then discusses the religious backgrounds of the members of the group: It cannot be a coincidence that most of the major writers on mythology, ancient religion, and folklore in late Victorian Britain came from non-Church of England families. For intellectuals, the experience of growing up outside the Established Church may in itself have predisposed some of them to adopt a critical viewpoint

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about religion at a moment when they felt compelled to take sides in the great battle between science and faith (5). An accompanying footnote, 10, identifies Harrison as a Baptist (in the earlier article he had merely identified her as Noncomformist); however, nothing in the letters or autobiography indicates that Harrison’s family was anything other than Low Church Anglican. Robertson Smith, Ackerman believes, remained a believing Christian although a “sophisticated kind.” Further, he states that Robertson Smith was not at war with Christianity and had a sense of the “communal basis of religion and the many social and emotional needs that it fulfills” (5). Harrison, according to Ackerman, was greatly influenced by Robertson Smith’s ideas but that she was trending toward a ritualistic/mythic persuasion before she read Robertson Smith. Ackerman quotes a passage from Harrison’s introduction to her book entitled Myths and Monuments in which she said, “My belief is that in many, even in the large majority of cases, ritual practice misunderstood explains the elaboration of myth. . . (qtd. in Ackerman 7). Ackerman argues: This is not to argue that the publication of Myths and Monuments marks the start of ritualism, which was the result of a lengthy and complex scholarly interaction, but rather that, for the rare person who is ready, willing and able actually to see what is in front of her, as she was in Athens in 1888, personal experience is a more powerful solvent to old ideas that any book (7). This is exactly the argument that this dissertation will make; Harrison’s personal experiences with ritual in the High Church were the impetus for her life’s work. Ackerman, discussing Harrison’s personal life, emphasizes the stepmother: “Because her own childhood was made miserable by a hateful Calvinistic stepmother, and because she possessed a naturally caustic wit, Harrison was always ready to laugh at religious cant and hypocrisy, so prevalent in late Victorian Britain” (12). Also noted is Harrison’s “capacity for transcendent experience” with a reference to Harrison’s 1912 “mystical” letter about her “conversion” (12) first promulgated by Stewart.

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On a broader level, Ackerman lists five long-range influences upon the Cambridge Ritualists: 1) “the 150-year long romantic investigation of the unconscious mind”; 2) “the end-of-century scramble for colonies among the imperial powers” from which mounds of ethnographic information were generated; 3) the “demythologization of the classics”; 4) the “nineteenth-century passion for seeking out origins”; and 5) “the triumph of evolution (usually understood as progress), both as intellectual method and cultural metaphor” (4).

III. The Biographical Literature

This next section will examine the biographical material on Harrison starting with Peacock’s, The Mask and the Self, followed by Robinson’s The Life and Work of Jane Ellen Harrison; Beard’s Invention of Jane Harrison, and Renate Schlesier s entry in Classical Scholarship: A Biographical Dictionary. The Mask and the Self by Sandra Peacock Harrison’s Stepmother and Evangelical Influences. The Mask and the Self (1988) draws its title from Peacock’s belief that Harrison “skillfully, albeit unconsciously, designed a persona with which to protect herself from the world” (4-5). Peacock’s book is a prime example of how Harrison’s evangelical background has been used to explain her life story. As a Freudian study, Peacock heavily stresses how Harrison was affected by her stepmother and in particular her stepmother’s evangelical religion. This influence, Peacock believes, affected Harrison throughout her life and was the catalyst for Harrison’s study of the irrational side of Greek religion. To quote, “Its effect became apparent decades later, when Jane turned her attention to the wild emotion of the Greek chthonic cults, Gemimi’s [the stepmother] religious fervor having contributed to her passion for the emotional element of religion” (15). Again, in discussing a quote from Harrison’s Myths of the Odyssey, concerning the “doctrinal impulse which besets mankind to people hell with horrors,” Peacock notes, “Ever mindful of her stepmother's rigid Evangelicalism, Jane knew firsthand of this irrestible impulse” (77). And again: But the legacy of her early evangelical training, which made her dimly aware of

30

the emotional potential of the religious impulse, piqued her interest. Myths of the Odyssey offers glimpses of topics that later consumed Jane's work. She had not quite overcome the shackles of the rational side of her stepmother's religion nor fully opened herself up to the mysteries of ancient religious experience. But the work foreshadows her later focus of the importance of group experience in religion and the primacy of the irrational (81). Even Harrison’s interest in the aesthetic movement is attributed to evangelicalism, “Aestheticism appealed greatly to a young woman raised in a strict evangelical household, who rebelled throughout her life against the drabness and formlessness of her stepmother's religion” (69). Themis is also attributed in part to her stepmother’s religion: “All the demons of her past rose up before her, and in asserting the primacy of emotion she took on her stepmothers' rigid evangelicalism, the implacability of positivistic science, and the conventions that prohibited Victorian society from acknowledging the power of love, hate, and anger” (195). High Church and Ritualism. Interestingly enough, Peacock also provides some clues to Harrison’s ties to the High Church, particularly in regards to her years at Cheltenham College for Women. Peacock relates that Harrison was sent to Cheltenham because it was a “favourite abode of the strictest sect of the Evangelicals” (25). The headmistress was Dorothea Beale who to quote Peacock, “Some parents and staff opposed her . . . finding her ‘too intellectual, not genial enough in manner, too 'High Church'” (26). Although Peacock doesn’t realize it, she describes Beale in an unmistakably High Church fashion with the following quote: She envisioned a community of women scholars, ‘an order of teachers, a dedicated sisterhood vowed to a life of austerity and self-denial.’ The unmistakably religious image of educated women as sort of a cloistered sect reverberated in some of Jane's later writings, and she found herself cast into just such a milieu in 1868 (26). In addition, Peacock relates the story of how Harrison had kept up a correspondence with her old governess, Miss Cook. Miss Cook upon hearing of some of Harrison’s scripture lessons became alarmed because "she began to suspect Miss Beale's orthodoxy" because she was "tending toward Ritualism." (28). Oddly though, Peacock makes no attempt to

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try to explain what ritualism meant in this context. When Harrison left Cheltenham, Peacock relates that she read Strauss’s Life of Jesus and it shook her faith completely (28). This interest in Strauss’s book, which portrayed Christ as a “mystical representation,” Peacock believes, “shows how early she turned to ritual and mythology” (28). Around this time, Harrison also experienced a sudden break with Miss Beale, which Peacock attributes to Miss Beale’s “religious bias” because it had become to resemble that quality in her stepmother (29). Intellectual influences. Commenting on Frazer, Peacock notes that Harrison “took his work several steps farther…finding in the religious impulse and its expression in ritual the center of that experience” (3). In addition she also credits William Robertson Smith and Edward Burnett Tylor as influences upon Harrison’s thinking. Nietzsche is credited with the concept of duality of rational and irrational, Bachofen with the theory of matriarchy in Prolegomena, and Durkheim and Bergson are cited as influences for Themis (181-182). Life and Work by Annabel Robinson Harrison and religion. Robinson’s biography is a very thorough treatment of Harrison’s life. While sharing Peacock’s emphasis on Harrison’s stepmother Robinson does delve more deeply into how Harrison’s theories may have been affected by her personal life. Concerning the stepmother, Robinson states, “Jane repudiated her stepmother's fundamentalism with an antipathy of astonishing force. Her friends later in life remarked that this was the only area in which she was totally irrational” (23). Continuing in this vein, Robinson describes Harrison during the Newnham years, “More than anything else at this period of her life Harrison sought an emotional release from the weight of her religious upbringing. Poems like Swinburne's “Hymn to Proserpine” gave a voice to her experiment with unbelief and excited her to ecstasy by its rhythms” (51). Like Peacock, Robinson notes the High Church element in Miss Beale’s teaching but does not realize the connection between the High Church and ritual, “Miss Beale was known to be something of a mystic, with High Church sympathies and an interest in theosophy. Her esoteric interpretation of the Scriptures sent Jane "nearly crazy with excitement” (28). After Harrison left Cheltenham, Robinson relates how Harrison read

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Strauss’s Life of Jesus and “rejected Christianity once and for all” (30). This agnostic progression was, according to Robinson, completed around 1898 when Harrison “lost the last flicker of any personal faith” after reading Mannhardt (117). Anglican Influence. Robinson does acknowledge, however, that Harrison’s Anglican religion remained a strong influence throughout her life, albeit a muted one. Writing about Harrison’s rigorous religious training, she observes: The effect of this regime was curious. If it failed in its intent as spiritual formation, it succeeded in imprinting on Jane's memory the language and thought forms of the Prayer Book and Authorized Version. The music of their rhythm and cadences formed her writing style, and even their thought forms can be traced, subverted, in all her work (24). The letters to Murray, she describes as being “alive with metaphor, much of it from the Bible she had memorized as a child, and which still lived in her imagination long after she had rejected its teaching” (129). Intellectual influences. Robinson cites Nietzsche, Wilhelm Mannhardt, J.G. Frazer, J.J. Bachofen, Minoan and Mycenaean archaeology, and the latest in psychology, sociology, and anthropology as influences (8). Concerning the interest in ritual she notes two books by Harrison’s friend, D.S. MacColl which she believes “are worth nothing for their concern with ritual and foreshadowing of her later work”: “The Festival of the Aiora” and “On the meaning of the Term Arrephoroi.” Robinson notes that MacColl, like Newton, Harrison’s mentor at the British Museum, was interested in how ancient ritual had survived among the rural people of Greece (102). Influence from Rohde is also surmised: his conception of spirituality became a model for her own, and parallel to her writing on the religion of the Greeks can be discerned the development of a personal spiritual quest, which for the rest of her life she sought to bring into line with the latest in sociological and psychological research. At this particular juncture, Rohde’s exposition of asceticism resonated with the emotional void of her experience (112). Ritual. Robinson discusses the influence that D.S. MacColl had on Harrison’s turn to ritual. She discusses the letters between Harrison and MacColl, which caused Harrison’s

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“crisis” and relates that MacColl felt some responsibility for the disruption of her lecturing career and sought to help her find new employment; ultimately, Robinson believes, she turned to ritual under the influence of MacColl who “was interested in the survival of ancient ritual in present-day rites” of rural people in 19th century Greece 103). Robinson also emphasizes throughout the book Harrison’s definition of ritual: what people do to their god as opposed to what they believe. To quote Robinson, “She was able to weave a number of different strands into one thread: her conviction that religion consists primarily in what people do rather than what they believe’ and that art is no ‘handmaid’ of literature but develops independently (8). Again, Robinson states Harrison’s belief that: Religion grows, then, not out of primitive thinking but out of primitive feeling and acting. Is it then only a delusion? No, because religion may be the only way of apprehending things that can not be put into language without distortion, things that have to be felt and lived (210). Robinson also is only one of two authors to note that Harrison alludes to John Henry Newman’s autobiography. Discussing Harrison’s use of the phrase, “apologia pro haeresi mea” used in a letter to Gilbert,” Robinson adds this footnote, “The Latin is a pun on Apologia pro Vita Sua, the title of John Henry Newman’s autobiography” (196 n. 37). Robinson also seems to sense that ritual has a personal connection to Harrison. In a discussion of an article entitled “The Pillar and the Maiden” in which Harrison describes a rite she has witnessed at Chartres, Robinson writes: She loved the sheer persistence of certain practices down through time. She loved the irrationality of these rituals; the fact that people who perform them, though they have no idea why they do what they do, are, in fact maintaining a living contact with their ancestors (192). The Invention of Jane Harrison by Mary Beard Harrison myths. Beard’s book is not a biography per se but is more a statement of Beard’s theory that Stewart and Hope Mirrlees set out to shape Harrison’s life to fit a particular narrative:

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In other words by adding to the story of Harrison, I am trying to expose it all the more clearly as a story; not as a “real life” (recoverably by careful historical effort) but as a series of competing narratives, a battleground of biography (11). She starts with what she considers to be “myths” in Harrison’s autobiography and illustrates how they have become “orthodox” in the scholarly literature. A chapter of the book is devoted to the archive in Newnham, how it was created by Stewart and Mirrlees, and the bias that exists in the archive due to the desire to make a hero out of Harrison. The bulk of the book deals with a short period in Harrison’s life—the decade of the 1890s while she lived in London and is an attempt to connect Harrison to another female classicist named Eugenie Sellers, and thus find a “different version of Harrison through Strong” (13). She argues that by focusing on ritualism, other aspects, other factors that helped shape Harrison’s life and writing have receded into the background, including her interest in archaeology and the background of archaeology as it was taught at Cambridge from the 1880s until the War. Against this backdrop Beard argues against Ackerman and Stewart’s story of Harrison’s supposed conversion in the letter to D.S. MacColl. According to Beard, “There was no ‘watershed’ after which ‘everything was new’ but an exploration around different aspects of the same subject” (127). Ritual. Beard believes that Harrison’s interest in ritual, archaeology, visual images, and religious theory was born in the archaeology section of the Classical Tripos at Cambridge. Beard points to Section D of the new Part II was a new classical archaeology component and gives as an example a paper that students were required to take in 1888 entitled, “Mythology and Ritual,” the title of which changed in 1890 to “Myth, Ritual and Religion” (126). To quote Beard: Paradoxically, perhaps, Ritualism as an idea owed its origins to the apparatus of the Classical Tripos and the institutions of the Cambridge faculty as much as it did to any dangerous feminism on Harrison’s part or the self-conscious (and selfcongratulatory) radicalism of Murray (127). Renate Schlesier: Classical Scholarship: A Biographical Encyclopedia Religious influences. Schlesier’s biography of Harrison follows the outline set out by Peacock and Stewart. She believes that the death of Harrison’s mother four weeks

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after her birth “was decisive for the dramatic course of her life and work: idealization of religious matriarchy was united with rebellion, in theory and practice, against patriarchal rule, marriage, and family” (128). Schlesier calls the stepmother “extremely mystical and puritanical” and states that Harrison’s father’s marriage to this woman predisposed her to “disappointments in love” (128). Interestingly, Schlesier notes that Cheltenham Ladies’ College “sought to inculcate the silence and self-control appropriate to a convent” (128). Like Robinson and Peacock, she notes the “High Church” aspect of Miss Beale’s Cheltenham but does not question what it might mean. And, like the other biographers, she relates that after Harrison left Cheltenham, she read Strauss’s Leben Jesu and “began to advocate an historical and mythical interpretation of the Bible,” gradually freeing herself from her Christian upbringing and becoming an agnostic (127). Staying within the framework of important events in Harrison’s life laid down by Stewart, Schlesier notes that Harrison experienced a “sort of conversion” caused by D.S. MacColl criticizing her lecturing style and discusses the “mystic” letter written after Cornford’s marriage. (136). She does, however, go against the grain by noting that Harrison was a “mystic agnostic’ (131) and “For, essentially, despite her enthusiasm for serpent-cults and archaic mysteries, she remained loyal all her life to the Puritanism of her Christian upbringing, the rationalism of the theory of evolution, and the classical ideal of Greece” (135). She writes that Themis, “is the ultimate expression of the religious experiences she had suffered through and the emotional scars she bore” (135). Intellectual Influences. Schlesier recognizes Harrison’s interest in religious ecstasy and states that it had been a preoccupation since her earliest studies of vase painting. She credits a reading of Rohde’s Psyche with this interest and states that it had brought the uniqueness of the worship of Dionysus and asceticism into her own research and led to a fascination with Rohde’s predecessor Nietzsche (132). Intellectually, Schlesier sees the influence of Burnett Tylor’s Primitive Culture (1871), which she believes Harrison used to draw analogies between other cultures and the Greeks. The influence of Karl Otfried Muller, from whom Schlesier notes that Harrison received the idea of vase painters receiving their inspiration from one common source, “local and national tradition” (129). Also credited are Durkheim’s “interpretation of religion as the

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primeval representation of collective thought and emotion” and Bergson’s “sublime conception of durée” (135). Near the end of the article, Schlesier writes “Her rebellion against educational, religious, social, and political institutions made her a lifelong outsider . . . That she was not broken by her deep-seated ambivalence toward religion and sexuality is probably due to her inexhaustible vitality; with its help she managed time and time again, in the face of numerous disappointments, to respond enthusiastically to all that was new and vivid” (139).

IV. Harrison and Religion

The critical literature that deals specifically with Jane Ellen Harrison and religion centers in large part, like the biographies, on her theories of ancient religion. However, there are pertinent sections within these articles that are related to the study of her own religion. This section will look at the four articles of this kind: “Prolegomena to Jane Harrison’s Interpretation of Ancient Greek Religion” by Renate Schlesier; “An Awful Warmth about Her Heart: The Personal in Jane Harrison’s Ideas on Religion” by Sandra Peacock; “Jane Ellen Harrison’s Contribution to the Study of Religion” by Carol Burnside, and “‘For Love of an Idea’: Jane Ellen Harrison, heretic and humanist” by Shelley Arlen. Renate Schlesier: “Prolegomena to Jane Harrison’s Interpretation of Ancient Greek Religion” Ritual. Schlesier’s article is a review of the major influences upon Harrison’s views on ancient religion. She states that the conviction of Jane Ellen Harrison, James George Frazer, and William Robertson Smith was summed up in this formula by Smith: “in almost every case the myth was derived from the ritual, and not the ritual from the myth” (187). Frazer, Schlesier states was certainly influenced by Smith but it is “uncertain whether Jane Harrison had read Robertson Smith before she formulated her similar ritualistic views” (187). Schlesier believes that this ritualistic position was spurred by “opposition to the Christian referential system—explicitly in Jane Harrison, primarily

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implicitly in Robertson Smith and Frazer” (188). Footnote 12 corresponding with Harrison’s name in the above sentence reads: In her autobiographical lecture “Alpha and Omega” (given in 1910 before the Sunday Essay Society of Trinity College, Cambridge) Harrison admits, “I was always a ritualist at heart (that form of Churchmanship still holds me by sentiment), but there was too much Protestant blood in my veins for it to take real possession; so I lapsed into Broad Churchism, and finally, as I thought, into complete Agnosticism (Alpha and Omega [London 1915] 184). Cf ibid., 205: “To be an Atheist, then, to renounce eikonic theology, is to me personally almost an essential of religious life” (188). Schlesier goes on to remark that “only Harrison and Robertson Smith, though, reveal overt sympathy with the material significance of the rituals” (188). Harrison’s first explicitly stated view on ritual, according to Schlesier, came in 1890 in the commentary of Pausanias’ Attica, translated by her friend, Margaret de G. Verrall. She quotes Harrison, “My belief is that in many, even in the large majority of cases ritual practice misunderstood explains the elaboration of myth. . . I follow, quam longo intervallo, in the steps of Eusebius, Lobeck, Mannhardt, and Mr. Andrew Lang” (189). Influences. Schlesier then traces the influence of four men: from Lang “stood the concept of ‘survival’; (189) from Mannhardt came the interpretation of Greek religion as the outgrowth of agricultural practices, i.e., the vegetation gods; from Lobeck, the ritualists distinguished mystery cults from mythical fables (190); and from Eusebius (260-339), bishop of Caesara, whom Schlesier states “may be the most surprising name in Harrison’s list,” comes a “rationalism based on a theory of development” (191). Other influences include Karl Otfried Muller who Schleiser believes had both a direct and an indirect influence; direct from his views on artists drawing their inspiration from one common source, “local and national tradition” and indirect because Muller influenced Strauss’s Das Leben Jesu, which in turn “influenced even Harrison’s repudiation of her strict Anglican upbringing” and “initiated her conversion to agnosticism” (192). According to Schlesier, it was not Harrison’s theories that were so original but that “English readers could now become acquainted for the first time with the historical-

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critical analysis of cult and myth” expounded by Muller. Other influences named by Schlesier include Freud, (206) Darwin (196), and Tylor (217). Schlesier also names the Victorian obsession of searching for origins and reality as driving forces behind Harrison’s work. Schlesier claims that reality for Harrison was “above all in the actions, not the thoughts, of human beings, or more precisely in actions that are ‘still’ indissolubly linked with thought and feeling. Thus only rituals have religious reality; myths do not” (199). John Henry Newman. Quoting Harrison’s autobiography, Schlesier comes to the passage alluding to John Henry Newman: A thing has little charm for me unless it has on it the patina of age. Great things in literature, Greek plays for example, I most enjoy when behind their bright splendours I see moving darker and older shapes. That must be my apologia pro vita mea (qtd. in Schlesier 200). In footnote 54 Schlesier explains: In her work, Harrison here refers to the book written by John Henry Newman (1801-90), the Anglican theologian who converted to Catholicism in 1845 and later became a Cardinal, Apologia pro vita sua: Being a History of His Religious Opinions (1864). Harrison’s paraphrase seems to allude to her similar revulsion from her Anglican background and to her own “conversion”—to the anthropology of Greek religion (200). Religious experiences. In the same footnote, Schlesier goes on to describe the two letters cited by Stewart, which are purported to be religious experiences—the letter to MacColl and the 1912 letter to Murray about a “spiritual rebirth.” In a discussion of Harrison’s concept of Monotheism, Schlesier poses a problem in Harrison’s writings that is very germane to this study. To quote: It is especially in her description of the ‘new religion’ propagated by ‘Orpheus’ that Harrison unembarrassedly uses terms like ‘sin,’ ‘hell,’ ‘evil,’ ‘atonement,’ ‘church,’ etc., although she does not avoid such terms elsewhere when describing the ‘normal’ characteristics of ancient Greek religion (219). In footnote 114 Schlesier expands on this thought:

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Harrison never hesitates to apply Christian terms to ancient Greek religion; she speaks of ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘church’ especially in connection with the poets’ portrayal of the Olympians and with the Orphics. . . For the Christian quality (despite her withdrawal from churchy Christianity) of Harrison’s interest in the history of religion, see a letter (6 February 1887) to her friend MacColl who had alienated her from classicistic tastes in art . . .”I had grown into a sort of Salvationist for Greek art--. . . the faith in my gospel was the secret of my strength”. . Therefore, the “anthropological approach” did not result in a real liberation “from the tyranny of Christian inhibitions and preconceptions . . . either for Harrison or for her colleagues” (219). “An Awful Warmth about Her Heart: The Personal in Jane Harrison’s Ideas on Religion” by Sandra Peacock Influences. In this paper, Peacock expands her view of religious influences on Harrison and moves beyond Harrison’s stepmother. She posits that William Robertson Smith who emphasized comparative religion and ritual had perhaps the most fundamental influence on Harrison and “probably served as an early inspiration” (171). Peacock also states that Harrison willingly drew on any source that supported her claims (171). She then makes this astute observation: This brief chronicle of her intellectual journey reminds us that we cannot understand the development of Harrison’s ideas about religion in terms of intellectual influence alone. Work and life are inextricably bound, and few writers have been as self-revelatory as Jane Harrison. Her early affinity for ritual theory dictates that scholars examine her intellectual pedigree in a circumspect fashion. One cannot attribute her theory only to the influence of some school of thought, for she began to formulate her ideas about origins of religion before she had read the works she credited as influential. If the intellectual threads cannot adequately explain the path of development, where are we to turn? (174). Peacock, again, as in her biography of Harrison, mentions the High Church but doesn’t pursue the clue. Here is Peacock’s summation of Harrison’s High Church influence and it does seem that she misinterprets the word “ritualism’ as being related to Harrison’s

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career, “She ‘reacted into rather extreme High Churchism,’ as she ‘was always a ‘ritualist at heart.’ After this rebellion, she ‘lapsed into Broad Churchism, and finally . . . into complete Agnosticism,’ all before the age of twenty-four. At Newnham, though ‘a complete Agnostic,’ she admits that ‘whenever I had the chance I went to hear Mass or the nearest High Church simulation of it’” (172). Religious views. Peacock next discusses three of Harrison’s works that she feels illustrate her religious views, Reminiscences, “Alpha and Omega,” and “Unanimism and Conversion.” Peacock details the latter essay and its biting criticism of the evangelical faith. Peacock quotes Harrison’s hope “that no young child’s life is embittered nowadays by being told that he must ‘flee from the wrath to come.’” Peacock remarks, “Sixty years after receiving these admonitions Harrison wrote as if she were still hearing them” (175). In another essay “Scientiae Sacra Fames” Peacock posits that” Harrison revealed the true motive behind her hatred of Victorian religion”—man [as opposed to woman] has made theology an intellectual abstract” (176). As in The Mask and the Self Peacock uses a Freudian interpretation in analyzing Harrison’s concept of matriarchy—it was a desire to reconstruct her dead mother. She then compares her father, Charles Harrison, to Orpheus. At the end of her article, Peacock states that many of Harrison’s theories have been proven wrong and that in the revival of the interest in her by feminist scholars, her work stands in danger of being misinterpreted. “Jane Ellen Harrison’s Contribution to the Study of Religion” by Carol Burnside This article is a review of Peacock’s book, but within that context Burnside discusses influences upon Harrison’s work. Calling Harrison “religion’s only great and important female figure,” (68) she believes that Harrison was highly influenced by Tylor’s theories in Primitive Culture. Burnside explains that Tylor begins with the individual spiritual being and “demonstrates how through time the notion of a spiritual being becomes more concrete and complex. The theory of religion underlying this model, whatever Harrison’s protestations to the contrary, is a belief in spiritual beings” (69). Burnside has quite a different view than other scholars who have written on Harrison’s life. Like Peacock, she seems to sense that Harrison has a persona that she is covering up and instead of focusing on the stepmother, Burnside examines the role of the

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father. As a reviewer of Peacock’s Freudian book, (and who seems to be a Freudian herself) Burnside raises some interesting questions about Harrison’s personal life such as whether or not her “hysteria” was caused from incest and molestation and if her father could have been an alcoholic. She surmises this to, in part, from Harrison’s description of the festival of Zeus Diasia in Prolegomena. Burnside remarks: She suggests that it was aimed at a snake who was chthonic, avenging of “kindred blood,” given a night-time burnt-offering, and done in gloom. This snake figure becomes the original model for any deity. Why a Freudian like Peacock missed this clue to Harrison’s id is difficult to fathom (70). Burnside’s article ends with a picture of Harrison that is biased concerning Harrison’s religion from having read Peacock’s book with its emphasis on evangelicalism, “That ‘mystical communion’ is a mature, yet empty ritual—one she seems never to have shared—seems to be a comment on her decision about what she missed out on in never marrying” (71). As we shall see, the High Church had a very “mystical communion” as part of its services and it seems to have been much more than an empty ritual for Harrison. “‘For Love of an Idea’: Jane Ellen Harrison: heretic and humanist” by Shelley Arlen Arlen’s article is an exposition on the problems that Harrison faced as a female scholar with what Arlen refers to as a “feminist slant” (170) to her scholarship. This problem, Arlen believes, was compounded by Harrison’s atheism. To quote Arlen, “Harrison was an unmarried woman with radical ideas, a freethinking atheist, a pacifist, and a feminist” (174). Arlen believes that one problem that many men found with Harrison’s ideas was that she was too subjective, but Arlen points out two areas where “she was (for many of her critics) uncomfortably objective: Christianity and nationalism” (175). As an example of this objectivity, Arlen points to an essay entitled, “The Influence of Darwinism in the Study of Religion” in which Harrison offended some Christians by “characterizing Christian rituals as magical and anthropomorphic” and worshippers as ‘hypnotized by suggestion and tradition’” (175). In the following paragraph Arlen

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reproduces a quote from the Cambridge Review to illustrate how these ideas were received: The subject is, of course, one which must be treated with bloodless impartiality if any scientific results are to be reached, and no doubt the fact that Miss Harrison is unconscious of any element in Religion beyond theology and ritual will excuse the tone of some passages in her essay, but surely it was not necessary to insert remarks so distasteful to many readers as those (qtd. in Arlen 175). A close reading of her letters, however, reveals that Harrison was conscious of the very personal and emotional elements of religion. “Golden Bough or Gilded Twig?” by Edmund Leach Leach’s article is a diatribe against Frazer and his Golden Bough; however, he includes a paragraph about Harrison that provides a quite unique view on what motivated her interest in ancient religion and ritual, and it illustrates another way in which Stewart interpretation has been used: to paint Harrison as a repressed sex-crazed Victorian lady. The purpose of Leach’s article was to question why Frazer had been so popular and why he remained so. Here is his answer: This I must confess is a puzzle. I suspect that the answer may be something like this. A recent biography of Jane Harrison suggests very strongly that the fascination she found in Frazerian anthropology had deep psychological roots (Stewart, 1959; see also The Times Literary Supplement, 24 July 1959). Frazer, without Freud’s perception or frankness, was already suggesting the existence of a Dionysian, sex-inspired, primitive undercurrent sapping at the roots of the conventional Victorian society, but his hints on these forbidden topics were all elegantly phrased that even clergymen’s daughters could read them with equanimity. It seems clear that part of Jane Harrison’s interest in The Golden Bough lay in the fact that she was fascinated by the brute sadism of primitive sacrifice, and there must have been many of Frazer’s early readers who were similarly motivated (383).

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The articles discussed thus far represent the major works pertaining to how Harrison has been interpreted and the influences upon her and her writing. The next section will turn to a discussion of the criticism on her autobiography.

V. Reminiscences of a Student’s Life

Harrison’s autobiography is somewhat of an enigma. There is, however, little disagreement within the critical literature that in her memoirs, Harrison was somewhat less than honest; only the degree of subterfuge is in dispute. Jessie Stewart, writing more in the capacity of a friend than a critic, stands alone in interpreting Harrison’s words as an honest attempt to tell her life story. Thomas Africa accepts Harrison’s words literally while at the same time realizing that she “is not always candid” (25). Ackerman believes that “her eloquence can not be taken at face value, she has telescoped some events and omitted others” (Myth and Ritual 94). Robinson entertains a questioning puzzlement as to what the book could mean and wonders how to interpret it, while Beard issues an outright warning on the dangers of taking Harrison at her word. When the first reviews appeared in late 1925, the book was viewed favorably and no one questioned Harrison’s veracity. However, as time progressed, more questions began to be raised about her motives and her honesty in her memoirs. The section below is a historical review of how Reminiscences has been received. First, are summaries of the reviews when it first debuted. This is followed by a review of the critical literature detailing questions that have been raised concerning Harrison’s veracity, or lack thereof, in Reminiscences of a Student’s Life. Reviews The Times Literary Supplement stated, “This is a book of mellow and delightful charm, defective only in that it runs but ninety pages and those pages small” (361). The review ends by wishing that Harrison had included more about her process of writing: Further details of this process would have been of value from one who knows so well how to write without vanity. But this is a book to be received with gratitude, and a full self-analysis would have been dearly bought if it had obliterated Miss

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Harrison’s memory of that distinguished and distinguishingly-named family cat, Mr. Velvet Brown (750). The New Statesman was likewise complimentary: It is clear that Miss Jane Harrison has found neither her life nor the writing of it a bore. Her autobiography, which, like Hume’s, occupies a very slim duodecimo volume, is as short and as vivid and as delightful as that master of brevity made his. Yet everything to make a living portrait of herself is there (361). The Cambridge Review remarked on one of Harrison’s religious beliefs: I respectfully felt a little pang that Miss Harrison has no hope of personal immortality. She merely wishes to go to her grave in a sledge; but what’s the good of that? In gratitude I would wish her better than she hopes (269). The Critical Literature Jessie Stewart. The first remarks about Reminiscences came in 1959 in Jessie Stewart’s Portrait from Letters, “We follow the pattern of her various stages of thought in her three great books. We trace the human pattern more fitfully in her brilliant Reminiscences of a Student’s Life which she wrote two years before her death” (3). Stewart continues, “In Reminiscences we look back to Jane’s own early years. The book is a panorama of her life, seen in width if not in depth . . . The picture of her childhood which she gives in Reminiscences is a true and a fair one, and it has the interest of a psychological self-study. She delves into her childish memories for evidence of her mature reactions and tendencies” (4). Stewart finishes the discussion of the autobiography with a two and a half page synopsis. It is worth noting here that Mirrlees disagrees with Stewart’s assessment stating, “Her own pen, when writing about herself is not to be trusted. It is too facile--- & too objective for autobiography” (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 47). Thomas Africa. Africa’s “Aunt Clegg Among the Dons or Taking Jane Harrison at Her Word” concerns whether or not Harrison is being truthful in the following words from Reminiscences: Until I met Aunt Clegg in the Mill on the Floss, I never knew myself. I am Aunt

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Clegg; with all reverence I say it. I wear before the world a mask of bland cosmopolitan courtesy and culture; I am advanced in my views, eager to be in touch with all modern movements, but underneath all that lies Aunt Clegg, rigidly, irrationally conservative, fibrous with prejudice, deep-rooted in her native soil (11-12). Africa points out some salient similarities between Jane Harrison and Jane Clegg and, in this analogy with Aunt Clegg, he does take Harrison at her word. Africa describes Harrison’s story about fainting when she met George Eliot, “In her final years Harrison recounted this incident in a sprightly memoir that is no more selective and evasive than most autobiographies” (25). However, unlike Stewart, and perhaps echoing the metaphor from Peacock’s 1988 biography of Harrison The Mask and the Self, he does acknowledge that some parts of Harrison’s life may lay hidden, “The human personality hides behind many masks, some deliberately assumed, others unconscious. How should we evaluate a self-assessment that seems playful?” (21). In a footnote he admits, “While Harrison is not always candid in her memoir, her life was not unlike a Victorian novel, as Jessie Stewart’s book had shown” (n. 23 25). Payne and Marcus. The comparison to Victorian literature also appears in articles by Harry C. Payne (“Modernizing the Ancients: The Reconstruction of Ritual Drama 1870-1920”) and Jane Marcus (“Invincible Mediocrity: The Private Selves of Public Women”). Payne finds Harrison’s autobiography less than helpful stating, “Jane Harrison’s Reminiscences provide a few clues about her early life and her reaction to her ‘Victorian’ past, but like many post-Stracheyan accounts of nineteenth century lives, it is almost a set piece, providing stock characters in a Victorian melodrama” (n. 45 189 and qtd. in Africa 25). Marcus places Harrison’s autobiography within a feminist framework within which, like Payne, she sees a staging of the text, “The autobiographical forms chosen by Sophie Kovalevsky, Elizabeth Robins, and Jane Harrison are structured as drama, and characters act their parts on the stage of the text” (127). One of the roles that Marcus sees Harrison playing is that of student. To quote: By assuming the guise of student even in old age, Harrison can continue the role of eccentric and enfant terrible and play down the immense erudition and scholarship of her work. But "student" stands in her title as the Yorkshirewoman's

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silent rebuke of the patriarchal establishment of the study of classics at Cambridge—she was never awarded the professorship she so abundantly earned (139). And, as opposed to Africa, Marcus views the comparison to Aunt Clegg as ironic, “How much she must have enjoyed telling her readers that she is Aunt Glegg in George Eliot's novel The Mill on the Floss and, radical that she was, insisting on her profound conservatism” (140). Marcus also makes a point, which this dissertation will stress in the following chapters and especially in the chapter on Tractarian reserve: silence is of supreme importance: The brevity of Harrison's text enforces her statement that in Yorkshire silence about self is strongly valued. She tells the story of her father's loss of patience with her talkative stepmother, a harsh evangelical who had been their housekeeper before her mother's death. Her father did not insult his wife. He merely brought down from the attic a portrait of his first wife, who was highly regarded for her silence, and hung it in a prominent place in the dining room. Harrison tells this story to restrain herself, for she had made her living as a lively and dynamic lecturer: "I regret those lecturing years. I was voluble and had instant success, but it was mentally demoralizing and very exhausting. . . . I was almost fatally fluent" (139). Annabel Robinson. The Life and Work of Jane Ellen Harrison approaches the autobiography with caution by asking a number of pertinent questions, such as: Why did she publish it? Was it a deliberate attempt to nuance the record? Did she believe it herself? If so, was the writing of it some sort of spiritual exercise, undertaken in an attempt to bring satisfactory closure to a troubled and turbulent life? Or was it no more than an ornamental show-piece, the writer’s equivalent of a needlework sampler? (4). Like Africa, she sees Harrison as presenting “an outward persona” and being a “paradox of self-contradictions” (3). And, throughout the book, Robinson illustrates how hard it is to take Harrison at face value citing irony, a lack of truthfulness, and the passage of time as reasons for her doubts. Responding to Harrison’s assertion that “I am Aunt Clegg . . .” Robinson sides with Marcus, “The remark quoted here is, of course, ironic; she is much

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more to be found in the central character of this novel, Maggie Tolliver, who craves the education that is reserved for her less gifted brother, Tom” (15). Robinson does, however, believe that the statement does in some way catch a “facet of Harrison’s temperament and coming from her own pen hints at one way in which she wished to be remembered.”(15). Robinson questions Harrison’s veracity by recounting her description of visit of Gladstone’s visit to Newnham, “He sat me down and asked me who was my favorite Greek author. Tact counseled Homer, but I was perverse and not quite truthful, so I said, ‘Euripides’” (qtd. in Robinson 46). To which Robinson replies, “Reading this, one wonders if Harrison, at the age of 76, was still perverse and not quite truthful. Euripides was her favorite Greek author and remained so her entire life” (46). Robinson also points out that Harrison’s views in her autobiography are tinted by the passage of time. Harrison had written that Aristotle had brought a release to her “like coming out of a madhouse into a quite college quadrangle.” Robinson notes, “She wrote these words, however, fifty years after the event, when the conversion of her attitudes could be seen as complete (52). Mary Beard. Of all the scholars who have critiqued Harrison’s Reminiscences, none has been more intuitive than Mary Beard. In the Invention of Jane Harrison, Beard argues that Stewart and Mirrlees had a “personal investment in Harrison’s heroization” (8) and that they invented the myth of Jane Harrison, but importantly, Beard argues that most of the myths came directly from Harrison’s autobiography. “Reminiscences is a brilliant piece of writing from the heart of an elite culture in which ironic selfdepreciation was highly prized. . . aimed at an audience who well understood the relationship (and the difference) between the conventionally misleading tropes of autobiography and the truth” (9-10). Beard also believes that Harrison employs a selfparody as a social inferior in London and Cambridge and that it is unproductive to take her words literally. To quote, “Read Reminiscences as a simple text of self-revelation (as most modern students of Harrison seem happy to do) at your own peril” (10).

Conclusion

Harrison’s interpretation of ancient Greek religion in terms of ritualism has been variously explained in the critical literature. Many influences have been suggested and

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include William Robertson Smith’s Religion of the Semites, the rise of anthropology, Frazer’s Golden Bough, the Classical tripos at Cambridge, and the general Victorian quest for origins. And no doubt, all of these were important to the development of Harrison’s theories. However, as we have seen, the scholarship on Harrison’s personal religion and the impact that it may have had on her professional writing has been severely limited to a discussion of her Evangelical upbringing. This strict religious atmosphere, which Harrison endured as a child, has been used to explain many aspects of her interest in ancient religion. But throughout the critical literature there are hints and glimmers that there is something lacking in our understanding of Harrison’s work. For instance, Peacock writes: Work and life are inextricably bound, and few writers have been as self-revelatory as Jane Harrison. Her early affinity for ritual theory dictates that scholars examine her intellectual pedigree in a circumspect fashion. One cannot attribute her theory only to the influence of some school of thought, for she began to formulate her ideas about origins of religion before she had read the works she credited as influential. If the intellectual threads cannot adequately explain the path of development, where are we to turn? (174). Ackerman understands that her work on ancient religion somehow contained a personal element: Nevertheless, her scholarly work and her personal life were inextricably interwoven in a way that is rare for most intellectuals. And I have no doubt that she later embraced initiation and rebirth as enthusiastically as she did because her own experience must have given her the subjective feeling of ‘rightness’ that she apparently needed before making an idea completely her own (Myth and Ritual 81). Hints run throughout the critical literature that point to the “something” that has been overlooked. It is the intent, therefore of this dissertation to pay close attention to clues and to formulate a new theory of how the High Church with its “Romish” ritual affected Harrison and provided an emotional foundation for her interest in sacraments, sacrifice, and ritual that lasted throughout her life.

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CHAPTER 2 THE VICTORIAN HIGH CHURCH AS RELIGIOUS BACKDROP To what purpose is this incensing of persons and things? This elevation of the blessed emblems of our dear Saviour’s death?—Evangelical Minister Cornford, 1866 Introduction

In 1914, Jane Harrison made a confession that has received scant attention because it has not been set within the proper context of the 19th century Anglican Church: . . . I reacted into rather extreme High Churchism. I was always a ritualist at heart (that form of Churchmanship still holds me by sentiment), but there was too much Protestant blood in my veins for it to take full possession; 1 so I lapsed into Broad Churchism, and finally, as I thought, into complete Agnosticism. When I came to college, late in life—I was twenty-four—I was a complete Agnostic; but whenever I had the chance I went to hear Mass or the nearest High Church simulation of it. In the Cambridge of the seventies the opportunities were not as ample as now (Alpha and Omega 184). Understanding that the phrases “High Churchism” and “being a ritualist at heart” are synonymous with a 19th century ritualistic movement can change the complexion of how we understand Harrison’s life and how we interpret her work. 2 For these words denote a specific chapter in the history of the Anglican Church—a chapter seething with emotional

1

"Full possession" means merely that she did not "go over to Rome" as they say. Harrison also alludes to the High Church in 1919 in a lecture entitled “Rationalism and Religious Reaction”: “Who of the High Church waxes hot nowadays over Baptismal Regeneration? . . . The “tightrope of High Anglicanism” has, as Mr. Litton Strachey in his Eminent Victorians assures us, ‘its dancers still’”. . .(11-12).

2

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battles over ritual and mystical sacraments. This High Church culture to which Harrison belonged was one in which religious battles erupted over doctrinal issues as to whether communion, or the Eucharist as the High Church called it, was a mystical sacrifice or a remembrance of Christ; whether a church should contain a stone altar or a moveable communion table; and how the traditional Anglican sacraments should be interpreted. These doctrinal arguments gave way to battles over the rituals related to the doctrines— some were simple rituals that were practiced on a very personal and emotional level, such as how to hold one’s hands when receiving the host during the Eucharist, crossing one’s self in church, bowing at the name of Christ—rituals which were visible signs of the invisible. It is no coincidence that these same topics―mystical unions, sacrifice, sacraments, and ritual―play an important role in Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (Prolegomena). Reading Harrison within this context enables us to view her words in a new light and understand that just as she could see shadows of other deities moving beneath the Olympians gods, shades of the High Church and its controversies hover around many of the concepts in Prolegomena. And conversely, when she refers to ritualism in her letters and her work she is not always referring to ancient Greek religion. The 19th century ritual informs the ancient ritual and vice versa and both contain a personal element. The objective of this chapter, therefore, will be to discuss the saga of the High Church in Victorian England and its evolution into ritualism. The major participants of High Churchism along with an understanding of its political and religious roots and the religious climate into which it was born are all important in order to reach an understanding of the implications of Harrison’s phrase, “I reacted into extreme High Churchism.” In addition, this chapter will begin the process of connecting Harrison’s images and language to the High Church by comparing her words to primary sources such as sermons of average 19th century clergymen and newspaper and periodical articles about ritualism. This information will establish a foundation for understanding allusions to John Henry Newman and the High Church in general, and will provide a background for understanding references to the Anglican sacraments which appear in Harrison’s letters and work throughout her life, even long after she rejected the dogma of the church.

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I. The Victorian High Church: An Overview In Victorian parlance, “High Churchism,” which would come to be known as “ritualism,” developed as John Henry Newman, John Keble, Hurrell Froude, and Edward B. Pusey, all High Churchmen from Oxford University, began to introduce new sacramental doctrines into the Established Protestant Church. These ideas were set out in a series of 90 tracts (from which the writers came to be known as Tractarians), 3 which were distributed throughout England, mostly to the clergy. Over time, the ideas took hold and as they were put into practice, the movement morphed into a new phase that endeavored to introduce new rites into the church, which many people felt savored of Roman Catholicism, or "papism." Throughout the land, the evangelicals or low wing of the Anglican Church worried about the effects of these new doctrines. One such clergyman was Reverend George Dawson from Birmingham who delivered a sermon in 1844 warning of battles to come: In looking fairly at the times in which we live, and in noting both their lights and their shadows, we cannot be blind to, and disregard that strange system of recent growth known best by the name of Puseyism. It is obtruded upon us everywhere that we cannot escape its observation. It meets us in books for nursery, and in romances for the young. 4 The daily journals are full of it, and column after column is devoted to the discussion of whether a man shall preach in a white surplice or a black gown, and other similarly edifying matters . . . . Controversy is waxing so loud that the most peace-loving man cannot be deaf to its din; and as

3

This movement went by several names including the Oxford Movement, Tractarianism, High Churchism, Puseyism (a derogatory name Edward Pusey), ritualism, and Anglo-Catholicism. It is important to note that not all High Church men and women were Tractarians or ritualists. One may have chosen to be a Tractarian and not a ritualist and ritualists were not necessarily Tractarians. There was some cross over, however, between the groups. For a full explanation of the differences see Pickering, 17cf. Because Mirrlees and Harrison both use the term “High Church,” this study will use that term as synonymous with ritualists and Anglo-Catholics. 4 As late as 1930, not even Agatha Christie’s mysteries could escape the ritualistic references. For example, “Hawes is our new curate. He has been with us just over three weeks. He has High Church views and fasts on Fridays. Colonel Protheroe is a great opposer of ritual in any form” (The Murder at the Vicarage 3).

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this is a fight between light and darkness, truth and, all true men must gird themselves thereto (1). As a result of the continuing rise of ritual, as well as clergymen like Dawson and lay people “girding themselves,” a clamor arose that resulted in riots in the street and the arrest of five clergymen. 5 Tensions against the Ritualists grew until 1874 when Parliament passed a law called the Public Worship Regulations Act or the PWRA, 6 which made most Catholic ritual illegal. Russell explains that “all questions about the mode of performing Divine Services were to be referred to a lay judge, appointed by the Archbishops jointly to hear and determine all representations under the act” (St. Alban the Martyr 127). It was Russell believed, “a short and easy method of crushing Ritualism” (127). As a result the ritualists did concede some ceremonies, but in 1875 they decided that some were doctrinally related and worth fighting for. The English Church Union met and decided upon defending six main ritualistic points: vestments, the eastward position, altar lights, the mixture of water and wine in the chalice at Holy Communion, wafer bread, and incense. (Bentley, Ritualism and Politics 21). In spite of the controversies and even the arrests, a "Via Media" evolved into a new arm within the Anglican Church—a mix between Roman Catholic and Anglican called Anglo-Catholic and of which Jane Harrison became an intense devotee. A great rift opened between the High and Low wings of the Anglican Church and much the same thing happened on a personal level as the High Church Harrison pitted herself against her Low Church stepmother and her father. But what was it about the movement that would cause a young girl from a staunchly Evangelical family in Yorkshire to take a sudden interest in the Roman Catholic Church? John Shelton Reed, in Glorious Battle, a sociological study of the Anglo-Catholic movement, compared it to America in the 1960s, exhibiting as it did all the hallmarks of a “counterculture” (xxi). To quote, “Certainly the movement’s gatherings were sensual experiences, marked by vivid color and light, exotic costumes, 5

For a broad overview of this aspect of ritualism, see Appendix B: Ritual Arrests. In the end, the PWRA was a total failure. It provided both publicity and press for those arrested. In 1880, it was observed that the PWRA had "promoted rather than suppressed Ritualism. . . By 1898, according to Hensley Henson, one clergyman in six was a High Churchman (and one layman in twenty). It was said in 1904 that any new court set up to deal with the growth of ritualistic conspiracy would require the institution of some 4,000 or 5,000 separate suits (Bentley, Ritualism and Politics 122).

6

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the sweet aroma of incense, and music—powerful music” (Reed xix). And, as we will see, like the 1960s there was more than a hint of rebellion as young women (and men) attended Mass and even more scandalously sought to secretly make their confession with priests. A High Church Service But there was more than mere rebellion, there was mysticism, emotion, ecstasy, and ritual connected to the High Church service. In Marius the Epicurean, Walter Pater, 7 himself an avid ritualist at one time, and a friend of Harrison, describes an ancient High Mass, which is said to be an accurate depiction of an “extreme” High Church service at St. Austin’s Priory in London (Reed 61). Here Marius stumbles onto the ancient service: The mystery, if such in fact it was, centered indeed in the actions of one visible person, distinguished among the assistants, who stood ranged in semicircle around him, by the extreme whiteness of his white vestment, and the pointed cap with the golden ornaments upon his head. Nor had Marius ever seen the pontifical character, as he conceived it--sicut unguentum in capite, descendens in oram vestimenti 8 —so fully realized, as in the expression, the manner and voice, of this novel pontiff, as he took his seat on the white chair placed for him by the young men, and received his long staff into his hand, or moved his hands--hands which seemed endowed in very deed with some mysterious power—at the Lavabo, or at the various benedictions, or to bless certain objects on the table before him, chanting in cadence of a grave sweetness the leading parts of the rite. What profound unction and mysticity! (Pater 218) . . . Adoremus te Christe, quia per crucem tuam redemisti mundum! —they cry

7

Harrison relates in Reminiscences of a Student’s Life that “Pater and his sisters were good, and opened their house to me; I always think of him as soft, kind cat; he purred so persuasively that I lost the sense of what he was saying” (46). Harrison does not tell us what conversations took place at the Pater house, but her close friend, D.S. MacColl recalls Pater and his sisters, Miss Clara and Miss Hester in Oxford in 1883: “the atmosphere was rather of God than of his enemies: all three attended punctually the University Sermon at St. Mary’s, with a special devotion for Cannon Liddon, and Pater fixed me one day with reasons why I should enter the church. . . “ (qtd. in Borland 34). Cannon Liddon was a High Churchman who according to Morse-Boycott “played a prominent part in every controversy after he had been made a Canon of St. Paul’s through Mr. Gladstone (in 1870)”. These controversies included the eastward position at the altar and other ritualistic battles (157). 8 “As ointment upon the head, descending to the hem of his vestment”

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together. So deep is the emotion that at moments it seems to Marius as if some there present apprehend that prayer prevails, that the very object of this pathetic crying himself draws near. From the first there had been the sense, an increasing assurance, of one coming:—actually with them now, according to the oft-repeated affirmation or petition, Dominus vobiscum! Some at least were quite sure of it; and the confidence of this remnant fired the hearts, and gave new meaning to the bold, ecstatic worship, of all the rest about them (Pater 219). Knowing that Harrison participated in such services provides a new context for understanding certain passages in Prolegomena. Here she describes the Orphic Dionysiac rites as evidenced in Aristophanes’ Clouds: In a word the ‘full revelation,’ the ἐποπτεία of these and all mysteries, was only an intensification, a mysticizing, of the old Epiphany rites—the ‘Appear, appear’ of the Bacchants, the ‘summoning’ of the Bull-god by the women of the Elis. It was this Epiphany, outward and inward, that was the goal of all purification, of all consecration, not the enunciation or elucidation of arcane dogma, but the revelation, the fruition, of the god himself (515). Harrison was a self-described “mystic” 9 and perhaps it was this mystical element that brought her to the High Church. For instance, in 1902, she confided to Gilbert Murray that “Mr. Verrall always says, and he is right, that I am by nature rotten with superstition and emotional mysticism” (Harrison letter to Gilbert Murray 1/1/2). Harrison’s friend R.G. Tatton described her as "a mystic to her fingertips" and added, “‘A religious Atheist' she used to call herself—that was perverse too, you know!" (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 17). Evidence exists which suggests that this mysticism extended to the Victorian experience of visiting mediums. In 1900 she wrote to Gilbert Murray: 10 Xmas eve 9

This mysticism will be discussed in greater detail in Chapters 4 and 5; it entails a type of poetical symbolism which follows in the tradition of John Keble’s Tract 89, “On the Mysticism Attributed to the Early Fathers of the Church,” George Herbert, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Christina Rossetti. 10 This interest was quite widespread among Harrison’s friends. Margaret Verrall and her husband, A.W. Verrall along with Gilbert Murray were part of a group called the Psychical Research Society, which investigated and were popularly identified with “spiritualism, mediums, ghosts, poltergeists, séances, and other dramatic manifestations” (West, Gilbert Murray 172). Murray himself was quite interested in telepathic phenomena and participated in experiments with the group; according to West, Murray was “able to arrive at an identification far more often than statistical probability would allow” (172).

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Please tell me someday when we meet your impressions of the Pythia. I have had several sittings & my ideas about it are disordered and diseased—being by nature superstitious I dread a false mysticism as a deadly intellectual foe (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/2). In addition to the mysticism, the drama of the High Church service with its intense emotion and the revelation of a great mystery also left a mark on Harrison and may have provided a model for her style of lecturing. Francis Cornford describes an almost religious fervor in Harrison’s lectures: . . . a tall figure in black drapery, with touches of her favorite green and a string of blue Egyptian beads, like a priestess’s rosary. The rather low voice vibrated with excitement that had been working in her for many hours of preparation. The hushed audience would catch the nervous tension of her bearing, even before the simple conversational tones began to convey the anticipation of some mystery to be disclosed. Once there was a veiled object on a side table which when the moment of revelation came proved to be a liknon winnowing fan. . . . At one of her Newnham lectures on Orphism she enlisted two friends to swing bullroarers, the magic whirlers of the tundun, at the back of the room, that the audience might learn from the ‘awe-inspiring and truly religious sound’ what Aeschylus’ Edonians meant: Bull voices roar thereto from somewhere out of the unseen, fearful semblances, and from a drum, an image as it were of thunder underground is borne on the air, heavy with dread. Every lecture was a drama in which the spectators were to share the emotions of ‘recognition’ (qtd. in Stewart 20). There was also another aspect of the High Church ceremony that Harrison loved—the processional. In her autobiography she confesses: A ritual dance, a ritual procession with vestments and lights and banners, move me as no sermon, no hymn, no picture, no poem has ever moved me; perhaps it is because a procession seems to me like life, like durée 11 itself, caught and fixed before me (Reminiscences of a Student’s Life 84).

11

Durée is a term from Henri Bergson’s L’évolution créatice. Stewart explains that for Harrison it meant that life is “a continuous ever-changing stream” (91).

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The processional that so moved Harrison sounds very much like one that took place at the ritualistic church of Shoreditch in 1871: Romanising commenced at eight o’clock with a procession, accompanied by a processional hymn. Precisely as the first note thereof resounded, there issued from the vestry at the northeast corner of the church, a youthful figure, arrayed in what might by the uninformed spectator have been taken for female attire; a bright red robe, having over it two slips of cambric, one in front and one behind. This smart dress, however, proved to be not that of a girl but of a young gentleman. It was in fact, a gown and a surplice. The wearer borne on high a large golden cross, and after him marched a band of surpliced choristers, two and two, in gay apparel; several of the younger ones clad in red and cambric. . . . The Bishop in full Episcopal robes came last but one; and a deacon, shouldering a large white flag, figured with a cross brought up the rear (“Ritualistic Theatrical at Shoreditch” Punch 121). A new context for Harrison’s ritualistic interest. Within this High Church context, Harrison’s work on ancient ritual can be seen as part of the Victorian quest for origins as she traces the ancestry of her mystical Anglican rituals back to their very beginnings. It is as if she is trying to prove what a curate from St. Barnabas, Pimlico said in 1865: “They [rites] belong to the very substance of religion. They are not mere adjuncts and decorations of religion. They are the natural and spontaneous exhibition of religion” (qtd. in Reed 70). “Ritualism,” Harrison confides, “satisfies something within me that is appeased by neither Religion nor Art” (Reminiscences of a Student’s Life 84). What exactly was this ritualism that so moved her and where did it come from, she seems to ask. Viewed in this light, Prolegomena becomes an apologia for ritual—which, combined with a mystic view of the sacraments and other elements of the High Church, remained a force throughout her life. In fact, she subtly alludes to this in her autobiography Reminiscences of a Student’s Life. Just after a description of a ritual dance she had witnessed the year before she states: I mention these ritual dances, this ritual drama, this bridge between art and life, because it is things like these that I was all my life blindly seeking. A thing has

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little charm for me unless it has on it the patina of age. Great things in literature, Greek plays, for example, I most enjoy when behind their bright splendours I see moving darker and older shapes. That must be my apologia pro vita mea (86-87). What Harrison alludes to, however, but doesn’t state explicitly, is that this “ritual drama” is the “darker and older shape” behind the rites of Anglo-Catholicism. All of her life she blindly sought these connections between her love of ritual and its ancient shadows. The clue to understanding the full impact of this passage lies in recognizing that Apologia pro vita mea is an allusion to John Henry Newman’s autobiography Apologia pro vita sua— Newman, who along with Keble, Pusey, and Froude turned back to the study of the Greek fathers and the ancient church and its rites as a foundation for the High Church Movement of 1833.

Tractarian Doctrine of Reserve Tractarian reserve, 12 which is, in part, a reticence to speak of God or holy doctrine, is the key element in understanding why Jane Harrison’s connection to the High Church has remained undetected in her work. As part of the mystic element of religion that she so loved and desired, reserve was one aspect of the High Church teachings that she retained throughout her life. In Tract 80 entitled “On Reserve in Communicating Religious Knowledge,” Isaac Williams asks “whether there is not in GOD’s dealings with mankind, a very remarkable holding back of sacred and important truths, as if the knowledge of them were injurious to persons unworthy of them” (Tracts for the Times, Tract 80 Vol. 4: 2). As humans grow in their faith and knowledge they are more able to understand God’s hidden meanings. These concepts led to the belief that divine beliefs and sacred doctrine should not be spoken of to those whose minds were not trained in how to interpret them or, to put it another way, to those not initiated into the mysteries. For the Tractarians, this reserve, this reticence, was an important aspect of their everyday lives. John Keble the “greatest Tractarian apostle of reserve,” (Brendon 44) explains that, “Men are always more or less reserved in what concerns their ruling

12

Reserve will be much more thoroughly discussed in Chapters 4 and 5.

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passion.” Conscious that people may not agree with their most sacred beliefs, men (and women) were reluctant to risk “some sort of rudeness” toward what they revere, so they instinctively contrive all sorts of shading, to withdraw ordinary eyes from their real subject. The more they retain of the imaginative playfulness of children, the apter they are to indulge in this kind of half-sportive mysteriousness (qtd. in Brendon 45). Although Keble’s reference to “playfulness” is a reference to Hurrell Froude who practiced reserve in the form of irony, this description, as we will see, could just as easily apply to Jane Harrison. Unlike Keble, whose reserve took the form of a quiet seriousness, Froude’s method (like Harrison) was to startle people with paradox. (Froude Remains Vol. 1: xv). Keble explains that Froude’s use of irony was not “mere ludicrous irony,” but a kind of Socratic reserve, an instinctive dissembling of his own high feelings and notions, partly through fear of deceiving himself and others, partly (though it may sound paradoxical) out of very reverence, giving up at once all notion of doing justice to sacred subjects, and shrinking from nothing so much as the disparagement of them by any kind of affection (qtd. in Froude Remains, Preface Vol. I: xxxi). As will be discussed in Chapters 4 and 6, it is this type of reserve, I believe, that is found throughout Harrison’s work and letters—an ironic touch, which has not been recognized as such. In fact, the following letter from Harrison to Gilbert Murray illustrates the playfulness as well as her awareness of Socratic irony and its connections to reserve: Glad at heart was I my dear Ther, 13 to see the print of yr hoof on the envelope. People say they cannot tell one typewriter from another⎯I am sure I could tell yrs in a thousand, there is something of furtivity (I mean of course reserve, Attic irony, etc.) in the very spacing of the words (December 22, 1908 Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/16). Another aspect of reserve that shows up in Harrison’s work is a reluctance to write out Christ’s name. Isaac Williams relates that the holy name 14 should be uttered only with the 13

Harrison’s nickname for Murray was Cheiron after the kind centaur and teacher of Achilles; Liddell and Scott states that Ther can also mean a centaur, especially in Sophocles. 14 As far as Harrison is concerned, this seems to extend only to Christ’s name; she most usually spells out the word “God.’

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most serious attention; the effect of such neglect would “take away the sense of reality and habituate the mind to irreverence” (Tracts for the Times, Tract 80 Vol. 4: 51). For instance on September 27, 1902 she criticizes a draft of a translation by Gilbert Murray, “PS ‘throne thee at thy sister's side?’ oh dear, dear you might just as well give G.A. or J.C. a sister⎯must be altered immediately (Harrison letters 1/1/4). [G.A.= God Almighty; J.C.= Jesus Christ]. Often “Christian” or “Christianity” is written as “Xian” or “Xianity.” On Aug 14, 1902 she wrote to Gilbert Murray, “The Xian fathers should be in every gentleman's library. If they are not, may I send you an excerpt?” . . . (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray1/1/3). In 1909, she was still using the abbreviated form, “Two copies of Mr. Farnell's vol 5 have come to me for review. Cambridge Rev & Athenaeum⎯I suppose I shall have to behave like a Xian lady” (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray, 1/1/18). This abbreviation for “Christian” seems to have been an Anglo-Catholic shorthand to avoid the holy name. George Gilbert Scott Jr., who converted to Catholicism and was a close friend to the Anglo-Catholic architect George Bodley wrote, “Newman’s essay on the Development of Xian doctrine preceded by many years Darwin’s physical theory of evolution. . . .It is a fatal error of Protestantism to ignore development. 1st in cutting off Xianity from its root . . .” (qtd. in Hall, “What Do Victorian Churches Mean” 87). Although Christianity was sometimes abbreviated in this manner by other Victorians it will be demonstrated that this is just one small aspect of a much larger body of evidence that connects Harrison to reserve and other High Church doctrine and rituals.

II. High Churchism: Politics and Sacraments To fully understand High Churchism and Harrison’s connections to it, we must examine its religious and political settings, which led to an increased emphasis on the holiness of the Anglican sacraments, and ultimately to ritualism. A Lethargy in Worship In the early 19th century, worship services in the Anglican Church were by all accounts dismal. Harrison alludes to this lethargy in her autobiography by describing her 60

Evangelical congregation as “comfortably crouching through the Litany” (Reminiscences 14). W. E. Gladstone describes the depths to which worship services had sunk: But the actual state of things was bad beyond all parallel known to me in experience or reading. Taking together the expulsion of the poor and labouring classes (especially from the town churches), the mutilations and blockages of the fabrics, the baldness of the service, the elaborate horrors of the so-called music, with the jargon of parts contrived to exhibit the powers of every village roarer, and to prevent all congregational singing; and above all, the coldness and indifference of the lounging or sleeping congregations, our services were probably without a parallel in the world for their debasement; and they would have shocked a Brahmin or a Buddhist, so they hardly could have been endured in this country had not the faculty of taste, and the perception of the seemly or unseemly, been as dead as the spirit of devotion (669). The Political Setting This apathy, this lack of emotion, this deadness in the 19th century Anglican worship services helped set the stage for the Oxford Movement or Tractarianism, which would bring more warmth and reverence back to the worship services. Combining their High Church sensibilities with a study of the early Fathers and the primitive church, a sacramental view of the world that included a strong tinge of romanticism, and an intense dislike of “liberal politics,” Keble, Newman, Froude, and Pusey changed the Anglican church. Dedicated to the church and its teachings, they became outraged by three decisions made by Parliament: repeal of the Corporation Acts of 1661, which allowed dissenters to hold public office; the Catholic Emancipation Act passed in 1829, which allowed Catholics to hold office; and the Irish Church Temporalities Bill, passed in 1833, which dissolved ten redundant Irish bishoprics. According to Reardon these three bills, and the last one in particular, signaled “a relaxation of the age old bond of sympathy which held Church and State together in a Christian realm” (65). If Catholics and dissenters could hold office and if the state could suspend bishoprics this could only mean that the power of the Anglican Church was rapidly being diluted and importantly, that the state could hold sway over spiritual

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matters. That year, 1833, the Oxford Movement was born with one of its main tenets being Apostolic Succession, which meant that the power of the clergy flowed directly from the Apostles, a source higher than the state. The Sacraments As the Tractarians preached apostolic succession, they also placed an emphasis on the sacraments of the church, which became the centerpiece of Tractarian doctrine. Particular attention must be paid to the sacraments in the study of Jane Harrison because she turns to them again and again in both her letters and in Prolegomena, forming a theme throughout her work. In the hands of the Tractarians, the traditional Anglican sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist were reinterpreted and other Roman Catholic rites such as Confession and Last Rites were reconsidered as part of church doctrine. Monasticism, asceticism, and, of special importance for understanding an undetected aspect of Harrison’s life 15 was the establishment of Anglican sisterhoods and a new role for women in the church. The two most important for understanding Harrison’s work are Baptism and Communion. Baptism. The Anglican rite of infant Baptism in the hands of the Oxford men became known as Baptismal regeneration. Evangelicals of the Low Church believed that salvation came with conversion; the Tractarian view was that a person received salvation at baptism; it was a gift that once given, God would not take away. Faught points out that it was attractive to Newman because it “stood beyond the reach of private judgment, outside the critical, subjective spirit that seemed to characterize the evangelical approach to salvation” (66). Like Apostolic Succession, it represented an authority higher than state or man. The Eucharist. Of central importance to this study is the “Real Presence,” the Tractarian interpretation of the Eucharist, which stood as a “Via Media” between the Protestant idea of communion where bread and wine were eaten as a remembrance of Christ’s suffering and the Roman Catholic concept of transubstantiation where the wine and bread transformed into the actual blood and flesh of Christ maintaining only its material appearance. The Tractarians, however, posited a subtle but important difference 15

See Chapter 3, Introduction.

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from the Roman Catholic view. S.C. Haines, a clergyman from S. Mathias Church, passionately explained this difference in an 1873 sermon: True, they involve a wonderful mystery; but they are, and every Catholic 16 must believe them in the most literal sense. The bread and wine after consecration by a priest are nothing less than the glorified body and blood of Jesus Christ. Bread and wine are still in their constituent parts, i.e. accidents but now they are verily and indeed, over and above all, material accidents, the very body and very blood of Jesus Christ. . . This is the Catholic faith—it is the faith which S. Paul taught to the Corinthians (2-3). . . I always think that after we have asserted the grand doctrine of the “real presence,” we are very unwise if we attempt to describe how the change takes place after consecration. All looks the same, and has the same powers of nourishing the bodily organism, the change that takes place can never be properly described in human language—it is beyond the reach of the senses, in the invisible and supernatural world: it is a sacramental, spiritual change and it can only be realized through faith. . . (5) To thinkers who hesitate because of the mysteriousness of the “Real Presence,” I say stretch your minds to grasp the idea of the hidden sacramentality of nature and you will see that we are everywhere bidden to a mystic life—. . . . Mere sensual knowledge is but a lower form of truth—much more than can be spiritually discerned (8). Pusey describes the Eucharist as a mystical uniting with God: The Life which He is, spreads around, first giving Its own vitality to that sinless Flesh which He united indissolubly with Himself and in It encircling and vivifying our whole nature, and then, through that bread which is His Flesh, finding an entrance to us individually, penetrating us, soul and body, and spirit, and irradiating and transforming into His own light and life (qtd. in Douglas http://anglicaneucharistictheology.blogspot.com/2006/09/anglican-eucharistictheology-pusey.html).

16

Here Haines refers not to the Roman Catholic Church but rather to the idea that the Anglican Church is part of a larger Catholic church.

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Mystic communions, sacrifice, sacramentalism, and consecrations—all of these constitute a major theme in Prolegomena. 17 Harrison seemed to be particularly interested in differentiating between communion rites that involved a mystic union with the god and those that did not. Following are two excerpts concerning early Greek sacrifice: In the Homeric sacrifice there is communion, but not of any mystical kind; there is no question of partaking of the life and body of the god, only of dining with him. Mystical communion existed in Greece, but, as will be later seen, it was part of the worship of a god quite other than these Homeric Olympians, the god Dionysos (Prolegomena 56). On Dionysos and Orpheus: It is not hard to see how this savage theory of communion would pass into a higher sacramentalism, into the faith that by partaking of an animal who was a divine vehicle you could enter spiritually into the divine life that had physically entered you, and so be made one with the god. It was the mission of Orphism to effect these mystical transitions (Prolegomena 487). To return to the 19th century, the new Tractarian interpretation of the Eucharist was the catalyst for much of the later ritualism, resulting in vestments appropriate for a sacrifice and new church architecture, especially the change from a moveable communion table, as mandated by the reformation, where a meal is celebrated in remembrance of Christ to a holy or “high altar” as befits a sacrificial act. Although sarcastic, this quote from the Protestant journal The Rock points out how the interpretation of the Eucharist affects other parts of the service, “Is the Great KING objectively present on our ‘altars’—under whatever form or is He not? If He is so present at the bidding of a ‘priest’ then it behooves us to go softly and bow down in lowly adoration before His footstool. No service can be too solemn, no accessories too costly or magnificent for so august an occasion (qtd. in Reed 71). Stone altars. Because the Tractarian interpretation of the Eucharist involved the idea of a sacrifice on a stone altar, this subject became a very controversial issue, as 17

Much has been written about William Robertson Smith’s influence on Harrison concerning the Sacraments and sacrifice. It is true that she read him and was influenced by him; however, her interest in sacraments can be traced back before she read Smith. Most likely her interest in Smith’s writings was spurred by her High Church affiliations.

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evidenced in this court case from 1854. Reverend Robert Liddell of St. Paul’s and St. Barnabas in London was sued for the removal of a stone altar and cross, candlesticks and candles, a credence table, and various coloured altar coverings (Warre-Cornish 13). The specificity of these controversies was stunning. After an appeal, the court ruled that crucifixes were unlawful, but crosses were lawful as architectural decoration but unlawful if attached to or placed on the Communion table. Stone tables or altars were deemed unlawful; the table must be of wood and movable. Embroidered cloth may be used in the service but embroidered linen and lace cannot be used in the Communion Service (Warre-Cornish 14). This ruling was directly related to the celebration of the Eucharist as the court proceeded to detail, by saying that the framing of “Edward VI's Second Prayer Book [ 1552 ] was the removal of old superstitions” by abolishing all altars, “as being connected with the doctrine of Transubstantiation” (Warre-Cornish 14). As will be discussed, Harrison references the altar, and in particular stone altars, and the Eucharist in “veiled” allusions time after time in her personal letters, as well as in Prolegomena. Eucharistic Reserve. Another important Anglo-Catholic doctrine grew out of the concept of the Real Presence. Anglo-Catholics wished to “reserve the sacrament” after it had been blessed to have it ready to give to the sick and dying. The Protestants argued that “The real reason then why the Reserved Sacrament is so longed for is adoration” (Walsh 342). Eucharistic Reserve became a mark of Anglo-Catholicism and out it grew terminology, which will be important in interpreting the tangle of Eucharistic allusions in Harrison’s letters. One term is tabernacle, which was used for the exclusive preservation of the Holy Sacrament (Walsh 395) In addition, the human body that is about to receive the sacrament is also considered a tabernacle because it will contain the holy sacrament (Walsh 385).

III. The Evolution of Ritual Ritualism did not grow solely out of the Oxford Movement; there were at least three other major contributors: the Camden Society, the “slum” ritualists, and the “gingerbread gilt” school. 65

The Camden Society As the tracts spread throughout England, they slowly gained wide acceptance. At Cambridge University, the Camden Society enthusiastically embraced them emphasizing ecclesiology, i.e., church architecture, decorations, and furniture. Although, as Yates points out, ecclesiology was not new (49), in the hands of John Mason Neale and Jacob Bryce, it came to be linked to Tractarianism. In 1839 Neale wrote a letter to Bryce which stated, "Confine yourself to the O.T. [Oxford Tracts] and-so far as I have read them, and that is very nearly all-heart and soul, entirely and completely, do I join with them. . .” (qtd. in White, Cambridge Movement 26). Like their contemporaries at Oxford, Neale and Bryce were committed High Churchmen and their interest 18 lay in a deep-rooted desire, not merely for more ceremonialism in the church but for a deeper meaning in the services through symbols which included vestments, incense, candles, and eventually extended to church architecture where every part of the church had a symbolic and holy meaning. In large part, the desire to build new churches in the Gothic medieval style grew out of the Camden Society. For Neale a higher principle lay behind symbolism, which he described as Sacramentality. "Symbolism and ritual were established according to the providence of God for the purpose of elevating ordinary objects or human actions beyond their common use and thereby enabling them to serve a higher purpose.” (qtd. in de Hart 3). Scholars such as White, de Hart, Bright, and Hylson-Smith consider the Camden Society the true beginning of the ritualistic movement. “Slum” Ritualists In addition to the Tractarians and the Camden Society, there was yet a third group involved in the evolution of ritualism. These were the priests, such as Father Dolling and Mackonochie who labored in the slums and dedicated their lives to bring help and spirituality to the poor. The lethargy in the church as described by Gladstone was, as Carpenter explains, why these priests turned to ritual: 18

This is not to imply that all High Churchmen were Tractarians or that all Ecclesiologists were High Churchmen or Tractarians. However, there was some overlap between the groups. For a discussion of this overlap see Yates 48-54.

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Accordingly they turned to a Church that did at least seem to be alive and to have a method for shepherding Christ’s poor. They read Roman books of ceremonial, they put up Roman altars with gradines and six candlesticks, they introduced vestments of non-English pattern, they covered their heads in the day of battle with Italian birettas (22-23) . . . Their chief work was to teach the reality of the Eucharist gift, the beauty of holiness, and the value of confession (Anglican Tradition 24). The Gingerbread Gilt School One other group also contributed to the rise of ritualism, those who enjoyed only the show of ritual. Or as John Henry Newman put it, “I mean such men as I used to consider of “the gilt-gingerbread school,” from whom I expected little good, persons whose religion lay in ritualism or architecture, and who “played at Popery or at Anglicanism” (Apologia Pro Vita Sua 299). This is an important concept for understanding certain parts of Harrison’s work. For those who were considered “mere ritualists” earned the disdain of both people inside and outside the movement. For those outside the movement, a ritualist was anyone who could be accused of “popery” or attempting to “Romanize” the Anglican Church. For those inside the movement, they were those who merely played with ritual and did not embrace the full Catholic doctrine or who proceeded too quickly and neglected to teach doctrine. As will be discussed in Chapter 5, Victorian religion and ritual often intrudes into the pages of Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion and Harrison may have had the gingerbread gilt school in mind when she quoted Plato concerning the worship of Orpheus, “Many are the wand bearers, few are the Bacchoi” (Prolegomena 473). “Extreme” Rituals 19 When Reverend Cornford 20 asked the following questions in the Parish Church of Cam, Gloucestershire on the second Sunday in Advent, 1866 (a year before Harrison 19

The definition of “extreme ritual” changed as time went along. For instance in the 1850’s wearing a surplice would have been unheard of; however ritual was introduced incrementally. As the public became accustomed to one ritual, such as wearing the surplice, another would be introduced, which in turn would become commonplace. However, in 1866, the rituals discussed here would have been considered “extreme.”

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became involved in ritualism) he was voicing concerns that were spreading throughout England, “To what purpose is this incensing of persons and of things? This elevation of the blessed emblems of our dear Saviour’s death? These waving of banners? These flowery decorations? These gorgeous vestments? Were these things known to the primitive church? Were they appointed by our Lord? . . . (11). These rituals—incense, crosses, flowers, and vestments were all part of what Harrison meant by her words, “I reacted in extreme High Churchism.” Her interest in banners and vestments has been illustrated and in order to see the ghosts of the High Church hovering around her letters and Prolegomena, incense and crosses, as well as confession, holy relics, and the High Church connotations of certain words must also be discussed. Incense. Incense became a major controversy in the ritualistic wars. Mark Lidderdale, a new Anglo-Catholic curate, in Compton Mackenzie’s 21 novel Parson’s Progress describes the caution his vicar has taken in introducing new rituals and the horror of introducing incense: For ten years he had been introducing novelties one at a time with excessive caution. He ought to know by now that until it came to incense, to which English people often possessed a physical as well as a moral and religious repugnance, one could introduce anything (20). MacKenzie’s statement emphasizes the common public view on incense, and, in fact, this ritual was so sensitive that it required legal opinions. The Yorkshire Post Leeds Intelligencer reported on January 8, 1867 that Father Mackonochie at St. Alban’s Church in London had discontinued the “censing of persons and things and the elevation of the Elements.” He had been moved to do this he said, “after consultation with other parish priests, to make such alterations in consideration of the legal opinion procured by the English Church Union.” However, there were ways around these rulings. Father Mackonochie brought the censor in before the consecration prayer and burnt incense

20

To my knowledge, there is no relation to Francis Cornford. Compton Mackenzie, who was an “advanced” participant of the ritualistic movement composed a trilogy based on his own Anglo-Catholic experiences. The novels entitled The Altar Steps, The Parson’s Progress, and Heavenly Ladder describe a young clergyman named Mark Lidderdale who became a ritualist and like MacKenzie converted to the Roman Catholic church. For a discussion of the authentic nature of MacKenzie’s novels see, Wellings 12-13. For a discussion of MacKenzie’s Anglo-Catholic experiences and how they inform the trilogy, see Linklater in general and pages 43-54 specifically. 21

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before the altar—“a mode of using incense allowed by ecclesiastical, and not disallowed by legal opinion” (“Use of Incense” 3). Confession. The introduction of the sacrament of penance, as confession was known in Anglo-Catholic circles, caused great consternation among the general public. Reed relates, “Perhaps it is not surprising that few other Anglo-Catholic innovations elicited as much visceral opposition, even among the movement’s allies and sympathizers” (49). It was thought to undermine the authority of the husband or father and in addition, it meant that young ladies would be alone bearing their secrets to men. Judging from subtle references and hints in Harrison’s letters and surprisingly in Prolegomena, the sacrament of Penance seems to have played an important role in her life. And in relation to Harrison, it is good to keep in mind that as E. A. Knox observed, “a rite stigmatized as papistical [was] all the more alluring,” and that “‘all the ‘thrill’ of mystery and of persecution for the faith [only] added to the joy of unburdening the conscience” (qtd. in Reed 49). And when one adds to that thrill the added attraction of rebelling against a hated stepmother, the satisfaction is that much more intense. Crosses. Another symbol that disturbed the Protestant population was the image of the cross, reminiscent as it was of the “idol worship” of Roman Catholicism. For instance, in 1850-51 riots occurred in East Grinstead because John Mason Neale conducted a funeral at which the bier had a purple pall with a cross on it (Yates

Figure 1: Jane Ellen Harrison, 1875

82). Reed reports one Evangelical thought that Anglo-Catholics “seemed to parody the words of St. Paul, ‘God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross.’” The sign had become so common among them, he said that “it degenerates into brooches, eardrops, and bookmarkers” (qtd. in Reed 82).

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As will be discussed in Chapter 4, the cross, for Harrison, becomes a poetic mystic symbol that she will retain and use throughout her life. Figure 1 22 illustrates Harrison’s affiliation with Anglo-Catholicism in the form of the cross around her neck while she was at Newnham College. Holy relics. Relics, too, became part of the High Church service and many Protestants were appalled by the practice. Walsh, who made it his life’s work to catalog “papist rites” quotes from a ritualistic guide entitled, Services of Holy Week: When the palms are being distributed, a SHRINE WITH RELICS [that is, with the holy bones of some supposed Saint] shall be made ready, in which shall hang in a Pyx the Host; and two clerks, not joining the procession to the first station, shall come to meet it at the place of the first station; a lantern shall proceed it, with an unveiled cross and two banners (248). Reverend Dawson, too, was concerned about relics, complaining that John Newman had accepted every part of Papism in his book on English saints and, “As a natural consequence, he assumes throughout, the truth of every part of the Roman Catholic system—pilgrimages to shrines to worship relics, the worship of saints, and especially of the Virgin—the selection of patron saints and confidence in their prayers. . . “(4). Harrison, too, as will be discussed in Chapter 6, hints at an interest in relics as well as shrines. Language: Anglo-Catholicism developed its own language consisting of a certain sort of “code” words and phrases, the use of which identified one as part of the movement. The word, mass, which was anathema to the Protestant population of England, was one such word. According to Pusey, “The word “mass” [has] alienated thousands who ought to belong to us” (qtd. in Reed 82). Mark Lidderdale’s vicar in Parson’s Progress critiques Lidderdale’s first sermon by saying, “By the way, Lidderdale, I’m afraid I must ask you not to speak of Mass in the pulpit. I’ve always made a point of not frightening people unnecessarily. I find that nobody ever objects to Eucharist, but a lot of people shudder at Mass” (29). (“but whenever I had the chance I went to hear Mass or the nearest High Church simulation of it”) (Harrison, Alpha and Omega 184) 22

This picture appears in Harrison’s autobiography Reminiscences of a Student’s Life, facing page 45.

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Hurrell Froude provides an excellent example of the importance of certain words and phrases. In an 1835 letter 23 he writes: I shall never call the Holy Eucharist ‘the Lord’s Supper,’ nor God’s priests ‘ministers of the word’ or the Altar, ‘the Lord’s table’ &c. &c.; innocent as such phrases are in themselves they have been dirtied; a fact of which you seem oblivious on many occasions. Nor shall I ever abuse the Roman Catholics as a church for anything except excommunicating us (Froude Remains Vol. 1: 394395). Reverend Cornford illustrates the seriousness with which such words and phrases were greeted in 1866: This latter persons, professedly ministers of the Church of England, are endeavoring to introduce into her, not only in name, not only in appearance, but what is more to be lamented, in serious reality of teaching; and the words “altar” and “sacrifice”, unknown to the Church of England formularies in such relationship are rapidly becoming word-symbols of the deepest and most erroneous dogma of the Romish Church (11-12). Altars and sacrifices, of course, play a major role in Prolegomena and that influence is usually attributed to Harrison having read Robertson Smith’s Religion of the Semites, which dealt with sacrifices and altars of the Hebrew people. However, her intense interest in the High Church preceded the publication of his book and most likely spurred her interest in reading it. The emphasis on altars and sacrifice in Prolegomena seems to stem from her High Church teachings with its emphasis on the Eucharist as a sacrifice and Robertson Smith’s work on sacrifice most likely reinforced her views on sacramental sacrifice. Some other key words that have been used in the primary sources in this chapter and will be used by Harrison throughout the years are sacramental and sacramentalism, altar, mystic, surplice, mass, sacrifice, priest, and banners. In addition S. instead of St. as an abbreviation for Saint also links Harrison to the movement. Arseneau reports that this abbreviation is one of the items that places Christina Rosssetti’s novelette Maude “firmly within the Anglo-Catholic orientation” (76). In fact, Reed reports that this abbreviation 23

When Keble and Newman edited and published Froude’s letters they did not identify the recipients.

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was so rooted in High Church circles that “one wealthy donor helped to underwrite the publication of his vicar’s sermons only on condition that the abbreviation, St. be used throughout” 24 (83). There are many connections to Harrison and the High Church and setting her language and love of ritual into this context will add a new dimension to her writing and provide a new lens through which to view her life as well as her work.

IV. Conclusion The preceding material was a very broad overview of the religious milieu in which Harrison grew and matured. Rather than being exposed merely to the monolithic religion Evangelical religion that has been depicted in the literature, Harrison found her own religion in the new ritualism that swept England in the mid-19th century. It was this personal experience with mysticism and ritual that fired her imagination and remained with her throughout her entire life and perhaps provided the spark that ignited Prolegomena. As the next chapter will illustrate, Harrison’s experience was a “very wild brand of High Churchism” that seems to have affected her very deeply.

24

Since Harrison depended upon speaking and writing to earn a living, this may help explain why, in addition to reserve, Harrison kept her High Church proclivities to herself.

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CHAPTER 3 A WILD BRAND OF HIGH CHURCHISM: 1867-1874 How long and ardently I longed in vain to see a Papist!”—Jane Harrison 1 Introduction This chapter will focus on a part of Harrison’s life that has been virtually neglected: her young adulthood in Yorkshire, her time at Cheltenham Ladies College, and the time directly after she returned from Cheltenham. By interrogating Harrison’s autobiography, 2 the notes of Hope Mirrlees, and other primary sources, I will attempt to detect any clues that may lead to an understanding of when her affiliation with the High Church began, how intense it was, and how long it lasted. Establishing an early and intense tie to the High Church will allow us to cast a more critical eye on Harrison’s writings to detect the subtle shadows of High Church ritualism as they flicker throughout her personal letters and Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Although the Christian creed and its dogma seem to fall away as the years go along, symbols and allusions remain in her work that hint of an ongoing love for mysticism and most of all for the mystery of the Anglican sacraments and their accompanying ritual. Harrison never seemed to forsake the mystery of the sacraments; in 1915 she passionately wrote: Sacrifice is dead, prayer constantly restricted; but sacraments live on, and probably will long live, because they are magical. Sacraments presuppose nothing more than just what science is disposed or compelled to admit: an invisible 1

Reminiscences 21 See Chapter 1, Section V for an overview of the critical literature on Harrison’s autobiography and the problems involved in taking her at her word.

2

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prepotent force on which and through which we can possibly act, with which we are in some way connected. Sacraments clash with no clear-cut conviction; they lend themselves to mysticism, to the notion of a god who is immanent, not imminent (Alpha and Omega 195). And it was the High Churchism of her youth that so touched her, that “reserved” allusions to the magical sacraments and their ritual inform her personal letters as well as her work throughout her life. Therefore, Harrison’s youth in Yorkshire and her early initiation into Anglican ritual will be the focus of this chapter. A short introduction to Harrison as an AngloCatholic to illustrate how all the clues lead back to Yorkshire is followed by an examination of the religious background in which Harrison was nurtured and what she explicitly tells us about her Evangelical childhood. I will then explicate three vignettes from Reminiscences all of which illustrate an aspect of Harrison’s intimate knowledge of Anglican ritual. The first, “The Hapless Clergyman,” 3 is a set piece in which Harrison very purposely sets out to describe a Tractarian clergyman who visited her parish. The second story, “The Hapless Curate” illustrates (with some help from Hope Mirrlees) Harrison’s involvement with ritualism as a young girl. The third vignette, “The Archbishop of York” places Harrison in the tradition of the very High Church Christina Rossetti with its references to sacraments, vestments, and other sacra of the High Church. The final section will discuss clues from her autobiography which point to AngloCatholicism causing a rift between Harrison and her father. An Introduction to Jane Harrison the Anglo-Catholic The traditional picture of Jane Ellen Harrison depicts a very colorful character filled with a wit that some people found rather acerbic. For instance, her friend Victorian Bunsen related that, "Many people in Cambridge I think would gladly have given her hemlock" (qtd. in Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 87). Mirrlees relays that “Dean Inge spoke to V[ictoria] about her at that time, saying that Newnham was a most wicked dangerous

3

I have named these vignettes after the major characters in the stories.

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place, because of Jane Harrison” 4 (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 87) "The Cambridge ladies,” Mirrlees writes, “thought her evening dresses too low" (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 94). However, a closer examination reveals that Harrison hid another more contemplative side as evidenced by this surprising remark which lies quietly and unobtrusively nestled near the end of Reminiscences of a Student’s Life: If I had been rich I should have founded a learned community for women, with vows of consecration and a beautiful rule and habit; as it is, I am content to have lived many years of my life in a college (89). Why would this “dangerous” Harrison, this self-proclaimed “religious atheist,” yearn for a nunnery? Perhaps she was jesting or tossing off an ironic comment? Or, perhaps it was a romantic fancy brought on by her recent trip to the Abbey de Pontigny. 5 The other option is that it was a completely earnest desire that sprang from experiences that began as a young woman. A letter written to Gilbert Murray in 1914 after a German naval raid on Whitby Abbey near her Yorkshire home alludes to a similar childhood interest: When I thought of them shelling that Abbey, that beautiful lovely thing on the great cliff that one dreamt of as a child, I saw red and, reading about it before breakfast, I all but rushed upstairs howling but remembered in time that such conduct was discreditable to a ‘Yorkshire tyke’ . . . (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/31).

4

This remark seems to have been made because Harrison was all too willing to explain Sapphism to a student. 5 Roger Frye provides information that may shed some light on Harrison’s memoirs. The first part of Reminiscences of a Student’s Life “Yorkshire Days” was published in 1924 in The Nation & the Athenaeum. The 1924 version stops on page 17 just before Harrison details her early religious training. It is interesting to speculate whether the conference described by Frye in the following letter dated August 29, 1925 in any way affected the information she chose to include. Frye met Harrison at annual meetings held at the Cistercian Abbey de Pontigny and describes her as “thoroughly ribald.” The group gathered at the Abbey, Frye describes as “fierce young Christians and mystics and metaphysicians” (578) and du Bos and Desjardins who led the group as “ecclesiastics” (in spirit) who haven’t got a pulpit.” While the description of Harrison as ribald fits the familiar portrait, this Christian atmosphere is unexpected, and one topic of discussion at the abbey is quite germane. To quote Frye; The first question is the nature of autobiography. We began with a short essay on St Paul by a young man who made a brilliant analysis of St Paul’s attitude which revealed a perfectly shocking state of morbid self-consciousness (in St Paul I mean). Everything here is due to le Christianisme, by the by. It appeared that St Paul felt justified in talking about himself because he was the élu de Dieu, as it had been suggested that only the Christian spirit could regard the individual soul as of sufficient significance to merit autobiographical research (578).

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Mirrlees, too, states that Harrison held a fascination with the cloistered life 6 that may have begun in her nursery: Jane was very sensitive to noise & to a gentle little girl who likes to “mind her books” that nursery must have been torture for her. It may also account for her yearning for the cloister. To her the perfect life for a woman was that of a learned medieval nun (Mirrlees, Biography Drafts/Notes “IX Palinode” 4/3/4). Years later a Harrison family feud would break out over the subject of convents as Harrison sided with her niece, Una, who wanted to “take the veil.” Una joined the convent and eventually left due to conflicts with the mistress of novices. Harrison, according to Mirrlees had “nothing but contempt for her” for leaving. Mirrlees also notes that, “If she [Harrison] had lived in the age of faith, she would certainly have had a vocation” (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 10). Another small hint exists of Harrison’s early interest in the convent. When she visited Venice in 1913, she sent a post card of Carpaccio’s Sogno di S. Orsola 7 to Mirrlees with the following note: “In my young days every maiden of taste had this hanging up in her bedroom so please hang it up in Ursula's. Venice is just the dream one feared it might be. Wish you were here” (Harrison letters to Mirrlees 1/3/1). St. Ursula, of course, is patron saint of the Ursuline Order and one doubts that many Evangelical young maidens had pictures of her hanging in their rooms, especially not ones with fathers and stepmothers like Harrison’s. Sentiments expressed in Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion also point to this same affection for the cloistered life and, in particular, certain rites of the Roman Church, “In the highest grade of initiation not only was there a new birth but also a new

6

Due in large part to the Oxford Movement, joining an Anglican sisterhood became an option for women beginning in the 1840s. During that time, the Tractarians, and Pusey in particular sought to establish a sisterhood that would focus upon “prayer, penance, and retreat from the world” (Vicinus, Independent Women 49). For a discussion of sisterhoods and deaconesses’ houses in England see Vincinus 46-84. 7 To see Carpaccio’s “Dream of St. Ursula” and for some background material on the painting, visit http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/c/carpacci/1ursula/2/50dream.html Of course, we don’t know how deep Harrison’s affection to St. Ursula went. However, since the Latin for “she-bear” is ursa, this might provide an answer to the riddle of Harrison’s fascination with bears. We do know, however, that Harrison often referred to herself as Ursula. A letter written to Lytton Strachey in 1923 is signed, “Your sisters in Christ, Ursula & Hope” (British Library Add. 60669 Ff 156). Recovering from an illness she wrote a note to Mirrlees, which said “you will find Ursula better stronger” (qtd. in Stewart 112).

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name given, a beautiful custom still preserved in the Roman Church” (Prolegomena 593). That beautiful custom is evident both at confirmation and in a nun’s final vows. The same type of warmth for the ritual of the Roman Catholic Church is evidenced in the following passage: The penitent is veiled because he dedicates himself as atonement for sin. . . . The old meaning of devotion to the gods survives now-a-days only in the beautiful ceremonial of the Roman Church, known in popular parlance as "taking the veil," 8 . . . (Prolegomena 522). The Roman Church also appealed to Harrison for its more reverent attitude toward the Virgin Mary: Our modern patriarchal society focuses its religious anthropomorphism on the relationship of the father and the son; the Roman Church with her wider humanity includes indeed the figure of the Mother who is both Mother and Maid, but she is still in some sense subordinate to the Father and the Son (Prolegomena 261). In all three of these passages there is an affinity for the Roman Church and, in two of them its ritual, which, as we will see later, is not present when she speaks of the Protestant religion. In fact, as will become obvious throughout the dissertation, the Protestantism so dear to her stepmother seems to have been totally lost on Harrison. To quote Mirrlees, “She considered English religion essentially ridiculous, i.e., generally. It was typified to her by a stout prosperous terre-a-terre paterfamilias bawling lustily ‘Jesu' the very thought of thee with sweetness fills my breast’” 9 (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 174). These connections to abbeys, nuns, and Roman Catholic ritual seem not to be coincidental or isolated. Since Harrison seems to have been interested in the convent and ritual since her childhood, we need to look to her home and family in Yorkshire in the 1860s to discern what influences might have been present to make a young girl from a strongly Evangelical background become so enamored of ritual and “papism.”

8

Harrison’s interest in veils seems not to have diminished in her later years. Virginia Woolf in 1923 described Harrison with these words: “This gallant old lady, very white, hoary, and sublime in a lace mantilla took by fancy greatly. . .” (Woolf 58). For a full discussion of this letter and a picture of Harrison wearing a veil see Chapter 6. 9 This sentiment is reminiscent of Hurrell Froude’s statement, “We will have a vocabularium apostolicum, and I will start it with four words: ’pampered aristocrat,’ ‘resident gentlemen,’ smug parsons’ ‘paupers Christi (Froude Remains Vol 1: 329).

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I. Reminiscences from a Yorkshire Girl, 1867

Yorkshire Religious Background Harrison was born in Cottingham in 1850 and spent most of her early life in the nearby village of Scalby. The following words, written in 1861 by the Rev. Charles Overton, Vicar of Cottingham, describe an abandoned priory and provide an example of the prevailing religious bias needed for fully understanding Harrison and her family’s attitude in “Yorkshire Days,” the first chapter of Reminiscences. They also point out how far from mainstream Yorkshire thought Harrison was in her views about “that Abbey that beautiful lovely thing on the cliff”: A true Protestant can only regard the monastic institution, with unmingled dread, and unmitigated dislike. The whole system was radically pernicious. For the most part it sprung from superstition; it was nourished by ignorance, and its bitter fruits were idleness and sensuality. . . But when we think that these religious houses as they were called, were the stronghold of popery, that they were the birthplace of all monkish fables and lying wonders which were foisted upon the people instead of the Word of God. . . (Overton 42). Overton’s words help explain the prejudice illustrated by Harrison’s description of her father in Reminiscences. “My father’s creed was a simple one: All foreigners were Papists, all Papists were liars, and ‘he wouldn’t have one in his house.’ How long and ardently I longed in vain to see a Papist!” (21). Harrison’s grandmother, too, was very low church and became enraged because Harrison’s Aunt Tetenka went into a Roman Catholic Church (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 102). Robinson reports, “Travel to Europe was particularly taboo, perhaps because of rigid-low church prejudice which forswore contact of any kind with the Catholic Church” (Life and Work 16). One can imagine then the turmoil that Harrison’s “High Churchism” must have created in her family. As evidenced from the passages below, Harrison’s Evangelical training at St. Laurence, the parish church and at home was extensive and left permanent scars: But my stepmother was made of quite other metal. She was a Celt and her religion was of the fervent semi-revivalist type. She was a conscientious woman

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and tried to do her duty, I am sure to the three rather dour little girls who had been her pupils and were later presented to her as stepdaughters. She gave us scripture lessons every Sunday. Her main doctrines were that we must be “born again” and that “God would have our whole hearts or nothing.” I think I felt very early that this was not quite fair. Why, if we were to care for Him only, had He made his delightful world full of enchanting foreign languages? Anyhow, the holocaust I honestly attempted was a complete failure. I was from the outset a hopeless worldling. But the apparatus of religion interested me. Sunday was an exciting if laborous day. I taught twice in the Sunday school, and from the age of twelve played the organ at two services. I followed the prayers in Latin, and the lesson in German, and the Gospel in Greek; this with some misgivings as to the wholeheartedness of this proceeding (19). In an essay entitled “Unanimism and Conversion” Harrison is very frank about the damage done to her by Evangelicalism: Probably I am the only person left in this room who was brought up in the old Evangelical doctrine—Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. I hope and trust that no young child’s life is embittered nowadays by being told that he must ‘flee from the wrath to come,’ . . . that if he neglect so great salvation he will go ‘into outer darkness, where shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth’—‘where their worm dieth not.’ It was a grim and awful thing to tell a child. It only shows what a tough thing a healthy child’s mind is that any of us emerged into even tolerable sanity, though we carry, I think, a certain ferocity of mind, a certain intolerance in conviction (Alpha and Omega 59). In Reminiscences, she returns to the same theme, “To realize the release that Aristotle brought, you must have been reared as I was in a narrow school of Evangelicalism— reared with sin always present, with death and judgement before you, Hell and Heaven to either hand” (80). In fact, subtle echoes of these Evangelical “doctrines” may be heard in Prolegomena as Harrison seems to compare the Calvinistic god to the “gloomy” chthonic god Zeus Melichios. Just as her stepmother’s god demanded “our whole hearts or

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nothing,” “Zeus Melichios will have all or nothing.” She continues with a description of Zeus that fits her feelings toward the 19th century god, “His sacrifice is not a happy common feast, but it is a dread renunciation to a dreadful power; hence the atmosphere of "chilly gloom" (16). The Christian god seemed to require a holocaust, at which Harrison utterly failed; likewise “Zeus as Melichios demanded a holocaust, a whole burntoffering” (16). Over and over in Prolegomena, Harrison layers the ancient with the Victorian.

II. The First Yorkshire Vignette The excerpt below is alive with references to the Oxford Movement and the controversies surrounding ritualism and it seems a deliberate description of a visiting Tractarian. Unless Harrison was intimately involved in these controversies it is hard to fathom why she would relate this incident and provide such detail 60 years later. Perhaps Jessie Stewart was correct in her assessment of Harrison’s autobiography when she wrote, “She delves into her childish memories for evidence of her mature reactions and tendencies” (4). The Tale of the Hapless Clergyman I remember a hapless clergyman who came north to take charge of our parish while the Vicar was away. The poor man arrived charged with good intentions; he meant to "brighten our Services"; he brought with him leaflets and new hymnbooks and new hassocks to compel us to kneel flat upon our knees instead of comfortably crouching through the Litany as had been our Evangelical wont. He even put a little cross on the Communion Table, but this my Father with his own hands swiftly and silently removed. The first Sunday, the church was full; the second, spite of all the "brightness", it was chill and empty save for a few sullen faces. I approved of the new man's views, though I did not like him, so I went conscientiously round to the chief parishioners to ask why they did not come to church. "We dawn't haud wi' 'is ways," was the answer. I thought it was the hassocks and the hymn books and the leaflets. "Naw—'e could do as 'e liked wi' 80

them papers and such like—they was naw the matter—but we dawn't haud wi' 'is ways.” Subsequent analysis taught me that “ways” is Yorkshire for the sum total of your reactions. Your particular deeds are of as little significance to him as your particular words; it is you, the whole of you, you “in a loomp”, as he would say, that the Yorkshireman wisely reckons with. They were instinctively better bred that I was with my rationalizing right and wrong, and they had felt the bad manners of the changes worked in their Old Vicar’s absence. After holding out for three months the innovator went back to his own place a sadder and a wiser Southerner (Reminiscences 14-15). Seven different words or phrases in this story allude to the Movement and at least one of them provides a window to problems Harrison’s new religion may have caused at home. The specific allusions from the story are boldfaced and are discussed in the order in which they appear. Brighten the service. The passage from Gladstone in the preceding chapter describes the dismal state of 19th century church services and Harrison emphasizes the problem with her description of the congregation at St. Laurence as they “crouched through the litany.” Harrison names several items, such as the hassocks and new music that were used to remedy the situation. Others, which caused great turmoil and cries of “Popery!” included seemingly innocent items such as flowers on the altar, candlesticks, and altar cloths. Leaflets. The early tracts that started the Oxford Movement were as R. W. Church described them “short earnest leaflets… intended to startle the world” (85). Harrison’s story, which probably dates from around 1867, illustrates the second generation of Tractarians spreading Newman’s message. New hymn books. In 1860 and 1861 a controversial new hymnal entitled Hymns Ancient and Modern appeared, which Frost calls “avowedly Tractarian” (120). If this “hapless clergyman” was indeed a Tractarian then the new hymn-book he brought to St. Laurence was undoubtedly this hymnal. 10 Reed remarks that, “some of the hymns in 10

Harrison seems to be well acquainted with this “papist” hymnal and in fact, she quotes from two at least of the very Anglo-Catholic hymns from this book. In Prolegomena she states, “To get rid of these spirits was to undergo purification. In the month of February and Anthesterion the Roman or Greek might, mutatis mutandis, have chanted our Lenten hymn”:

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Hymns Ancient and Modern might sound strangely “romish” for example, number 97: “Faithful Cross, above all other” (5). Or as one Protestant put it, the hymnal “administered popery in homeopathic doses” (Donovan 3). It is very doubtful that this book would have been well received at the evangelical St. Laurence in the 1860s. Kneeling/Hassocks. This aspect of ritualism was particularly odious to some evangelicals because it was connected to the new interpretation of the Eucharist. Heitland in Ritualism in Town and Country surveyed churches to seek out these “evil” practices. He discovered many papist manuals and a particularly odious one detailed what to do after the Prayer of Consecration, “You may now stand if you are tired of kneeling, but never sit in the presence of the King” (Wimbourne 23). The hassocks, or kneelers, that the clergyman brought provided comfort while kneeling and also became a symbol of ritualism. Little cross on the Communion Table. It is no coincidence that Harrison mentions her father removing “with his own hands” the cross from the communion table. Crosses were legal as architectural decorations, but were not legal when they were placed on the communion table (Warre-Cornish 14). And of course, the term, “communion table” revisits the controversy of communion tables versus stone altars and the interpretation of the Eucharist. There is also a personal element in this particular item, providing as it does a small glimpse into the friction that would have been created in the Harrison household as young Jane Harrison “reacted in high churchism.” Christian does thou see them On the holy ground How the hosts of Midian Prowl and prowl around? Christian up and smite them (Prolegomena 53). This hymn first appeared in 1862, published in John Mason Neale’s (of the Camden Society) Hymns of the Eastern Church and was included in the appendix of the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1868 (Frost 184). In fact, Harrison is still referencing hymns from this book, albeit very playfully, as late as 1914. A postcard to Lytton Strachey shows four penguins on the front with the penguins labeled “Me,” Mr. Lytton, Mr. James,” and Miss Pernel” and is entitled “the Strachey-Birds”. The post card reads:“When I survey’ god’s creatures, All/Perching, in dumb transcendent ways,/“Transported with the view, I fall/Prostrate in wonder, love, and praise” (Harrison letter to G.L. Strachey British Library Add. 60669, FF 128). The first stanza in Hymn 177 of Hymns Ancient and Modern is: When all thy mercies, O my God,/My rising soul surveys,/Transported with the view, I’m lost/In wonder, love, and praise. This hymn was written by J. Addison in the 17th century and set to new music by Sir Frederick Ouseley (Frost 242), “an eminent high churchman” (Temperley 277); it was included in the 1898 revision of the hymnbook. Harrison’s first line seems to be an allusion to Isaac Watts’ “When I survey the Wondrous Cross” which was written “primarily to be sung at the Holy Eucharist” (Frost 196). One might ask how Harrison was so familiar with hymns in 1914 that she could just toss off the lyrics on a postcard.

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I approved of the new man's views, though I did not like him . . . Surely, it is not a coincidence that the words “new man” appear in conjunction with the other Tractarian allusions. This pun on John Henry Newman’s name in the middle of the sentence serves two functions: 1) it tells us that she was indeed describing a Tractarian visitor, and 2) she subtly tells us she that agreed with “Newman’s” views. Innovator. This is a “loaded” word within the High Church community as well as within the context of this vignette—loaded with a negative connotation. The word “innovator” in connection to ritualism dates as far back as the 17th century and Archbishop Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I and “progenitor” of the Oxford Movement (Adair 122). In 1637 Laud delivered a speech before the Star Chamber entitled, “A Speech Concerning Innovations in the Church” in which he recounts how the Puritans accused him of twelve “great Innovations” intended toward “the advancing of Popery” (16). The words innovation, innovator, or innovate are used no less than 35 times within the 77 pages of the speech. These “innovations” included bowing at the altar, moving the communion table, and other such rituals that would become quite familiar to 19th century High Churchmen and women. The negative connotation of the word carried over into the 19th century. R. W. Church uses the word to describe the men of the Oxford Movement, “The men of the movement were not mere hostile innovators; they were fighting for what the University and its chiefs hold dear and sacred, the privileges and safety of the Church” (168). A Gingerbread Gilt Clergyman? The use of innovation, a very highly-charged word, then, is just another in the list of Harrison’s allusions to Anglican ritualism. But something seems amiss here. The use of the word innovator combined with the word hapless indicates that Harrison, rather than being a ritualist, is hostile to the movement. In fact, she further insults the clergyman with the phrase about her fellow parishioners who “had felt the bad manners of the changes worked in their Old Vicar’s absence.” But there may be a way to understand these words within the context of the High Church: perhaps Harrison considered the clergyman part of Newman’s gingerbread gilt school, not a real High Churchman at all. The very first day in the pulpit, the visiting

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clergyman introduced a controversial new hymn book, kneeling, hassocks, a cross on the communion table, and leaflets. And the second week no one came to church except a “few sullen faces.” Many High Churchmen, including Pusey and Keble, never approved of extreme ritualism and even some ritualists frowned upon introducing ceremony too rapidly. Reed reports that one Tractarian complained that, “The too hasty adaptation of a highly ornate ceremonial, under our present circumstances, throws back the steady advance of Catholic truth, by creating prejudice, in those who dislike it, against the doctrines which it is intended to symbolize” (126). Keeping in mind the quote from Reverend Overton (and Harrison’s father’s reaction), it is most unlikely that a visiting clergyman would come into the very conservative Scalby parish and set up these “popish” innovations on the first day. It seems likely then (if the story happened at all) that Harrison is criticizing the “gingerbread gilt school,” which gave the whole movement a bad name. Within this Anglo-Catholic context, the meaning of “hapless” also falls into place as a criticism of ceremonial being introduced too quickly with no preparation for the higher truths it represented. “Hapless” may also contain a secondary allusion; although a commonly used word, context here is again important. Charles Kingsley used the word three times in a pamphlet entitled “What, Then, Does Dr. Newman Mean?”, which was one of the back and forth volleys between Newman and Kingsley that resulted in Newman writing Apologia pro vita sua. Kingsley said of Newman: “It is admissible, therefore, to use words and sentences which have a double signification, and leave the hapless hearer to take which of them he may choose (“A Reply to a Pamphlet,” qtd. in Apologia 426). Harrison’s use of the word could be innocent but within this context I doubt its innocent usage. I further suspect that Harrison has used the word ‘hapless” in a double sense: it points again to the “hapless hearing” of the clergyman who seemed to have misunderstood Newman’s words and it provides a clue as to how Reminiscences should be read. This word as well as many others throughout Harrison’s writings, when read through an Anglo-Catholic lens does have a “double signification.”

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III. The Second Yorkshire Vignette This story illustrates how ritualism became an intricate part of Harrison’s life and further confirms the fact that she hides details under the surface of seemingly innocuous stories. Luckily, in this case we have a second source that expands our knowledge of what really happened and changes the whole complexion of the story, and perhaps of Harrison’s life. The Tale of the Hapless Curate: Harrison’s version A keen impulse was given to my study of the Greek Testament by the arrival of a new curate. He was fresh from Oxford and not, I think, averse to showing off. Rashly in one of his sermons he drew attention to a mistranslation. This filled me with excitement and alarm. I saw in a flash that the whole question of the” verbal inspiration of the Bible” was at issue. That afternoon I took my Greek Testament down to the Sunday School and, eager for further elucidation, waylaid the hapless curate. I soon found that his knowledge of Greek, was, if possible, more slender than my own. But, if embarrassed, he was friendly. Alas! that curate did not confine his attention to the Greek text. I was summarily dispatched in dire disgrace to Cheltenham. My stepmother said that I was behaving "like a kitchenmaid". Considering the subject of my converse with the curate, I fail to see the analogy (Reminiscences 27). The Expanded Tale of Hapless Curate: Mirrlees’ version Mirrlees tells a very different and much more elaborate tale of the Curate, whom she identifies as a Mr. Houseman. The relationship was rather longer than an afternoon. Clandestine meetings with Mr. Houseman occurred between Harrison’s house and the church; people began to notice that the curate “seemed to have a lot to say to the organist and was forever popping behind the red curtains” (Mirrlees Notebook, 4/3/1 132). Mrs. Cox the wife of the curate in charge discovered the affair, the stepmother was quickly informed, a scene ensued, and Harrison was packed off to Cheltenham Ladies’ College in disgrace (Mirrlees Notebook, 4/3/1 132-134).

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But there is much more to the story. Mr. Houseman and young Jane Harrison had been engaging in something more serious to the evangelical Mrs. Harrison than flirting. Mirrlees states, "Under the influence of the amorous curate Jane before going to Cheltenham had high church leanings. Terrible was the wrath of her stepmother when she noticed Jane one morning at Communion receiving the bread on out crossed palms instead of between her finger and thumb" 11 (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 175). One can imagine the young Jane Harrison standing on the lozenged blue and yellow tiles at the altar rails at St. Laurence crossing her palms to receive the sacrament as her stepmother glared at her like one of the church’s gargoyles. 12 This simple gesture of receiving the sacrament with crossed palms, perhaps one of Harrison’s first exercises in ritual, was not a trivial matter; it was symbolic of the new interpretation of the Eucharist as Christ’s body. This bread was not merely bread as Harrison’s stepmother had taught, but it was a great mystery, the most holy of objects. As such it must be protected safely in the palm where no crumb could accidentally fall to the ground. The Casket and the People’s Mass Book cautions to “Receive Christ’s Body and Blood as carefully and as reverently as you can. Receive Christ’s Body in the palm of your right hand, resting it on your left, and guide the Chalice, which contains the Precious Blood, to your lips with your right hand (qtd. in Contemporary Ritual Bowen 22). The effect that the reverence of this simple ritual had upon people, Harrison included, should not be underestimated. Athelstan Riley relates how the sentiment underlying this ritual touched the Dean of Cork when he visited Riley in London: On Sunday morning he [Dean Magee] announced his intention of going to St. Alban's, Holborn, 13 "to see what these fellows are doing." At luncheon he was asked what he had seen. Magee replied very gravely: "I have seen something that can never be put down." It appeared that having gone up to communicate he put out his hand in the old-fashioned manner to take the Blessed Sacrament between thumb and finger. Mackonochie, who was celebrating, carefully held the paten beneath the Dean's hand as he raised it to his mouth and the sincerity and 11

In the interest of full disclosure, Mirrlees also attributes this episode to a time after Cheltenham when “Jane followed Miss Beale into the High Church.” I cannot be sure when this episode happened but Mirrlees seems adamant that it did happen. 12 This description of the church at Scalby is from Cole page 10. 13 St. Alban’s was a notoriously ritualistic church in London.

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reverence of the action had deeply impressed Magee (Donovan http://anglicanhistory.org/england/riley/after/09.html). It is certainly possible that Harrison experienced this type of mystery and reverence in receiving the Eucharist and in other rituals, and the emotion touched her so deeply that she devoted her life to trying to understand its power and its origins. A Closer Look at the Hapless Curate Of course, Mirrlees’ revelation throws a whole new light on the story and is an important lesson in the problem of taking Harrison at her word. So it is very important to look more closely at how she constructs the passage, how she intends for it to be read, and how reading it from an Anglo-Catholic viewpoint helps us reinterpret the story. Harrison seems to have intentionally misled readers with the words “mistranslation.” 14 Anyone familiar with the Victorian church and its battles 15 would immediately assume that the curate in question was a member of the Broad, or Latitudinal, Church for as Harrison well knew, it was the Broad Church 16 that was closely associated with questioning the accuracy of the Bible. Both the High Church and the Low Church

14

To give Harrison the benefit of the doubt, it is possible that she was being truthful here: Mr. Houseman could have been of the new generation of Anglo-Catholics who were beginning to break away from the strict beliefs of the original Tractarians. When Charles Gore (later the Bishop of Oxford and the principal of the Pusey House) was at Oxford in 1875 he “became finally convinced that it was impossible to hold the old-fashioned view of the Old Testament. The conclusion he reached was that to which he remained true for the rest of his life” (http://anglicanhistory.org/gore/crosse.html). It would be 1889 before Gore published his Lux Mundi, in which Anglo-Catholicism officially embraced the Higher Criticism; however, it would not beyond the imagination that these thoughts could have been “in the air” at Oxford and ready to be assimilated by Harrison’s young brash Anglo-Catholic curate. 15 The battle over scripture between the high and low church involved, not whether or not the scriptures were inspired, but if scripture, as the Protestants, believed was the only authority. The High Church argued strenuously that although scripture was inspired, “it does not follow that a doctrine or rite is not divine because it is not stated in scripture” (Newman, Tracts for the Times, “Of the Doctrines of the Church” Vol. 6: 13). Newman argued for accepting tradition, the Church Fathers, the Prayer Book, and the Creed as well as the Bible in determining doctrine. The Evangelicals rejected this on the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. Proof that Harrison was well aware of the argument is found in Prolegomena, “S. Jerome complains in Protestant fashion that much was done in the Church of his days from tradition that had not really the sanction of Holy Writ. This tradition [of drinking milk and honey at communion] which the early Church so wisely and beautifully followed can only have come from pagan sources” (596). 16 Mirrlees reports that Harrison attended Broad church services while she was a student at Newnham College as well as in London where she attended Stepford Brooke's “fashionable” Broad church services (Mirrlees, Biography Drafts/Notes “Part V Palinode” 4/3/4).

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remained totally faithful to the idea of the “verbal inspiration” of the Bible until Charles Gore’s acceptance of Biblical criticism in 1889. 17 But we know from Mirrlees’s account that the curate, Mr. Houseman was not a Broad Churchman at all, but a very ritualistic High Churchman. And Harrison did leave a clue (and perhaps two ) that point to the fact that Mr. Houseman was a Tractarian. Fresh from Oxford. Oxford was the birthplace of the movement and remained analogous with it, sometimes in a very derogatory manner. Reed quotes the Natural History of Puseyism, which described ritualism as “‘religious fanaticism which is generally picked up at the University of Oxford,’ and its ‘enthusiasts as mostly emptyheaded and shallowed-brained striplings fresh from Oxford’” (176). Analogy. One also might also be tempted to read a High Church pun into Harrison’s choice of the words “kitchen-maid” and “analogy.” The word “analogy” was constantly on the lips of the Tractarians idolizing as they did, a book by Bishop Joseph Butler called The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature and known simply as Butler’s Analogy. So revered was Butler’s Analogy among High Churchman that Froude believed that when Butler wrote the book, he possessed the same type of inspiration as those who wrote the Scriptures (Froude Remains Vol. 1: 126). Perhaps Harrison’s “kitchen-maid analogy” was a clever play on words and an allusion to Butler’s Analogy? The true irony in this vignette is that Harrison was probably telling the absolute truth about her conversations with the curate—they probably were discussing the Bible, perhaps Butler’s Analogy, how to receive the Eucharist, and worst of all in her stepmother’s worldview, it is not at all unlikely that Houseman was hearing Harrison’s

17

A giant clash occurred around 1860 when seven Anglican clergyman of the Broad Church wrote Essays and Reviews, which dared question the devoutly held belief that the Bible was the divinely inspired infallible word of God, i.e., verbal inspiration. Both high church and the low church was sent into spasms and was in fact, temporarily united against what they perceived to be the common liberal enemy. Five thousand Anglican Churchmen, both high (including Pusey) and low joined together to sign a “Declaration on the Inspiration of the Word of God and the Eternity of Future Punishment” (Reed 60). Interestingly, in a lecture entitled “Rationalism and Religious Reaction” given in 1919, Harrison remarks that not only is the dogma of verbal inspiration not held in 1919 but was a danger to modern religion. Importantly, she quotes Bishop Gore who wrote, “You can hardly exaggerate the disaster it has been in the education of children that they have been taught to associate religion with things about the Creation, the Flood, and the beginning of our race . . (11-12).

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confession. As we will see in Chapter 6 the Sacrament of Penance is regularly mentioned throughout her letters as well as in Prolegomena. A Very Wild Brand at St. Martin-on-the-Hill in Scarborough Harrison’s involvement with the High Church was not just the garden variety type—she seems to have truly given it her “whole heart” as she was unable to do at St. Laurence. For, according to Mirrlees, "During the Mr. Houseman episode, she became High Church but it was a very wild brand” (Mirrlees emphasis) (Mirlees Notebook 4/3/1 143). But where in the Roman Catholic-hating north of England could Harrison find a place to practice a wild brand of High Churchism replete with incense, music, vestments and the Eucharist? Mirrlees provides a clue in a discussion of the Pre-Raphaelite craze that swept through Newnham when Harrison was a student. Harrison must have been familiar with the Pre-Raphaelites, Mirrlees muses, before she went to Newnham because of the paintings of St. Martin’s at Scarborough 18 (Mirrlees Biography Drafts/Notes “Newnham Nightingales” 4/3/3). Mirrlees again mentions St. Martin’s saying, “St. Martin’s, Scarborough, to instance which Jane must have known so well with the printed wood traceries of its charming altar, with poetry and organ damasked all over. . .” (Mirrlees, Biography Drafts/Notes “Newnham Nightingales”). These references, then, are clues to discovering more about Harrison’s wild brand of religion. And indeed, St. Martin-on-the-Hill in Scarborough was most likely was the church at which Harrison worshipped in Yorkshire, for in the late 1860s and 1870s it had become a hotbed of ritualism and conveniently, was within walking distance from Harrison’s home in Scalby. Crouch 19 provides information that narrows the choice down to St. Martin-on-the-Hill even more; he relates that in the 1850s there were some Tractarian sympathizers in the Northern clergy, “but hardly any out and out Tractarian churches with the big exception of the Leeds Parish Church. . . ” (“Anglo-Catholicism in Scarborough” 2). Locals were shocked, Crouch writes, when “an openly Tractarian 18

St. Martin’s Web site reports that “The contractors for the decoration of the church were Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co, newly founded in 1861, an up and coming major force in Victorian interior decoration and design. Associates of the firm were Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, Edward BurneJones and Ford Maddox Brown. Work of each of these can be found in the church. Pictures of the art work can be seen at http://www.st-martin-hill.freeserve.co.uk/martin.htm. 19 Reverend Professor David Crouch lives in Scarborough and is the non-stipendiary priest at St Columba, a neighbouring church of St. Martin.

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church was erected on the developing South Cliff suburb in 1862-3 [in Scarborough], and dedicated in July 1863 to St. Martin.” (2). So if we accept the basic premise that Harrison was High Church during the Mr. Houseman episode then St. Martin-on-the-Hill would have been her only option. Full-blown ritualism seems not to have been instituted at St. Martin-on-the-Hill until the early 1870s; however, even in 1867 some of the proceedings would have been considered quite shocking. When Henning Parr, whom Crouch calls an “openly Tractarian priest” became vicar in 1863 he immediately put his Tractarian ideas into action by emphasizing music and dressing the choir in robes, which Crouch notes was “unknown in Yorkshire outside the minster churches” (“Anglo-Catholicism” 3). Perhaps Parr’s most radical movement at this time was to introduce Gregorian chant in 1863 (Yates 413). All of this beautiful music and chanting must have been quite alluring for Harrison, who was something of a musical prodigy. Parr also introduced weekly Communion celebrations and Communion on weekdays on Saints days. Couch relates that, “The vicar was very assiduous in urging regular communion, always with due preparation, preferably fasting. Communion became daily in Holy Week and Easter week from 1872” (“Anglo-Catholicism” 3). A collection of Parr’s sermons from St. Martin-on-the-Hill entitled The Path of the Just were published and excerpts from these allow us to hear echoes of what Harrison might have heard at St. Martin-on-the-Hill and catch glimpses of the ritualistic services. Three excerpts are quite important to this discussion: Parr’s views on the Eucharist, ritual, and reserve. In a sermon entitled, “The Priesthood of Christ,” Parr writes of the Eucharist: “It is His endless life which makes the bread and wine to be the body and blood of Christ; not the dead flesh but the living Lord. . . He fills his life with sacramental elements; He fills with his life the heart of the faithful communicant” (269). This new mystical and sacramental interpretation was not part of the Protestant training that Harrison received at St. Laurence. Another sermon, entitled “Self-Control Needed for Real Religion” concerns a theme that reoccurs throughout Tractarian literature—the need to remain silent. To quote Reverend Parr, “Yes, it is hard work to keep the tongue with a bridle—it is life’s work; a man must indeed take heed to his ways who would accomplish it” (278). This sermon

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also provides a view into what kind of ritual that Harrison found at St. Martin-on-the-Hill when she returned to Yorkshire in 1871. 20 We do not undervalue the sentimental side of religion. It is a good thing when the devotion is stirred by the beauty which surrounds the externals of well-ordered Christian worship. The handsome church or cathedral, the pealing organ, the sweet strains of song, the gorgeous ritual, and the clouds of incense, such as S. John describes in the Book of Revelation—all these where they may be had, serve a good purpose and speak of the majesty of God, and of the glories of worship in the heavenly courts (279-280). In a sermon entitled “The Path of the Just” Parr advocates confession and penance: “If you have your share in these blessings, and know that they are not yours already, look to it, that, without delay, penitence and contrition, self-examination and confession, and earnest prayer and sustained effort, through grace, draw down upon you the salvation of God. . .(300). This then was the extreme High Churchism in which Harrison participated— fasting, confession, penance, gorgeous ritual, clouds of incense, sweet music, and of course, the great mystery of the Eucharist in a church decorated in beautiful PreRaphaelite paintings. 21 All of these mystic elements were a far cry from the evangelical

20

Harrison seems to have spend most of 1870 in Wales where her family had relocated. They moved back to Yorkshire probably in 1871 (Mirrlees Notebook, 4/3/1 141). 21 While Harrison was at Newnham, a Pre-Raphaelite craze swept the campus. Mary Marshall Paley, one of Harrison’s classmates relates: This was the Pre-Raphaelite period, we papered our rooms with Morris, bought Burne-Jones photographs and dressed accordingly. We played lawn tennis and Jane Harrison designed the embroidery for our tennis dresses. Hers was of pomegranates and mine of Virginia creeper. . (Marshall 20). This Pre-Raphaelite craze was, I believe, for Harrison, closely related to her High Churchism. St. Martin’s at Scarborough was designed by George Bodley and decorated by Morris and Co. with art by Burne-Jones and Ford Maddox Brown. The frontal cloth from 1862 was by Morris and was adorned with pomegranates, which allude to the “catholicity of the faith of the Tractarian Anglicans” (http://www.st-martinhill.freeserve.co.uk/martin.htm). In 1871, the new Anglo-Catholic church at Cambridge, All Saints, Jesus Lane had been structurally completed; interior work, however, continued while Harrison was at Newnham from 1874-1878. Like St. Martin, All Saints was designed by George Bodley with the interior being decorated by William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, and Ford Maddox Brown. The walls have repeated “designs, mostly of foliage and fruit, like the pomegranate, which with its many seeds was seen as a symbol of the new life given by the Resurrection” (Tricker 2). Hall relates that “St. Martin’s on the Hill, Scarborough was the immediate predecessor of All Saints, Jesus Lane” (“The Rise of Refinement” 103). It is not hard to see why Harrison was so attracted to Pre-Raphaelitism; it must have been intimately intertwined with her High Churchism.

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preaching, hymn singing, and bread and wine (which was only bread and wine) at St. Laurence in Scalby.

IV. The Third Yorkshire Vignette To understand exactly what Harrison is doing in this next vignette, it is helpful to turn to the work of Christina Rossetti who was a devout High Churchwoman and for whose poetry Harrison “never lost her passion” (Mirrlees Biography Drafts/Notes “Chapter IX London in the Eighties” 4/3/3). Arseneau, explicating Rossetti’s novelette Maude, 22 explains that it is “Rossetti’s artistic practice of reserve that there is no mention at all of religious doctrine or practice, no hint of a religious context until the second part of Part I.” At that point there is a list of presents which include a Bible and a Prayer-Book with a small cross. Arseneau lists other small details, which she believes “cumulatively place the novella quietly but firmly within an Anglo-Catholic orientation” (76). These include “the use of the abbreviation ‘S.’ rather than ‘St.’; the high regard for the Eucharist; the expectation that Maude should receive the Eucharist; and the reference to the ‘Holy Altar’ and the fact that “five of the seven rites designated as sacraments form part of the narrative of Maude: Eucharist, Penance, Confirmation, Marriage, and Holy Orders.” (76-77). Although the following story by Harrison does have an overtly religious theme concerning her Evangelical experiences, a subtext exists that is filled with “reserved” High Church allusions, including references to Confirmation, Sacraments, and vestments. The Tale of the Archbishop of York My father was incapable of formulating a conviction, but I think he really would have sympathized with the eminent statesman who "had a great respect for religion as long as it did not interfere with a gentleman's private life!" I remember his look of annoyance when the Archbishop of York, who was lunching with us

22

Harrison was almost certainly familiar with this book; on the last page of Mirrlees notebook she provides a list of Harrison’s books, which includes the following citation: Christina Rossetti, Maude James Bowden, 1879 (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1).

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after a Confirmation, and had been told that I played the village organ, put his hand on my head and bade me "consecrate my great gifts to God". That Archbishop was a splendid figure to my childish imagination. I loved his ritual robes and voluminous sleeves, but one day I looked into my brother-in-law's study and found the apparitor arranging these vestments. Alas! The sleeves were not real sleeves, they came off. The apparitor, touched by my interest, very kindly showed me how they hooked on, but the gilt was off the gingerbread. To return to my father. The archbishop was trying enough but an old Evangelical clergyman was worse. He called to say good-bye to us one day and asked if, before parting we would all kneel down and “ask a blessing” on our journey. I could see my father‘s face of cold disgust. He was in his own house and he could not be rude, so he sat down—he never knelt—and covered his angry face with one hand and let the old clergyman pray. Then he saw him courteously to the door and came back muttering something. I could only catch the word ‘indecent.’ He attended church with fair regularity, but we children noticed that on what used to be called "Sacrament Sundays" he was apt to have a slight attack of lumbago, which passed off on Monday morning (Reminiscences 18-19). Below are six religious allusions, four of them containing sly allusions to High Church concerns; the other two (the first and the third) illustrate how the High Church movement changed the Anglican Church. Confirmation. The mere mention of confirmation is in itself an allusion to the Oxford Men because they placed a new emphasis on Confirmation and brought it back to prominence. There is also a more veiled allusion to Confirmation with the phrase, the “Archbishop put his hand on my head.” During the Confirmation service, the prayer book indicates “Then all of them in order kneeling before the Bishop, he shall lay his hand upon the head of every one severally, saying, DEFEND, 0 Lord, this thy Child. . . (Book of Common Prayer http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/). Consecrate my great gifts to God. Harrison must have taken great delight in putting a reference to the great mystery of the High Church into the mouth of this Archbishop, who as we will see, was very Low Church. A manual for Anglo-Catholics entitled Why and Wherefore states that before the Consecration of Elements, the Priest

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should say, “Most Merciful Father, we most humbly pray and beseech Thee through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Our Lord, to accept and bless these Gifts” (qtd. in Contemporary Ritualism Bowen 50). Harrison’s use of the word consecration with the phrase “great gift” is a reference to the presence of Christ in the elements. On what used to be Sacrament Sundays. The phrase “Sacrament Sundays” died out as a direct result of the Oxford Movement with its new emphasis on the sacraments. St. Laurence at Scalby offered communion only on Christmas-day, Good-Friday, Easterday, Whit-Sunday, and Michaelmas (Cole 13), or what Harrison referred to as “Sacrament Sundays.” By contrast, St. Martin-on-the-Hill Scarborough was offering the Eucharist much more often―every Sunday from 1863, on weekdays when there were Saints days, and daily in Holy Week and Easter week from 1872 (Crouch “AngloCatholicism” 3). There are other important details within this vignette that are not so obvious as Confirmation and Sacrament Sundays. The controversy over vestments is brought out here in a very unique way. Ritual robes. These two words deserve close and special scrutiny. As the word “ritual” in the late 19th century was rather a dirty word in evangelical circles, Harrison knew perfectly well the connotation of calling the Archbishop’s robe “ritual.” Who was this archbishop and why was he wearing a ritual robe? Fortunately, this reference can be dated fairly accurately and we make a reasonable guess as to whom he was. Harrison stated that she “from the age of twelve played the organ at two services” (Reminiscences 19). Here the archbishop has been told that she plays the organ, so the date is sometime after 1862. We know that Harrison was playing the organ as early as 1862 and we know that she was still playing it in 1867 during the ‘hapless curate’ episode as he peeked behind the “red” curtain. On October 20, 1862 Archbishop Longley was promoted to Canterbury and was replaced in that same year by Archbishop William Thomson (Hart 164). Harrison’s archbishop could have possibly been Longley; she turned 12 in September 1862, but all evidence points to Thomson. This archbishop was visiting Scalby for a Confirmation and Thomas was famous for the number of confirmations he attended, confirming some 200,000 people (Hart 166).

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But was Thomson a renegade ritualist archbishop in Yorkshire wearing “ritual robes”? Actually there was nothing at all “ritual” about Thomson’s dress. Harrison’s description of this robe matches the description of an English chimere, which evolved from the rochet. The rochet had large puffed lawn sleeves tied at the wrist. Johnstone relates that in the 18th century the sleeves became so large and voluminous that they were removed from the rochet itself and were then attached to chimere, a sleeveless black gown―part of the English bishop's official vesture (19). I’ll return to the Archbishop very shortly because there is much more to this story. the sleeves were not real sleeves. They came off! Of course, this statement could just reflect Harrison’s awe as a young child in seeing and realizing that the Archbishop’s sleeves could be removed; however, there may be some underlying symbolism here within the context of the High Church and its attitude toward Protestantism. In fact, Harrison’s description conjures up an image of the Archbishop’s voluminous sleeves as detachable appendages and is oddly reminiscent of Froude’s famous statement: “The Reformation was a limb badly set—it must be broken again in order to be righted” (Froude Remains Vol. 1: 433). Is it possible that here Harrison is implying that, to follow Froude’s analogy, Protestantism needs to be unhooked and sewn properly back onto the real church? A quote from Prolegomena concerning Orpheus subtly reveals her feelings about Protestants and reformers: Orpheus was a reformer, a protestant; there is always about him a touch of the reformer's priggishness; it is impossible not to sympathize a little with the determined looking Maenad who is coming up behind to put a stop to all this sunwatching and lyre-playing (461). This rebellion against Protestantism and the Reformation was a strong trait among the Tractarians. Hurrell Froude said, “Really I hate the Reformation and the Reformers more and more, and I have almost made up my mind that the rationalist spirit they set afloat is the ψευδοπροφήτης of the Revelations” (Froude Remains Vol. 1: 389). 23 But the gilt was off the gingerbread. This phrase further strengthens the above interpretation about the robes and sleeves. It seems to be no coincidence that here

23

To quote Froude again, “As to the Reformers, I think worse and worse of them (Froude Remains Vol. 1: 379).

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Harrison alludes to Newman’s phrase “gingerbread gilt school,” this time in reference to a Protestant. Anglo-Catholics may be perceived as being overly concerned about vestments and ceremony but Protestants have their own gingerbread gilt with their detachable billowing lawn sleeves with no real doctrinal meaning. Archbishop William Thomson and Henning Parr There was something especially interesting about William Thomson to Jane Harrison. Thomson belonged to the evangelical and low church but was “remarkably tolerant”—“except for ritualists” (Hart 165). In fact, it was “alleged by the Puseyites” that Thomson had been appointed exactly because “he would suppress ritualism” (Hart 165). Why then would Harrison describe an archbishop widely known to be vehemently opposed to ritualism as being cloaked in controversial “ritual” robes? One explanation may be that as she said, he was a splendid figure to her “childish imagination.” And perhaps it was childish memory, or perhaps she didn’t know that he was an anti-ritualist. Or perhaps she knew perfectly well that this particular Archbishop had a running feud with Parr at St. Martin-on-the-Hill in Scarborough concerning ritualism. Crouch tells the entire story: The Evangelical archbishop of York, William Thomson, had got the measure of Henning Parr in 1863, when he refused to consecrate St Martin’s unless paintings he regarded as papist were covered up. He watched Scarborough with some alarm, staying there frequently with his friend, the then vicar of Scarborough, Richard Frederick Lefevre Blunt. St Martin’s parish was marked out as a troublemaker by subscribing to the Anglo-Catholic English Church Union. The archbishop received increasing complaints from people in the parish (whether visitors or residents) in the 1870s as Henning Parr slid towards ritualism. He began collecting for a chancel screen (not erected until 1893) which was a piece of church furniture regarded with horror by Evangelical low-church clergy. In 1875 Parr adopted vestments (a linen alb, coloured stoles and altar frontals); was mixing water with wine in the chalice for communion and was celebrating facing eastward to an altar with cross, backed by dossal cloth and with lit candles.

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The conflict between the archbishop and the Rev'd Henning Parr became open in 1875. Parr wished to employ a notorious Anglo-Catholic curate for St Martin’s in 1875, by the name of the Rev'd Charles George Foster. Foster was an unashamed member of the Anglo-Catholic association of priests, the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament (of which Henning Parr was a Superior). Archbishop Thomson refused him a licence and would not reconsider until reassurance was received over the use of ritual at St Martin’s. A public correspondence ensued, in which Parr defied the archbishop's right to forbid ritual, but conceded several points out of respect for his office. Parr was unbowed by this reverse and in November 1876 instituted a daily communion at St Martin’s (rather cheekily claiming that it was Archbishop Thomson's stirring injunctions to daily prayer for the parish which inspired him to do it) (“Anglo-Catholicism in Scarborough”). It only seems fair to also tell the story from the point of view of the Archbishop. Ethel Thomson (his daughter) relates that the Archbishop was being “pestered with letters” saying that “if he did not know what had been going on at St. Martin’s he ought to know” (Thomson 193): For some time the congregation of St. Martin’s had been full of complaints. There was a banner. There was wafer bread for the priest. There was a custom—the primitive custom of putting a fragment of the bread into the chalice. Confessions were heard. Colored stoles were worn. The mixed chalice was used (Thomson 193). 24 Thomson also relates that the Archbishop was involved in other cases and became a target for the ritualists who never lost an opportunity of “trying to get the better of him. 24

Interestingly, the controversy over the mixed chalice may well have resurfaced in Prolegomena in several places. The ritual involved mixing a little water in with the wine in the Eucharist; the water signified the people, the wine Christ, and the mixing of the two is symbolic of the union that takes place at the altar. Here, Harrison quotes Diodorus speaking of ceremonial wine-drinking. “They say that those who drink at banquets when unmixed wine is provided invoke the Good Genius, but when after the meal wine is given mixed with water they call on the name of Zeus the Saviour; for they held that wine drunk unmixed produces forms of madness, but when it is mixed with the rain of Zeus the joy of it and the delight remain, and the injurious element that causes madness and license is corrected “(448). See also this reference on page 435, “With the bull-Poseidon and the bull river-god at hand, the assimilation of the bull-shaped Dionysos would be an easy task, the more as he was god of sap and generation and life, as well as of wine. Water and wine were blended in theology as in daily life, and the Greeks of the South lent the element of water” (435). (emphasis mine). See also page 449.

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He was constantly harassed. . . :” (194). And Harrison, it seems could not resist the temptation to take one more small little stab in 1925 by clothing him in “ritual robes.” However, in spite of his problems with St. Martin’s and Henning Parr, Harrison did jab him very lightly because the Archbishop was very kind to his sister-in-law, Harrison’s dear friend, and new “G.P.” 25 Janie Skene Bruce. (There will be more on Bruce later.)

V. Harrison, Her Father, and Ritual The attention in the critical literature has focused almost solely on Harrison’s stepmother and her evangelicalism. However, scattered throughout Reminiscences are hints that Harrison’s father also had an extreme dislike of ritualism, which may have caused problems between the two. Jessie Stewart remarks that Harrison’s father was, “a silent serious man with deep prejudices: against Rome, against ritual, against noise, against all things modern” (5). This prejudice was not against Harrison’s work on ritual nor did he hate the city of Rome. It was Roman Catholicism that brought out his ire. Harrison’s states quite plainly, “My father’s creed was a simple one: All foreigners were Papists, all Papists are liars, and ‘he wouldn’t have one in his house.’ How long and ardently I longed in vain to see a Papist!” (21). Harrison continues to allude to this bias, albeit under the surface, and through the use of High Church language that has been discussed in this chapter, she distinctly sets her father apart from the ritualism so dear to her: The cross. In the story about the hapless clergyman Harrison relates, “He even put a little cross on the Communion Table, but this my Father with his own hands swiftly and silently removed” (14). Kneeling. When a clergyman asked the family to kneel for prayer her father, “sat down―he never knelt” (18). The Sacraments. She distinctly sets her father apart from the Sacraments with these words, “Sacrament Sundays he was apt to have a slight attack of lumbago, which passed off on Monday morning” (19). 25

G.P. is an abbreviation for “Grand Passion”; for a more detailed explanation see footnote 29 and Harrison’s G.P. for Dorothea Beale.

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Innovation. Harrison even connects her father to the word “innovation” in a story about Miss Beale at Cheltenham. Miss Beale had sent to Harrison’s father what she felt was a disgraceful post card that Harrison had received from a boy. Her father, however, was more concerned about the fact that the note was written on a post card than the note itself because “Post-cards were an innovation and all innovations anathema” (30). There is also an interesting letter that Harrison wrote to Gilbert Murray on August 1, 1902 when she discovered that Euripides was born at Phyla: It has just flashed upon me & filled me with immense joy that Eurpides was born at Phyla. I mean what it means⎯Phyla the very heart & center & first beginning in Attica of Orphism. Phyla the mystery place 26 . . . I suspect Euripides was an Orphic dissenter from childhood & had words with his father about that miserable made-up Apollo-on-sufferance Apollo Dionysodotos (p.1.31.1[Harrison’s note]) whom Mnesarchides affected. And how splendid & exciting to find at last in Macedonia in all its primitive vigour the thing he had known was really religion (known in its Attic-Orphic guise) from a child. What a 'return to nature.' Yr JEH Please do not frown on this⎯you taught me to try to realize 'how they earned their living and spent their money,' and I in my pious way, add to this sympathetic survey 'where they went to church' (Harrison Letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/4). It might be worth mentioning that “the very heart and center and first beginnings of ritualism” was Leeds at St. Saviour’s in Yorkshire. The church, anonymously sponsored by Pusey, was instituted as an experiment to put Tractarian teachings into practice. This quote from Pollen a clergyman at St. Saviour’s serves two purposes. It explains the purpose and it serves as an illustration of the mysticism so attractive to Harrison: The working of St. Saviour’s was an attempt to give a practical solution to questions of inexpressible interest to some of us at this time (ix). . . to give a practical refutation to those who doubted whether the Church of England could satisfy the longings of those among her children who yearned after the deeper and more unearthly gifts, which the Holy Ghost brought down upon the Apostolic body (x). 26

Harrison inserts Greek text here; she does not indicate its source.

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Did Harrison see a similarity between her own mystical ritualism as a youth in Yorkshire where she “longed to see a Papist” and Euripides’ mystic place of Phyla? (Perhaps from hearing her father rant about the papists at Leeds?) Was she, like Euripides, a “protestant dissenter from childhood?” And did she, as she suspects of Euripides, have “words with her father” over religion? Did she see Apollo whom Mnesarchides, Euripides father worshipped, as a sort of “reformed” or “protestant” offshoot of the more pure Orpheus? Harrison may also provide a bit more insight into this relationship in a passage in Prolegomena about Hippolytos and Theseus: . . . so Theseus, the bluff warrior, hates Hippolytos, not only, or perhaps not chiefly, because he believes him to be a sinner, but because he is an Orphic, righteous overmuch. All his rage of flesh and blood breaks out against the prig and ascetic (511). Is this how Harrison thought that her father viewed her at the height of her High Churchism—a righteous overmuch, an ascetic prig? Of course, we don’t know if Harrison and her father had words about Anglo-Catholicism; however, the implication of a problem between father and daughter is plainly there, especially since Harrison’s father “would not have a papist in his house” and perhaps not even an Anglo-Catholic with a picture of a Catholic saint hanging in her room. Harrison’s father failed, however, to convince her of the perils of Catholicism and it seems that her High Church inclinations were further nurtured at Cheltenham Ladies College.

VI. High Church Teachings at Cheltenham Ladies College: 1867-1870 This section continues the quest to discover the depth of Harrison’s High Church experience as a young woman. Did it fizzle out when she left Yorkshire or was it amplified? In this section, I will examine the High Church views of Dorothea Beale the headmistress and scripture teacher at Cheltenham and what she taught in the scripture classes that Harrison attended to attempt to determine what Harrison might have brought away from those classes. Just how deep did the High Church teachings penetrate into Harrison’s psyche? Was it deep enough to last a lifetime and influence her life’s work? 100

When Harrison arrived at Cheltenham Ladies College in 1868 it seemed a very unlikely place to continue the ritualism and High Church teachings instituted by the “amorous curate” and Reverend Parr. After all, Cheltenham had very strong ties to the Evangelical wing of the church; the evangelical parson, Francis Close, had dedicated himself to attacking “alcohol, Popery, Puseyism, and the theatre” and “combating Tractarian influences at the earliest possible moment in a child’s life” (Pakenham 106, 119). In other words, Cheltenham was not a hotbed of ritualism although Pakenham reports that “all Saints offered “ornate and full” services without being fully ritualistic.” “For ritualism, said the guide books, smugly, one had to go as far as away as Prestbury” (Pakenham 210). However, High Church ideas were afoot at the Cheltenham Ladies College of which the Evangelicals were not aware and of which Jane Harrison would deeply imbibe. And in spite of Close, many of the students did indeed take the walk to the ritualistic Prestbury 27 on Sunday mornings (Steadman 128). Dorothea Beale and What Jane Harrison Learned at Cheltenham The High Church teachings of the “Hapless Curate” and Reverend Parr at St. Martin-on-the-Hill were strongly reinforced by Dorothea Beale’s teachings at Cheltenham Ladies College. Beale was the head mistress at Cheltenham as well as the scripture teacher and she and Harrison seem to have enjoyed a very close personal relationship. Mrs. Mitchell, Harrison’s best friend at Cheltenham 28 told Mirrlees that Harrison had a “passion” for Miss Beale and that this passion was returned. Mirrlees remembers, “Jane telling me herself that her G.P. 29 was so violent that when Miss B. told her that her people wanted to take her away, Jane fainted dead away” 30 (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 2).

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St. Mary’s at Prestbury introduced lighted candles in 1865, daily communion in 1867, and vestments in 1868 (Yates 250). 28 Her name was Caroline Birch Dutton when Harrison knew her at Cheltenham. 29 G.P. is an abbreviation for “grand passion.” Vicinus describes this relationship as an “. . . intense and erotically charged crush on an older and more experienced student or teacher. . .” (“Distance and Desire,” 604). In the case of Harrison and Beale, the relationship seemed to have taken this form described below by Vicinus: “When the feelings expressed by a younger student or teacher were reciprocated, the rave [another name for a G.P.] became an opportunity for mutual spiritual growth underneath the leadership of the older woman” (611). 30 Harrison’s parents threatened to take her home because Harrison had written an account of her Scripture lesson to an old governess. The governess became suspicious of Beale because she quoted Dr. Plumtre who

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Beale’s scripture lessons seemed to have affected young Harrison deeply. Mrs. Mitchell told Mirrlees that Beale at this time was going through a mystic, theosophic period and that her interpretation of scriptures sent “Jane nearly crazy with excitement.” She added that Harrison’s interest in religion at this time was “predominate” and that “Miss Beale was tending toward ritualism.” Mirrlees parenthetically adds, “I gather that afterwards she became a thorough High Church woman there too Jane followed in her footsteps” 31 (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 4). Mirrlees is correct about Beale and the High Church although she is wrong in one aspect: Beale was a devoted High Churchwoman throughout her entire life. 32 In fact, several controversies erupted over Beale’s religious beliefs. Before coming to Cheltenham, she had been fired from the very Evangelical Casterton School, in part, because she would not renounce the Tractarian doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration. 33 And the controversy followed her to Cheltenham. Just before she was to start her job as headmistress, the committee that had hired Beale received a letter from a Mr. Bell at Casterton, which stated: She, Miss Beale, is very High Church to say the least…Her opinions on the vital and critical questions of sacramental grace are altogether those of the High Church or Tractarian School—assuming the opus operatum of the Sacraments to convey, of necessity, and in all cases the inward grace of which that Sacrament is the sign (qtd. in Raikes 101). As the committee had just turned down an applicant due to her High Church doctrine, Beale was asked to explain her beliefs. Beale defended herself by sticking strictly to the was suspected of sharing Frederick Dennison Maurice’s heretical views on hell (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 13). 31 Mirrlees here repeats the story about Harrison at the altar, which she related about the “amorous curate.” “She used to tell me how at the altar rails her Evangelical stepmother used to glare at her when she offered her hands, palms crossed upon palm, to receive the sacrament instead of receiving it in Low Church fashion between finger and thumb. (footnote here reads: "pecking at it with her finger thumb" I think she used to put it; she would reproduce the action for my delight)” (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 2). There is no way to determine if this occurred before or after she went to Cheltenham or at both times. 32 Beale came from a very strong High Church background. Her father was what was called a “high and dry” churchman. They attended church at St. Helen’s and St. Bartholmew’s in London where they heard “preachers of varying shades of thought. . . . Some of Mr. Denton’s curates at St. Bartholomew went over to Rome; one became Father Ignatius” (Raikes 76). Her brother Reverend Edward Beale belonged to the Society of St. John the Evangelist (Raikes 15)—an established order for men⎯which was an offshoot of the Tractarian movement (Yates 77). 33 Her father writes to her, “If the denial of the doctrine of regeneration by baptism were a sine qua non by the governess it ought to have been so stated” (Raikes 53).

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Prayer Book and was able to persuade the members that they could work together in the spirit of compromise (Raikes 107). Raikes points out that some people might have not been able to teach the Bible under these circumstances but, “Miss Beale undertook it with her eyes open, and in spite, or possibly because of the hindrances in the way, her Scripture lessons became the very pivot of her teaching” (107). Scripture Lessons and Tractarian Ideas What were these mystic, esoteric scripture lessons that Mrs. Mitchell referred to? What was it about the way Beale taught scripture that “nearly drove Harrison crazy?” Fortunately, Steadman who was studied scripture under Beale, although a bit later than Harrison, provides several in-depth examples of these lessons, which clearly show Beale very quietly teaching the Tractarian doctrine of reserve and placing a strong emphasis on the importance of the Sacraments. Due to the circumstances at Cheltenham as well as the nature of “reserve,” Beale could not teach what Newman described as “red-hot” Tractarianism (qtd. in Froude Remains Vol. 1: 59); however, the following examples illustrate the doctrines to which Harrison was exposed. Reserve. Miss Beale, like Henning Parr, stressed the importance of guarding one’s speech by imposing a rule of silence throughout the school so that no girl could speak without permission from the class teacher. A conversation must be finished where the permission is given and may not be carried on “in dressing-rooms, corridors, or staircases” (Steadman 113). Schlesier makes the interesting observation that Cheltenham Ladies’ College “sought to inculcate the silence and self-control appropriate to a convent” (Classical Scholarship 128). One does not have to look far to see the Tractarian thought inherent in the silence rule. Steadman, no doubt quoting Miss Beale, contends “it is good to remember these words from John Henry Newman” (113): Prune thou thy words, the thoughts control That o’er thee swell and throng: They will condense within thy soul, And change to purpose strong. But he who lets his feelings run In soft luxurious flow Shrinks when hard service must be done And faints at every woe.

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The scholarship on Harrison has emphasized the more rebellious and loquacious side of her personality; however, her High Church side did remain hidden under the cover of “reserve.” This concept was inculcated into Harrison at Cheltenham Ladies College, by Henning Parr at St. Martin-on-the-Hill, and by the High Church experience in general and would stay with her for the rest of her life. Steadman also illustrates Miss Beale’s mystic teaching. Steadman related her frustration to Beale at the fact that God did not speak in her as he did to the patriarchs. Beale answered her by saying, “Does not God still speak to us through our conscience?” and further explained that the “conscience was not the voice of God but the ear of the soul listening for that voice.” And if the ear was “dull of hearing or ill acquainted with the language heard, it conveyed an inaccurate impression to the mind.” In the same way a dull or uneducated conscience, Beale posited, might convey a distorted expression to the soul. . . . Steadman restates Beale’s teaching, “It was an obligation laid upon each and every one of us to see, by constant communion with God, and by intelligent use of all our powers in co-operation with Him, that we had that healthy and enlightened conscience which would interpret His message to us truly” (106). This was a much more sophisticated doctrine than merely being told “You must be born again,” and that “God must have your whole heart” and it is not hard to see how such an interpretation could have excited the precocious Harrison. Beale’s thoughts seem to flow straight from Isaac Williams’ 34 in Tract 80: “On Reserve in Communicating Religious Knowledge. Here, Williams wrote on how to “arrive at the truth,” saying that “a divinely illuminated mind, in the course of practical obedience, necessarily must accumulate numerous facts which necessarily lead to certain conclusions, or convictions of divine truth, so as to be open to the heart, and full reception of higher knowledge when presented to it” (Tracts for the Times, Tract 80 Vol. 4: 23). Pagan influences. The second example of Beale’s Tractarian teachings that sent young Jane Harrison into ecstasy may have also planted the early seeds for Harrison’s Prolegomena. Steadman relates that Miss Beale did not teach only the legends and writings of the Hebrews, “but those of all pre-Christian peoples, recorded the progress of 34

Williams was a close friend of Keble, Newman, Froude, and Pusey who wrote several of the early tracts.

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God’s early revelation of Himself to man” (103). This teaching could have come straight from John Henry Newman: Again: we are told that the doctrine of the mystical efficacy of the Sacraments comes from the Platonic philosophers, the ritual from the Pagans, and the Church polity from the Jews. So they do; that is, in a sense in which much more also comes from the same sources. Traces also of the doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement, may be found among heathens, Jews, and philosophers; for God scattered through the world, before his SON came, vestiges and gleams of His true religion, and collected all the separated rays together, when He set Him on His holy hill to rule the day, and the Church, as the moon to govern the night (Tracts for the Times, “Lecture 6, External Difficulties of The Canon and Creed Compared,” Vol. 5: 82). Newman suggests that the Christian rituals came from the pagans and it may very well be that Prolegomena is but a romantic rendering of the ancient “traces,” as Newman calls them, of the sacraments of the High Church. It is quite possible that Harrison has written a sort of history of the Greek typology 35 that foretold of Christianity and its rituals she so dearly loved (with her own 19th century Anglo-Catholic prejudices added in). As will be illustrated in Chapter 5, “traces” of the High Church sacraments, and in particular the Eucharist, appear over and over in Prolegomena. For instance, Harrison discusses the omophagia (the tearing and eating of a bull) using the language of AngloCatholicism, “It is not hard to see how this savage theory of communion would pass into a higher sacramentalism, into the faith that by partaking of an animal who was a divine vehicle you could enter spiritually into the divine life that had physically entered you, and so be made one with the god (487). In between Homer and Dionysos, Harrison utilizes 19th century High Church Eucharist symbols within Greek literature to foreshadow the Anglican Eucharist, and points out “mystical unions” and “nonmystical unions” at every juncture along the way. Sacraments. The other important religious teaching that Harrison drew from Beale was the holiness of the sacraments and the sacramental life, which as we will see in 35

Typological readings were common in both the High and Low Church; the Low Church, however, relied on a theory of sola scriptura, so that New Testament typology must come from the Old Testament, not from the pagan world.

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the next chapter, played a very significant role throughout Harrison’s life. Here are Beale’s exact words on how the Oxford Movement affected her life: Religion quickened the intellectual life, for Sacramental 36 teaching was to the leaders of that Movement no narrow dogmatism, but the discovery of the river of water of life flowing through the whole desert of human existence, and making it rejoice and blossom as the rose, revealing a unity in creation, continuity in history, a glory in art, a purpose in life, making life infinitely worth living” (qtd. in Raikes 77). Most importantly, to this dissertation, however, is the fact that Beale taught the holiness of the sacraments to her students. Sacramental teaching was given on Mondays and Tuesdays and it had a special place in Miss Beale’s Confirmation lessons (Steadman 104). Beale’s belief was that ”he had appointed in the Blessed Sacrament a means whereby we might draw upon His own might, and be energized by the Life that came forth from Him . . .” (qtd. in Steadman 136). We do not have direct testimony from Harrison concerning Beale’s sacramental teaching; however, an Anglo-Catholic interpretation of certain passage throughout Prolegomena in light of Beale’s sacramental instruction reveals secret meanings within the ancient context. Below, Harrison describes the religion of Bromos, son of Semele, which to some must always be a “stumbling block”: Food is to such a troublesome necessity, wine a danger or a disgust. . . They do not feel in themselves and are at a loss to imagine in others the sacramental mystery of life and nutrition that is accomplished in us day by day, how in the faintness of fasting the whole nature of man, spirit as well as body, dies down, he cannot think, he cannot work, he cannot love; how in the breaking of bread, and still more in the drinking of wine, life spiritual as well as physical is renewed, thought is re-born, his equanimity, his magnanimity are restored, reason and morality rule again. But to this sacramentalism of life most us bear constant, if partly unconscious, witness (Prolegomena 452-453).

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Sacramental teaching for the Tractarians did mean an emphasis on the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist; however, as I will discuss it was also a way of life, which stressed God revealing himself through in nature.

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Here, cleverly Harrison combines the images of bread and wine, and fasting with the words “life spiritual” and the phrases “sacramental mystery” and “sacramentalism of life.” With Beale’s sacramental teachings fresh in our mind, it is difficult to read this passage as anything except an allusion to the Eucharist. In addition Beale speaks of “being energized” from the sacrament while Harrison writes of “life and nutrition” coming from the sacrament. One might also compare Harrison and Beale to a statement by Hurrell Froude on the Eucharist: “If they are members of the Church of England they will say, they consider their souls to be strengthened and refreshed by the Body and Blood of Christ, as their bodies are by the bread and wine” (Froude Remains, Vol. 1, Part II: 163). These are examples of the type of Tractarian teachings in which Harrison reveled. In fact, she became the star scripture student. Mrs. Mitchell said that in scripture class they always had to write synopsis of the lessons and then supplement the material with their own comments. Harrison’s passages were invariably chosen be read to the class (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 4). Ritual. Due to the High Church questions that Beale faced when she first came to Cheltenham, she had to take precautions so that no one could accuse her of overtly teaching ritualism or of being a “papist.” However, there are many allusions in the biographies that point to the fact that she was indeed a ritualist, as well as a Tractarian. Steadman, even many years after Beale’s death only referred to her ritualism in a very oblique fashion by implying that Beale associated with many ritual priests, “Miss Beale spoke with warm personal appreciation of Mr. Bromby, of St. John’s, Bethnal Green, of Canon Body, Canon Knox-Little, Bishop Wilkinson of Truro, and St. Andrews. Bishop Webb of Grahamstown, and of Dr. Winnington-Ingram, and Dr. Cosmo Lang.” 37 Steadman adds that Beale’s admiration for these priests combined with her choices for speakers for “Quiet Days” suggested that perhaps Miss Beale attended the “predecessor 37

George Body who became Canon of Durham in 1883 wore linen vestments, used unlighted candles, and introduced Gregorian chant and with daily communion at Kirby Misperton in 1870. Wilkinson was a High Church Bishop at Touro from 1893-1891 (Yates 176). Winningham-Ingram was a Tractarian Bishop in London from 1901-1939 (Yates 176). For a discussion of Winningham-Ingram’s views on ritualism see Yates 323-324. Cosmos Lang was a High Churchman but not an Anglo-Catholic, although did make some concessions being first Archbishop of Canterbury to wear a mitre and “make the cope normal liturgical dress for bishop or archbishop” (Yates 351). Walsh singles out Body (219, 132) and Knox-Little (135), as examples of extreme High Churchmen.

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of St. Philips, rather than that of All Saints, with its beautiful music and Catholic ritual,” because she was “subordinating her private desires to the good of the whole College” (129). There is also evidence that Beale discussed ritualism with her students. Raikes reports that Beale received a letter from a student “who found danger and unreality in forms and ceremonies and who wrote, “I feel I am cutting myself off from you in writing this.” To which Beale replied, “Nothing will cut you off from me. I thought I had given no rules, only such suggestions as a heathen philosopher might have followed” (qtd. in Raikes 395-396). VII. A Cheltenham Vignette Considering Harrison’s close personal relationship with Beale, one would expect this friendship to be fondly recalled in Reminiscences. However, because Harrison and Beale had an irreconcilable break up after Harrison left Cheltenham, any traces of their friendship have been expunged from Harrison’s memoirs. Instead of fondly remembering her old mentor, Harrison writes the following mildly insulting description of Beale and her lessons at Cheltenham. A Small Story About Miss Beale I carried away from Cheltenham College a dislike for history which has lasted all my life. Our history lessons consisted mainly in moralisings on the doings and misdoings of kings and nobles. We did the Stuart period in tedious detail, and as Miss Beale was Cromwellian and I, like all children, a passionate Royalist, I was in a constant state of irritation. There was an odd rule throughout the College that no girl might buy a book. It sprang from Miss Beale’s horror of what she called “undigested knowledge”. 38 She need not have feared with most of us that the amount of knowledge absorbed, digested or undigested, would have been 38

This phrase also appears in John Henry Newman in The Idea of a University written in 1852: Nor indeed am I supposing that there is any great danger, at least in this day, of over-education; the danger is on the other side, I tell you. Gentlemen, what has been the practical error of the past twenty years,—not to load the memory of the student with a mass of undigested knowledge, but to force upon him so much that he has rejected it all. . . All things now are to be learned at once, not first one thing, then another, not one well, but many badly (103).

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excessive. I broke the rule and secretly bought a small life of Archbishop Laud. This I read, learned, marked, and inwardly digested (Reminiscences 35-36). Within this portrait of Dorothea Beale there are two important allusions that further tie Harrison to the High Church movement: “and as Miss Beale was Cromwellian 39 and I, like all children, a passionate Royalist, I was in a constant state of irritation.” To understand this allusion some historical background on the political leanings of High Churchmen is in order. Owen Chadwick remarks that a high churchman in the early 19th century would reverence King Charles I and believe that “Charles died for the maintenance of the Church of England and its episcopal or apostolic ministry” (Mind of the Oxford Movement 14). This reverence continued quite strongly into the Victorian High Church and in the men of the Oxford Movement, in particular. At least two of Keble’s poems in the Christian Year evoke the Stuarts, “King Charles the Martyr” and “The Restoration of the Royal Family.” Harrison’s confession to being a “passionate royalist” refers to this High Church heritage of reverence for Charles I. Mirrlees verifies this passion in Harrison by saying that Miss Cook, Harrison’s governess, “probably shared Jane's passion at the time for Charles I” (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 133). Archbishop Laud The most important allusion from this vignette however, is the following reference to Archbishop Laud who was Charles’ I Archbishop of Canterbury, and as Adair points out “. . . almost the patron saint of the Oxford and of its fruit, the High Church. . .” (139). To quote Froude, “. . . I adore King Charles and Laud” (Froude Remains Vol. 1: 177). As will be discussed in Chapter 5 Laud’s concepts of the “beauty of holiness” and the “uniformity of ritual” remain with Harrison throughout her life and are repeated in Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion: “I broke the rule and secretly bought a small life of Archbishop Laud. This I read, learned, marked, and inwardly digested.” This allusion firmly connects Harrison 39

This is another subtle insult to Miss Beale, as High Church members, in general, felt a revulsion toward Cromwell. For instance Keble’s biographer, Battiscombe reports that “Oliver Cromwell’s son, "Tumbledown Dick," had spent the long years of his retirement at Hursley [Keble’s parish]. His handsome monument stood in the old church but so great was Keble's abhorrence of the name of Cromwell that he refused to replace it in the new building and it was left to Heathcote to do so after Keble's death” (294).

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with the High Church as well as ritualism since Laud was known for his attempt to restore order and ceremony to the church services, which, just as in the 19th century, was construed by many as trying to “Romanize” the Anglican church. In “A Speech Concerning Innovations in the Church” given before the Star Chamber in 1641, Laud relates how he was accused of among other things, “advancing Popery,” (16) “bowing the knee at the name of Jesus,” (29) “reading of the second service at the altar” (41), “doing reverence at first coming into the church” (43), and perhaps most importantly, “placing of the Holy Table Altar-wise, at the upper end of the chancel and placing a raile before it” (52). Just as would happen in the 19th century, the 17th century altar controversy raised the spectre of the dreaded Roman Catholic Church with its emphasis on the Eucharist as a sacrifice. Fortunately, however, no one in the 19th century met the same fate as Laud who was beheaded on January 10, 1645. Not incidentally, the last sentence in Harrison’s quote is from the Prayer Book so important to High Church Services. It is the Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent. Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen (Book of Common Prayer). The Beauty of Holiness. There is one phrase, “the beauty of holiness,” for which Laud is most remembered and which Harrison would use in Prolegomena in 1904 and again in a letter in 1909. Here is the full quote from Laud: All I laboured for in this particular was, that the external worship of God in this Church, might be kept up in some uniformity, and decency, in some beauty of holiness. And this, rather, because first I found that from the contempt of the outward worship of God, the inward fell away apace, and profaneness began boldly to show itself (qtd. in Le Bas 361). In Prolegomena Harrison writes: Apollo, Liddell and Scott say, was called Phoebus because of the purity and radiant beauty of youth. The epithet has more to do with purity than with radiant beauty; if with beauty at all it is ‘the beauty of holiness’ (393).

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And if there is any doubt that she if referring to ritual, she adds, “The root of the word Phoebus meant "in a condition of ceremonial purity, holy in a ritual sense" (394). She also parodies the phrase on a much lighter note in to a letter to Ruth Darwin in 1909. She wrote that Augustus John who was painting her picture “seems to me to have a real vision of the ‘beauty of ugliness’ (alas, alas the lack of Sunday School training will prevent your seeing the true inwardness of that remark”) (qtd. in Stewart 129). Harrison is also possibly referring to this aspect of ritualism with at the beginning of Reminiscences as she speaks of her “present cult of all things Russian” (9) and then relates that her first toy was a box of bricks and soldiers mixed, called “The Siege of Sevastopol”, given to me by a patriotic uncle. I hated soldiers and sieges and muskets and bayonets, but the word Sevastopol was a marvel and a soft joy to my child’s mouth. I turned it over and over, and when much later I learned its Greek origin, and meaning, there seemed a real fitness to things (9-10). The Greek word Sevastopol means “place or city of reverence or reverential awe” and it is indeed fitting since Harrison seems to have spent her entire life searching for and writing about “reverential awe” or the “beauty of holiness” in one form or the other. Uniformity of Ritual. There is another important phrase in Laud’s quote above, “the uniformity of ritual.” To quote Gardiner, “Uniformity to him was the surest propagator of unity of spirit” (qtd. in Adair 133). Uniformity to Laud meant not only that all people in England should adhere to the same ritual but that Englishmen living abroad, such as military Champlanices in Holland and English factories and embassies also be “enjoined to a strict observance of the English liturgy (Le Bas 190). In addition, he made an unfortunate attempt to have the Church in both Scotland and Ireland adhere to the liturgy of England. Harrison in Prolegomena seems to wholly concur with Laud’s concept of uniformity. Although long, I reproduce Harrison’s whole quote because it ties her to Laud but more importantly, I believe it is in a nutshell Harrison’s mystic conception of religion and ritual: It is significant of the whole attitude of Greek religion that the confession is not a confession of dogma or even faith, but an avowal of ritual acts performed. This is

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the measure of the gulf between ancient and modern. The Greeks in their greater wisdom saw that uniformity in ritual was desirable and possible; they left a man practically free in the only sphere where freedom is of real import, i.e., in the matter of thought. So long as you fasted, drank the kykeon, handled the sacra, no one asked what were your opinions or your sentiments in the performance of those acts; you were left to find in every sacrament the only thing you could find—what you brought (156). The real religion lies in ritual, not in dogma or faith and in what you bring to the magical sacrament. Le Bas’ Life of Archbishop Laud. The beauty of holiness and the uniformity of ritual are two ideas that Harrison carried with her from Laud, but to determine other important concepts that would have been helpful to her we must discover which biography of Laud she read. In the 19th century, Laud had been much defamed and most biographies treated him as rather shabbily. However, there was one book, which was quite popular among Anglo-Catholics—the one recommended by Newman in the British Critic, 40 and in the recommended books section of the tracts themselves—Charles Webb Le Bas’ Life of Archbishop Laud. There is also another hint that this is most likely the book that Harrison read. In Rest in the Church by a young lady who “went over to Rome,” we get a description of the reading material on a young Anglo-Catholic lady’s desk which included, “Newman’s Sermons, the Transactions of the Cambridge Camden Society, Bishop Andrewes’ Devotions, Le Bas’ Life of Laud, Herbert’s poems, the Lyra Apostolica, and many numbers of the Tracts for the Times” (115). If, as I suspect, she read Le Bas’ biography of Laud, there are two related messages that override all others. The first is explained by Le Bas: The fault of Laud was, that his honest zeal impelled him to proceed too rigorously, and too imperiously; and to venture on too sudden a revival of some practices, which had been allowed to sink into almost general disuse. And hence it was, that the Archbishop was charged by his adversaries with a sort of cumulative popery; just as he was, afterwards, accused of a cumulative treason (363).

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British Critic, Vol. 18, April 1836.

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Like Harrison’s “hapless clergyman,” Laud proceeded too rapidly before people were ready to understand the doctrines. In other words, he did not utilize the doctrine of reserve. The second message that I believe Harrison took away from her “small Life of Archbishop Laud” was not to trust Calvinists: In truth, the furious outcry raised by the Calvinistic faction of that age, against Archbishop Laud, as a Popish persecutor, furnishes us with a singular illustration of the deceitfulness of the human heart, or of the hardness of the human forehead. For, of all the repulsive peculiarities of the holy discipline, as it exhibited itself in his time, there was none, perhaps, so remarkable, as its coarse, hard-featured resemblance to that very Popery, which was the object of its professed abhorrence. . . . Violence and terror were employed to establish its claim to infallibility. And if Popery had its council of Trent, Calvinism had its synod of Dort. If it abjured the idolatry of the mass, it may fairly be said that to have found a substitute, in the ordinance of preaching: for to the Presbyterian, the sermon was almost as much the life and soul of public worship, as the sacrifice of the eucharist was to the Romanist. If it renounced altogether the merit of ritual performances, it seemed to indemnify itself, by setting up, instead the merit of neglecting them (367-368). And perhaps we should add if the Romanists had their copes and surplices, the Protestants had their voluminous lawn sleeves. Every insult that the Calvinists hurled at the Romanists could be thrown back at them with an analogous act of their own. It is not hard to visualize Harrison marking this section of her “little life of Archbishop Laud” to use as ammunition against a stepmother who bordered on Calvinism or a father who disapproved of ritual. VIII. Postscript to Cheltenham: 1870–1874 After Harrison left Cheltenham, there is evidence of a continuing interest in the High Church. Mirrlees describes a poem that Harrison wrote during this time entitled “Three in One,” in which “one sees the heroine in a high church phase, dressed in mourning because it is Lent, decorating the church for Easter, & feeling scruples because

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of a sense of relief that Lent will soon be over” (Mirrlees “Part V Palinode” 4/3/4). The symbol of the cross also enters into the poem as Mirrlees describes Harrison “rhyming about the High Church girl’s carnelian cross.” She considered Harrison’s poem so bad that she didn’t write it down; however, one phrase from Harrison’s poem is preserved: “Life is one Godward emotion” (Mirrlees biography/draft notes4/3/4 “Part V Palinode”). As will be discussed in Chapter 6, the allusions to dressing in mourning during Lent and the carnelian cross point to an intimate knowledge of High Church ritual and symbolism. However, something happened during these years that made Harrison doubt the validity of Christianity. Mirrlees attributes this doubt to Harrison having read Strauss’s Life of Jesus, 41 To quote “Christianity went by the board forever; with it Miss Beale” 42 (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 5). Mirrlees relates that one of Harrison’s “principal solaces” during this time of doubt was the wife of the new rector at Scalby, whom Hope identifies as Zoe Bruce. However, the new friend was not Zoe Bruce but her sister Janie Skene Bruce. Zoe Skene Thomson was the wife of the Archbishop of York 43 (with the “ritual robes). As the friendship grew, it turned into another intense “grand passion.” To quote Mirrlees, “It is by no means an unusual relationship, an almost romantic friendship between a married woman with children & a young girl” (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 66). Mirrlees relates that Bruce had a most unhappy marriage but that she worshipped Jane. One thing that would have immediately attracted Harrison to Janie Bruce was that she was of Greek heritage on her mother’s side and she had spent her childhood in Athens, and it seems normal to turn to the rector and his wife in a time of religious turmoil. However, if Harrison was looking to turn away from the High Church and its associations with Miss Beale, Janie Skene Bruce was not the place to turn. Although Mirrlees paints Bruce as a sort of socialite with a concern for clothing and etiquette, there 41

Mirrlees also describes a passage that Harrison has written that shows an interest in and knowledge of Bishop Butler, the Tractarian favorite (Mirrlees Notes “Part V Palinode” 4/3/4). 42 A letter is extent from Miss Beale to Harrison concerning having read Strauss. A draft of this letter is also reproduced in Raikes biography of Miss Beale in which the recipient is identified only as a former student. Both of these letters are reproduced in Appendix C along with an explanation on how the publication of this letter might be reflected in Harrison’s autobiography. 43 It must be noted that Zoe and her husband the Archbishop were extremely kind to Janie Bruce and Harrison surely was aware of this. The Archbishop helped Lloyd Bruce procure positions and Zoe always saw the Janie was given clothes and whatever else she needed for her rapidly growing family (Anderson. 29-34) For this reason, I believe Harrison took a very gentle jab at the Archbishop in her memoirs. There is also some irony at work here since the Archbishop in charge of rooting out ritualism was married to a member of a very high profile High Church family.

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is another more hidden aspect of Bruce that Harrison must have found alluring: Bruce’s family had a very distinguished High Church history: •

Felicia Skene, 44 who was Zoe and Janie’s aunt, and with whom they lived, along with their grandparents, in Oxford, was one of the three best-known Tractarian novelists in England, ranked right alongside Charlotte Yonge and Elizabeth Sewell (Maison 31). It is not hard to imagine that Harrison in her High Church fervor had enthusiastically devoured Skene’s books and was very familiar with her writing. Aunt Fifi, as she was called, worked with Dr. Pusey at Oxford in her mission to help poor women (Felicia Skene, Rickards 151).

•

The first Tractarian bishop was Alexander Forbes, who was Janie Bruce’s cousin (Felicia Skene, Rickards 90).

•

One more thing must have been irresistible to Harrison, the “passionate royalist.” Bruce’s family was in possession of the Bible that “Charles I put into the hands of Bishop Juxon on the scaffold” (Rickards 7). One wonders if Harrison got to hold the treasure in her hands. In addition, the Skene family had a long history of support for royalty and supported the restoration of Charles II.

Nor was Tractarian thought hard to find in the immediate Bruce household where Harrison spent many hours visiting Mrs. Bruce. Anderson reports that Hilda, Bruce’s daughter, “with a mind like Aristotle, used it, aged eight, discussing Tractarian thought with a knowledge over the head of poor Mrs. Parker [the new stepmother]” (46). In addition, the names of two of Bruce’s sons, R.D. Bruce at St. Anne’s Dunham and Lloyd H. Bruce, Binton, Stratford-at-Avon appear in the The Clerical Ritualistic Who's Who. With an account of the ritualistic conspiracy, etc. (50). Janie Bruce died in 1880 at the age of 42 having given birth to eleven children (Anderson 40). She and Harrison remained close until her death. This friendship had been so dear to Harrison that in 1882 she dedicated Myths of the Odyssey to her: “To the Memory of my Greek Friend J.B. I dedicate all in this book that is written aright.” 44

Felicia Skene had moved to Oxford to work with a clergyman named Mr. Chamberlain described a “rigorous representative of the Tractarian party” (Rickards 89).

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Understanding this undetected aspect of the friendship with Janie Bruce Skene and its intensity highlights how little we really know about Harrison’s life and how much a small detail can add to our understanding of Harrison’s secret religion. I sincerely doubt that this intimate relationship did not in some way involve intense religious discussions. As we will see in Chapter 4, the subject of religion, and the allusions to the sacraments occur again and again in Harrison’s letters and will occur with almost all of her correspondents from D.S. MacColl to Lady Mary Murray and even in conversations with Virginia Woolf as late as 1924.

IX. Conclusion Jane Harrison’s life from 1867 until at least 1870 was saturated with the High Church, its ritual, and mystery. The High Church “amorous curate,” the ritual at St. Martin-on-theHill, and the formal indoctrination into the mystery of the Sacraments and ritual at the feet of Miss Beale at Cheltenham contributed to what would become an intense interest in religion and ritual later in her life. The period from 1870 to 1874 seems to have been a time of religious doubt in which she might have given up the dogma and creed of Christianity; however, in the background we are still able to detect a keen interest in the High Church as evidenced in her poetry, her reading, and in her friendships. In fact, it is hard to imagine that she could turn off such a passion and walk away from it without a second thought. And as we will see as we examine her life through her letters in the next chapter, the symbols and the sacraments of the High Church echo throughout the years.

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CHAPTER 4

POETIC RESERVE AND SACRAMENTAL IMAGES IN HARRISON’S LETTERS: 1888-1914 Sacrifice is dead, prayer constantly restricted; but sacraments live on, and probably will long live because they are magical.—Jane Harrison 1 Introduction The previous chapter illustrated Harrison’s intense interest in ritual and AngloCatholicism from approximately 1867 until 1873, 2 around which time, Mirrlees claims that Harrison, after reading Strauss’s Life of Jesus, began to doubt God and the literal interpretation of the Bible. In the critical literature this doubt has been interpreted as a rejection of all aspects of Christianity; 3 however, Harrison’s fascination with the sacraments, liturgy, rites, and doctrines of the High Church continued for many years and can be traced through her intense interest in sacrifice and the sacraments in Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion and in her personal life in the form of “veiled” allusions in her letters. These letters, which date from the late 1880s until the end of her life, contain evidence of the symbolic, actually poetic is a more apt term, imagery of the sacraments of the High Church. In addition, Harrison’s other writings contain clues as to why she retained and utilized the symbols of a religion whose theology she had discarded. As discussed in the previous chapter, she felt the sacraments were magic and “would live long” (Alpha and Omega 195). But a close reading of other materials exposes another 1

Alpha and Omega, 195. A letter from Miss Beale to Harrison concerning Strauss’ book is reproduced in Raikes’ book and is dated 1873. See Appendix C for the draft of the letter in Raikes book and the actual letter (undated) that is in the Newnham archives. 3 See Chapter 1, Section V for a discussion of how Harrison’s religious background has been covered in the scholarship. 2

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simple answer: she harbored a deep obsession with the High Church and evidence throughout the years points to an unsuccessful struggle to ward off its hold. For example, in 1887 Harrison wrote to D.S. McColl after he had shattered her self confidence by severely criticizing her lecturing style and her views on art: It will seem to you—with your sane mind—as absurd that the shattering of a theory should depress as that the building of one should inspire—& indeed it is not the shattering of any particular theory but the giving up of the habit of mind that demands a creed—I know by experience that one gets on much better in practice without a religious creed than with one but it was none the less desolate to live without God in the world—art has to me taken & more than taken the place of religion & my work for it was I see only another form of an old & I thought long dead personal fanaticism—which is, it seems hydra-headed (qtd. in Mask and Self, Peacock 71). The religious fanaticism was certainly not Evangelicalism and we must surmise that this reference is to the High Church. During this period, she seems to have tried, rather unsuccessfully, to sublimate her love of religion with art. When that failed she, in fact, turned back to religion and it may just be that Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion with its constant references to sacrifice, sacraments, and communion represents just the rearing of another head of Harrison’s religious hydra. In 1902, while writing Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, in a letter to the Murrays she delves into self-analysis concerning mysticism, religion, and the threat they pose to her sanity: . . .you are both so hypermoralized and super-spiritualized that you force me to think of ‘righteousness, temperance and judgement-to-come’: in the words of my baptismal service, “I have renounced them all.” Everything is a danger to me that cannot be instantly translated into hard thinking. Mr. Verrall always says, and he is right, that I am by nature rotten with superstition and emotional mysticism. As I said to Lady Mary I say to you that you have done me good in one way: I will never set my influence as I have done in the past, against good things, because I see in you two how beautiful it all is. But I will not think about those things or try to practice them, because for me that way madness lies. It is alright for you,

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because you were made like that and can preserve through it all a holy calm. . . (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/2). In 1914, however, she still has not broken the spell of the High Church; it seems to be still very much on her mind. Here, Harrison details the difficulty in changing how women are viewed and what their function should be when she breaks into self revelation: It is hard to shake oneself loose from these fossil virtues; they are bone of our bone, and the old skeleton still rattles. I catch myself thinking that, because I loved someone when I was seventeen, I ought to be devoted to them still; and because I believed something in the sixties, I ought to be sticking to it now like grim death—yes, like very grim death. . . (“Scientiae Sacra Fame,” 4 Alpha and Omega 138-139). This, of course, is a reference to Mr. Houseman, the “amorous curate,” and her High Church beliefs, which it seems, were still very much in her heart some 48 years later. It is as though the skeletons of the High Church were still rattling as late as 1914 and even though intellectually she had left the theology behind, she never fully quieted their mystical attraction even though the obsession felt to her like “very grim death.” The sacraments, reserve, and the metaphors of the High Church were in her blood. Yet again, in Alpha and Omega she confesses to an almost irrational fanaticism with religion. She admits that she holds a grudge against theology because it made her think that she was irreligious in not being able to accept its “man-made figments.” But in an extremely revealing statement she confides: I know myself by temperament to be deeply, perhaps almost insanely, religious. The unseen is always haunting me, surging up behind the visible—no merit to me—a positive weakness for the “religion of Time,” because things temporal are apt to go misty. . . ” (206-207). It was this fascination, or obsession may be a better word, combined with her mystic nature that explains the constant references to sacrifice and sacramentalism in Prolegomena as well as in her letters. There are several questions involved in understanding Harrison’s technique. Why in her letters does Harrison not just discuss her

4

This essay was published in Alpha and Omega in 1914; however, it had previously been read to the London Sociological Society.

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love of the sacraments? Why did she feel the need to “veil” her references? How do the primitives rites described in Prolegomena in any way pertain to the Anglican sacraments? The answer to these questions lies in fully understanding that Harrison worked within two Tractarian traditions: the doctrine of reserve in all its nuances and the High Church symbolic poetic tradition. As Newman stated, Keble “did for the Church of England what none but a poet could do, he made it poetical,” (qtd. in Rowell, “Making Church of England Poetical” 1) and Harrison followed in his footsteps. Thus far in this dissertation, reserve has been defined as merely a human device— a holding back, a reticence to speak of the sacred. However, reserve was also practiced by God as well as man. A word often used to describe God’s reserve is “economy,” 5 whereby God held back his holy truths, which were “economized” or revealed to nations, such as the Hebrews or Greeks, only to the extent to which they could comprehend them. One way in which God’s economy was revealed was through typology whereby God prefigured events of the New Testament through those of the Old Testament. Rarely included in discussions of in typology, however, is the fact that the Tractarians also believed that God revealed himself through Greek religion, philosophy, and poetry. This chapter will first discuss reserve in its various forms; the first section will discuss reserve as it was practiced in the 19th century and how it surfaces in both Harrison’s letters and Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. In addition, it will be noted that the Tractarianism used the concept to both condemn the Evangelical mode of worship as well as to justify their own more dignified, ordered services; it is no wonder that the concept held such attraction for Harrison, serving as it did a repudiation of the Evangelicalism of her youth. The next section of the chapter will then turn to a discussion of the mystic poetic symbols of sacrifice and sacraments in Harrison’s letters. In order to fully understand these symbols and how Harrison uses them, Keble’s theory of poetry will be discussed in conjunction with Tract 89 “On the Mysticism Attributed to the Early Fathers of the Church.” As will be illustrated, Harrison employs Keble’s poetic theories utilizing reserve while at the same time incorporating symbols from Tract 89 and other High Church poets, such as George Herbert. The last section of the chapter will provide a full 5

As will be discussed later, economy was practiced on the human level as well as the divine.

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explication of two of Harrison’s letters to demonstrate how she uses Anglo-Catholic imagery, in particular the imagery associated with the Eucharist. An analysis of the Eucharistic symbols in Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion will be covered in Chapter 5.

I. The Doctrine of Reserve

What is Reserve? Reserve is an ancient doctrine found in the writings of the Church fathers such as Origen, Tertullian, and Eusebias, 6 which stated that the sacred should be kept secret and held back from anyone not properly prepared to understand it. The Discipline of the Secret (disciplina arcani), as it was called in the early church, extended from the smallest thing such as not speaking the “name of the ever-blessed Spirit of God” “without serious attention (Tracts for the Times, Tract 80 “On Reserve in Communicating Religious Knowledge” Vol: 5: 81) to the highest doctrines of the faith, which were kept back until people were ready to receive them “by a long previous preparation.” Perhaps the most readily visible sign of reserve was the order of the Mass; in the early church only those who had been confirmed were allowed to stay for the Eucharist proper with the catechumens withdrawing before the consecration (Tennyson 45). Tractarian Reserve. Like the ancient church, the Tractarians and the AngloCatholics who followed them practiced reserve. This doctrine caused great consternation because some Evangelicals, already suspicious that papists might be in their midst, felt that there was a sort of subterfuge involved in the use of reserve. And the suspicions may have had a basis in fact. John Henry Newman relates how he used reserve: When a correspondent, in good faith, wrote to a newspaper, to say that the “Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist,” spoken of in the Tract, was a false print for “Sacrament,” I thought the mistake too pleasant to be corrected before I was 6

Considering Harrison’s High Church background it should be no surprise that these same sources, as well as the doctrine of reserve, figure heavily in Prolegomena. In fact as early as 1890, Harrison was citing Eusebias as a source in Mythology & Monuments of Ancient Athens. To quote, “I follow, quam longo intervale in the steps of Eusebias, Lobeck, and Mr. Andrew Lang (iii).

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asked about it. I was not unwilling to draw an opponent on step by step to the brink of some intellectual absurdity and leave him to get back as best he could. . . I was reckless of the gossip which circulated about me; and when, I might have easily have set it right, did not deign to do so. Also, I used irony in conversation, when matter-of-fact men would not see what I meant. This kind of behaviour was a sort of habit with me (Apologia Pro Vita Sua 72). Keble’s reserve took another form altogether, which was manifested as a quiet reverence. When Robert Wilberforce, who had been raised as an evangelical, came to study under Keble, he was uncomfortable with this reticence and the fact that Keble did not preach to his students. Keble’s reserve was so strict that he would not leave holy books out in view or lay another book on top of the Bible (Battiscombe 72-73). Reserve, then could take many forms depending upon the personality of the individual. As John Keble noted, allegory is one method of reserve, but “it may be done in a thousand other ways” (qtd. in Tennyson 33). Hurrell Froude, representing the view of the High Church even before the Oxford Movement, reprimands himself in his journal entry of September 20, 1826 relating that he has talked a great deal about religion to a friend and was not satisfied with the tone of the conversation, “I was not reverential enough myself, but dictated about sacred things which ought never to be mentioned without a high probability of receiving or doing good” 7 (Remains Vol. 1: 13). As we will later see, Harrison’s use of reserve in her letters in some ways mimics that of both Hurrell Froude and John Newman.

Jane Harrison and Reserve The Jane Harrison described in the critical literature is not a character that would be instantly connected to the doctrine of reserve. In fact, the following quote from her 7

To relate this to Jane Harrison, it is plain to see that the religious sentiments of her close friends, or at least the ones to whom we have extent letters, were not such that her Anglo-Catholic sentiments, even without the dogma, would not have been well received. Gilbert Murray was hard set against religion in general and Catholicism in particular as was his wife Lady Murray (although Lady Murray became a Quaker late in life). Francis Cornford would hear nothing of religion; Lytton Strachey was a known atheist; D.S. MacColl was a strident Protestant with an aversion to Catholicism; and Jessie Stewart was married to an Anglican minister. Hope Mirrlees seems to have been not involved in religion, although after Harrison’s death she did join the Roman Catholic Church. So, Harrison’s sentiments on High Church sacraments would have had little chance of being well received.

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Newnham friend Alice Dew Smith encompasses the usual depiction of Harrison: “I can think of no one else who could pour forth such a continuous stream of nonsense as Jane entertained us with evening after evening” (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 58). However, some of her friends seemed to realize that Harrison was holding back. Thena Clough remarked after Harrison’s death that she had been “such a consummate actress that it was impossible to know what she really thought about anything” (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 97). In Harrison’s obituary notice, Victoria Buxton [nee Bunsen] noted, “I recall how she would suddenly drop from the ironical to the very serious and express things, perhaps only by a turn of the phrase, a tone of voice, that revealed the spiritual sources of her own life. . .” (qtd. in Stewart 116). Harrison and the importance of silence. The previous chapter noted the emphasis that was placed on reserve in the form of observing silence at Cheltenham and holding one’s tongue at St. Martins. Although contrary to the traditional view of Harrison, the importance of the concept of silence seems to have stuck with her throughout her life and constitutes a theme that runs throughout Reminiscences. When the stuffed donkey she slept with as a child was taken away, Harrison “said not a word, I had long learned to keep silence” (16). After the curate episode her “father as usual said nothing. He scarcely ever did say anything. His great natural silence—which he has handed down to me, was, I think increased by my stepmother’s rather violent Celtic volubility. ‘Mother’d talk the hind leg off a donkey,’ observed one of her sons” (27-28). In great contrast, Harrison described her natural mother as a “silent woman of singular gentleness and serenity.” (Reminiscences 28). Looking back upon her long life Harrison recalls, “I like to live spaciously, but rather plainly, in large halls with great spaces and quiet libraries. I like to wake in the morning with the sense of a great, silent garden round me (Reminiscences 88). And interestingly enough, she describes herself as “fatally fluent” during her lecturing years (Reminiscences 63). Silence, then, is something to be desired and is associated with the ones she loved; excessive talking is associated with her stepmother and in herself was considered almost “fatal.” Playful and ironic reserve. As noted above and as will be discussed later, Harrison’s technique sometimes resembles Hurrell Froude’s reserve as described by

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Keble. Men (and women) “instinctively contrive all sorts of shading, to withdraw ordinary eyes from their real subject. The more they retain of the imaginative playfulness of children, the apter they are to indulge in this kind of half-sportive mysteriousness” (qtd. in Brendon 45). Harrison can be playful and mysterious with her allusions; however, she can also, like Froude, utilize irony. Keble explains that Froude’s irony was not “mere ludicrous irony,” but a kind of Socratic reserve, an instinctive dissembling of his own high feelings and notions, partly through fear of deceiving himself and others, partly (though it may sound paradoxical) out of very reverence, giving up at once all notion of doing justice to sacred subjects, and shrinking from nothing so much as the disparagement of them by any kind of affection (qtd. in Froude Remains, Preface Vol. I: xxxi). The following excerpt of a letter to Murray illustrates this playfulness and that Harrison understood that reserve was connected to both subterfuge as well as Attic irony: Glad at heart was I my dear Ther, 8 to see the print of yr hoof on the envelope. People say they cannot tell one typewriter from another—I am sure I could tell yrs in a thousand, there is something of furtivity (I mean of course reserve, Attic irony, etc.) in the very spacing of the words (December 22, 1908 Harrison Letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/16). Mirrlees, too, remarks upon Harrison’s use of irony, her silence, and her paradoxical statements “She had far too much Attic irony ever to monopolize the conversation . . . In a large company she was often very silent. Among intimate friends, however, she could be brilliant―whimsical, sometimes startling paradoxical” (Mirrlees Biography drafts/notes “Some Fragmentary Notes” 4/3/2). Harrison’s Attraction to Reserve Reserve, as set forth in Williams’ Tract 80, would have been of interest to Jane Harrison for several reasons. One reason is that within it is an inherent criticism of Evangelicalism and its mode of worship. Williams wrote that the life of a Christian is analogous to the

8

Harrison’s nickname for Murray was Cheiron after the kind centaur and teacher of Achilles; Liddell and Scott states that Ther can also mean a centaur, especially in Sophocles.

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“retiring actions” of Christ on earth.” Or as the scripture states, the Christian’s "life is hid with Christ in God" (Tracts for the Times, Tract 80 Vol. 4: 55). This mode of worship, Williams believes, is not to be found in “religious enthusiasm,” which is “a state of the mind when the feelings are strongly moved by religion, but the heart is not adequately purified nor humbled” (Tracts for the Times, Tract 80 Vol. 4: 55). Ritual. The condemnation of enthusiasm in the worship service led to a type of reserve in the development of the worship service of the High Church. To quote Williams, “Every thing which has GOD for its end gives rise to feelings which do not admit of expression.” These feelings, Williams relates, gave rise to a kind of ritualism as in primitive Christianity when religious feelings were expressed by significant actions, “which spoke, as it were, a secret language: such was the custom of turning to the East, and the use of the sign of the Cross.” (Tracts for the Times, Tract 80, Vol 4: 54). Reserve then brought a new type of reverence and discipline, as well as mysticism, into the church services, a “substitution of calm evaluation for fiery ‘testimony,’ of disciplined sacramental life for subjective assurance” (Chapman 67). For Harrison with a religious upbringing, which she described as “a narrow school of Evangelicalism—reared with sin always present, and death and judgement before you, Hell and Heaven to either hand” (Reminiscences 80) reserve must have viewed as a welcome relief. . References to the Doctrine of Reserve Certain references within Harrison’s letters and other writings, including Prolegomena, illustrate that Harrison was very familiar with the concept of reserve Personal letters and biographical material. Here are five biographical examples of reserve: 1. In 1902 as she was working on Prolegomena she wrote to Gilbert Murray, “I am so fond of Orpheus I feel it is almost indecent to write about him"(Harrison letters 1/1/2). 2. In 1902 she wrote to Lady Mary Murray on allowing Gilbert Murray to come and lecture, “I often reflect on the sorrows of being married to genius because genius is like God who belongs to everyone up to the limits of their power to comprehend” (Harrison letters 1/2/2).

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3. In an essay entitled “Scientiae Sacra Fames,” Harrison wrote the following, most likely with her stepmother in mind: But the emotion of religion, this sense of being part of God, may be the deadliest danger unless directed by a knowledge of the ways of God—i.e., the nature of the universe and that part of it which is man. A religious woman without knowledge is like a lunatic armed with an explosive (Alpha and Omega 123). 4. From Reminiscences, “There was an odd rule throughout the College that no girl might buy a book. It sprang from Miss Beale’s horror of what she called “undigested knowledge” (36). 5. From an essay entitled “Homo Sum” in which Harrison states that woman qua woman is in subjection, “What purpose that serves in the Divine Economy, I do not know. . .” (Alpha and Omega 100). Prolegomena. The Tractarians recognized that the ancient Greeks practiced reserve; Isaac Williams observed in Tract 87 that even “heathen piety, in holy places, and on subjects that are holy,” employed a pious silence or reserve, and a guard on the thoughts. (Tracts for the Times, Tract 87, Vol. 5: 110). It should come as no surprise then that High Church reserve is also embedded throughout the pages of Prolegomena with references being many and varied. 9 Below are six examples: 1. In relation to the festival of Kallynteria, “For on the sixth day of the third part of Thargelion the Praxiergidae solemnize the rites that may not be disclosed” (114115). 1. A quote from Herodotus, of whom Harrison writes, “though unhappily piety sealed his lips as to details,” “Concerning the feast of Demeter which the Greeks call Thesmophoria I must preserve an auspicious silence, excepting in so far as every one may speak of it” (120).

9

See also p. 134 with a reference to a “reverent mystery;” p. 151, certain sacra cannot safely be seen; p. 247, sacred rites enacted in silence; p. 511, Strepsiades cannot reveal these “mysteries” to any chance comer; p. 514, from the Clouds, Sokrates proclaims the sacred silence; p. 620, Herodotus dares not disclose the full details of the Thesmophoria.

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2. Discussing the meaning of the word mystery, “The mystes, it is supposed is the person vowed to secrecy who has not seen and will not speak of the things revealed” (153). 3. On the Arretophoria, “In the case of the Arretophoria, too, sacred things that may not be named and that are made of cereal paste, are carried about . .” (122). 4. Concerning Orphic rites, “as is mostly the case when he comes to the real point, Pausanias found it would ‘not be pious’ to reveal these rites to the general public” (603). 5. On the oath on a stele in the sanctuary of Dionysos, “It was set there in secret because it was too holy to be read by the many” (537).

II. Tractarian Poetry and Sacramental Symbols In 1902 Harrison wrote to Gilbert Murray: You will laugh I know and well you may, but I think the reason why your verses give me such intense and almost unreasonable delight is that they are just what I would have given my soul to do myself. As a quite young girl I had a dream of being first a poet, next a scholar, and though both dreams faded swiftly and completely they have always left a sort of empty ache of something never found (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/2). Throughout her life she was drawn to poets, such as D.S. MacColl and Gilbert Murray, often reading and critiquing their work before it went to press. In 1888 she wrote to MacColl, concerning his poems “Golden Island” and “The Bystander,” “They are enough to prove your mission as a damned poet and that is the main thing” (Harrison letters to D.S. MacColl 1/5/2). Although she never published poetry per se, she did fulfill her dream in a certain sense. By utilizing the symbols of the High Church, she poeticized her letters and ancient Greek religion with the vision of a true mystic. Keble and Poetry To understand both the symbols and Harrison’s use of them, it is important to examine the twin mystical entities that were, for the Tractarians, closely intertwined: 127

poetry and the concept of analogy. It is no coincidence that John Newman, Isaac Williams, and John Keble were all poets who saw religion and poetry as one and the same. Poetry. Keble in Lectures on Poetry, delivered at Oxford from the years 18321841, explains the close relationship between poetry and religion, “. . . Poetry lends Religion her wealth of symbols and similes: Religion restores these again to Poetry, clothed with so splendid a radiance that they appear to be no longer merely symbols but to partake (I might almost say) of the nature of sacraments” (Lectures on Poetry, Vol. 2: 481). Like Wordsworth, whom Keble deemed “a chief minister, not only of sweet poetry, but also of high and sacred truth” (qtd. in Tennyson 66), Keble saw poetry as an “expression of an overflowing mind” which relieves itself “reservedly” of the “thoughts and passions” that oppress it (Tracts for the Times, Tract 89, Vol. 6: 144). Harrison seems to share these sentiments, “One reads around a subject, soaks oneself in it, and then one’s personal responsibility is over; something stirs and ferments, swims up into your consciousness and you know you have to write a book” (Reminiscences 64). Analogy. 10 There is to God a special set of “holy and divine associations,” which he has invested in material things. These are poetic symbols of the divine, which did not spring from “mere poetical association” but from “something deeper than imaginative delight”—they are Holy Mysteries, which have the “authority of the GREAT CREATOR himself” (Tracts for the Times, Tract 89, Vol. 6: 143). Tennyson succinctly defines analogy: “the whole universe is a symbol of its creator” (56). Thus, all aspects of nature

10

Harrison also had a passion for the poetry of Christina Rossetti’s brother, Dante Gabrielle Rossetti and Tractarian analogy may help explain her fascination. Mirrlees reports that while at Newnham, Harrison’s favorite poem was Dante Rossetti’s “The Stream’s Secret” (Mirrlees Biography Draft Notes “Further Notes and Memories of My Own” 4/3/2). The first stanza is reproduced below: What thing unto mine ear Wouldst thou convey,--what secret thing, O wandering water ever whispering? Surely thy speech shall be of her. Thou water, O thou whispering wanderer, What message dost thou bring? Within the context of the concepts of analogy and reserve, one does not have to look far to understand the attraction to Harrison. Note the word, “secret” and the repeated word “whispering.” The stream represents an analogical or sacramental element in nature.

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from the stars to grains of corn to Harrison’s “Great Sea Mother” 11 are endowed with some special message from God even if we, in our limited knowledge, can’t understand the symbolism. In Prolegomena, Harrison provides an excellent example of how the Greeks endowed nature with divine symbolism: He [Dionysos] is god of all growing things, of every tree and plant and natural product, and only later exclusively of the vine. He takes to himself ivy and pine and honeycomb. The honey-drink he supersedes, yet honey is sacred to him. . . Ivy is especially sacred to him; his Maenads chewed ivy leaves for inspiration, as the Delphic prophetess chewed the bay. Pliny, says: ‘Even to this day ivy is used to decorate the thyrsos of the god and the helmets and shields used by the people of Thrace in their rites’. . . . (428). Harrison believed that for the Greeks nature was alive with divine associations, symbols of their gods. Throughout Tract 89 entitled “On the Mysticism Attributed to the Early Fathers of the Church” Keble lays out how the fathers and the early church saw signs of God or Christ at every turn, signs which then were endowed with mystical connotations. For the purposes of explicating Harrison’s letter, the chief mystic symbols and images are: •

The cross, which Keble calls the “most potent symbol of His power and sovereignty; as appears even from things daily beyond our eyes” (Tracts for the Times, Tract 89, Vol. 6: 30).

•

Wine, which Keble states, “in God’s Hand, (the allusion is too sacred to be expressed without fear and hesitation), may, consistently with the rest of Holy Scripture, be interpreted of the highest and most mysterious of all privileges, which is either life or death as men choose to receive it.” (Tracts for the Times, Tract 89, Vol. 6: 175).

•

Symbols from the Feeding of the Multitude: Fish, Loaves, and the Breaking of Bread. Newman quotes St. Matthew, “He. . . took the five loaves and two fishes” says St. Matthew, “and looking up to heaven, He blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to His disciples” (Selected Sermons 263). This act is a foreshadowing of

11

Harrison often wrote of the sea with great affection and reverence calling it “My Great Sea Mother” or sometimes just GSM.

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the Last Supper in which the Eucharist was initiated. As Newman says, one cannot doubt that “the taking bread, blessing, or giving thanks and breaking is a necessary form in the Lord’s Supper.” (Selected Sermons 263). As will be illustrated in the following letters, several symbols used by Harrison in her letters fall within this explanation of “poetic mysticism.” In addition, Harrison uses what Keble called her personal poetic associations that sprang from 19th century High Church ritual. Sacramental/Sacrificial Allusions in the Letters One of the first extent letters in which a Eucharistic allusion occurs was written in 1888 to D.S. MaColl poet, art critic, and Harrison’s close friend. A brief word concerning MacColl’s religious beliefs seems to be in order here. A Scot with a strong aversion to Roman Catholicism, MacColl had “deep seated Presbyterian beliefs,” far removed from Harrison’s “beauty of holiness” (Borland 106). Borland relates that MacColl escorted a party of students to the Roman Catholic College of St. Cuthbert near Durham. In a letter to his mother he made no attempt to hide “his Scottish Presbyterian skepticism of Papal miracles, nor was he very impressed when his candidates prayed, and no doubt gesticulated the sign of the Cross, before attempting the examination papers” (46). Mirrlees relates a story about Harrison and MacColl, which would seem to foreshadow both their careers. Harrison asked MacColl about his first communion in the Presbyterian church but the only thing that had struck him was the hideousness of the design of the membership card (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 41). These insights into MacColl provide a background for Harrison’s letters to him; one can imagine the glee she took in placing these “reserved” Eucharistic allusions into the staunch Presbyterian’s letters. 1888 to MacColl. This excerpt illustrates Harrison’s interest in poetry as well her ability to effortlessly allude to the Eucharist. She will retain the use of these symbols for many years in her private letters as well as in her work on Greek religion: Sandybrook Septuagesema Sunday 1888 On leaving the sanctuary—note the subtle and subdued alliteration.

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I am bidden by the Chantelaine to ask you to give timely notice what Minstrels * if any, you want gathered together before your appearing on Thursday week. If you want to rehearse, they will be bidden to break bread here, and as much before as suits you before the lecture. If not, the time is so short, and the breaking of bread so hurried that it is as well to ask no one (Harrison letters to D.S. MacColl 1/5/2). *song and dance lectures With its imagery of “gathering,” “appearing,” and “breaking bread,” this letter is structured as a metaphor for the Eucharist. •

First is the phrase “gathered together,” which, as will be illustrated below, is one of Harrison’s favorites allusions. The phrase comes from Matthew 18:20 which reads ‘where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.’ Addleshaw explains that “The seventeenth-century liturgists [including Archbishop Laud] found the center of the liturgy in the Eucharist” and to underscore the need for this liturgy and for public prayer they had “a strong belief based on an interpretation of Our Lord’s words, ‘where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them’ (Matt. 18:20). (http://www.anglicanlibrary.org/addleshaw/high/02.htm)

•

Next is MacColl’s “appearing,” reminiscent of Pater’s description of a High Church service, “From the first there had been the sense, an increasing assurance, of one coming:—actually with them now, according to the oft-repeated affirmation or petition, Dominus vobiscum” (Marius the Epicurian 219).

Or as Harrison put it in Prolegomena, a mysticizing, of the old Epiphany rites—the “Appear, appear’ of the Bacchants, the ‘summoning’ of the Bull-god by the women of the Elis (515). •

Then comes the imagery of “breaking bread,” which Harrison repeats twice in this short paragraph. This is one of the Tractarians’ favorite Eucharistic images: Eucharist involved “taking bread, blessing or giving thanks, and breaking” (Newman, Selected Sermons 263).

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1902 “Gathered Together” to Gilbert Murray. This letter, like the one to MacColl, has the metaphorical structure of a church service. Harrison is visiting a family in Essex at the same time as two Bugunda chiefs: Well, in the morning we dispatched a vanload of elders & blacks & missionaries to Church & then two or three of the soundest scholars among us gathered together with our Bacchae texts & I was set to read choruses and really you should have been in the midst of us—for some of the young men got captious about μήν’s and δε’s. But I quelled them & that you might not have the whole show to yourself—I closed the service with a few solemn words on ὃσια. But it really was touching to see these good boys staying away from church and bribing me with the promise of cigarettes just to get the chance of hearing your unpublished work (Harrison letters to Murray 1/1/3). An analysis of the passage, which is ostensibly about missing church, reveals that paradoxically, it is structured as a church service. First is the gathering ‘two or three together,’ next the reading, then the Eucharist with the words “in the midst of us” and then she “closes the service with solemn words” on ὃσια. As we will see in the next chapter, in Prolegomena ὃσια is a very important word in terms of the Eucharist with Harrison translating it as consecrated. (ὃσια καì έλεύθερα, “consecrated and free”) (Prolegomena 503). 1910 “Gathered Together” to Lytton Strachey: 12 Newnham College May 18, 1910 Dear Mr. Strachey, Please remember that on Sunday afternoon ‘two or three’ of God’ s creatures will be ‘gathered together’ and I trust that ‘there will you be in the midst-of-them.’ This polished but rather fragmentary jest needs no response. Save your presence. Jane E. Harrison (British Library Add. 60669 ff.105). 12

Strachey’s portrait of Hurrell Froude in Cardinal Manning’s biography in Eminent Victorians leaves little doubt about how he felt about the Tractarians. This excerpt from a letter written in 1895 confirms his view: We’ve had a very painful missionary down here, converting us to the “truth faith.” He religiously presented us with “tracts,” which I religiously presented to the waste paper basket! . . . The general opinion here is that the man has done more harm than good by making the boys think of things they never had before, and which they’d do very well without” (Letters of Lytton Strachey 99).

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One might also be tempted to relate two other words here to the Eucharist: creatures is the name given to the Eucharistic elements before they are consecrated, and the word “presence” in this context most likely refers to the “Real Presence,” the High Church interpretation of the Eucharist. The sea as sacramental image. 13 Harrison, writing to MacColl, describes her daily swims couching them in sacramental language: Robin Hoods Bay July 16, 1888 I stay here until the 23rd. Mr Verrall is coming tonight, curse him. He has a voice that drives me crazy, but this is a point of view I can not expound to his wife. Do not be anxious about my Baptism. If I have not “died daily” (and I think I have of late) 14 in spirit, I have at least not omitted the Sacrament. I have never missed my daily dip. Need I say that I am the only stalwart soul that ventures in─the clergy are all craven (Harrison letters to D.S. MacColl 1/5/2). The references to Baptism and the sacrament are clear enough. The quote “died daily” is also very important in terms of sacramental imagery. In addition to St. Paul’s 15 reference, the phrase appears in George Herbert’s 16 “The Affliction (III).” Thy life on earth was grief and thou art still Constant unto it, making it to be A point of honour, now to grieve in me, And in thy members suffer ill, They who lament one cross, Thou dying daily, praise thee to thy loss 13

This letter seems to have been written during the time that Harrison spent working with her friend Margaret Verrall on the translation of Pausanias, which led to the publication of Myth and Monuments (Stewart 11). 14 There is a note of sadness in this letter. Perhaps this is because Reverend Henning Parr, the Vicar at St. Martin’s had passed away four days earlier on July 12, 1888 (Mant 23). If Harrison was at Robin Hoods Bay, which is very near Scarborough, to pay her last respects to Parr, it would explain this sadness and the reference to the clergy who would have been present for the services. It may also explain why Harrison described the little inn at which she stayed at Robins Hood Bay during this time as having for her “its own special sanctity” (qtd. in Stewart 11). 15 See. I Corinthians 15:31. 16 Herbert, the 17th century poet, was to the Tractarians, the poet supreme; Keble relates in a lecture that “Herbert is a name too venerable to be more than mentioned in our present discussion” (qtd. in Tennyson 34).

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(ll. 13-18, qtd. in Patrides 90). Smith explains that for Herbert the “benefit of Christ’s passion” is no “mere historical legacy.” The line “they who lament one cross” refers to those who take the “crucifixion as a historic occurrence.” “Christ’s sacrifice,” Smith says, “is a ‘dying daily,’ a sharing in the burden of our sins and afflictions which is continually taken on anew” (Metaphysical Wit 161). 1913 Sacramental sea. The sacramental nature of the sea is repeated in a letter that Harrison wrote to Murray on August 7, 1913: Côtes der Nord: I wish yr sand was as hot & white as ours—I bathed before breakfast this morning in a sea like Wine-griefless-Immaculate—later in the day it is full of human pollution & the frogs shriek so shrilly they have no awe before my GSM [Great Sea Mother]. (August 7 Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/28). Here, the sea is the sacramental Eucharistic wine; however, to fully understand the full import of this image, we must look to a letter that Harrison wrote Murray in 1902 as he was translating the Bacchae. 1902 Griefless/Immaculate. Murray seems to have sent Harrison portions of the Bacchae as he was working on it. She sent her suggested changes in a PS: June 26, 1902 PS on your head be the pious doggerel, Conscience forbids the use of “purity in heaven blest.” It is neither true nor beautiful. This is true Thou of the golden wing 17 From heaven hovering To consecrate Each

{living}

thing

17

Murray’s final translation reads: Thou Immaculate on High Thou Recording Purity Thou that stoopest Golden Wing Earthward, Manward, pitying, Hear thou this angry King? Hearest thou the rage and scorn Gainst the Lord of Many Voices, Him of mortal mother born, Him in whom man’s heart rejoices (Murray, Bacchae 23 ll. 426-434).

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{Earthly} {Goodness} Immaculate {O Thou} Dost hear this insolence O Pentheus ravening Against the innocence Of Smele’s

{child} {Son }

Bromios, our king.

Harrison adds, I thirsted for “Immaculate” it has the ceremonial touch of ὃσια, lacking to us in purity and it is so beautiful in ‘to all that liveth, the wine be giveth. Griefless, immaculate’ (the 2 most beautiful lines you ever wrote, thou immaculate is not there.) Am I unbearable? (June 17, 1902 Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray1/1/3). For Harrison, the most beautiful poetry that Murray ever wrote was encompassed in those two lines, “to all that liveth the wine be giveth. Griefless immaculate.” It is the gift of the Dionysos but also the gift of Christ in the Eucharist. The word immaculate that Harrison insists upon is also significant: in addition to its many other High Church connotations, it occurs in three of the liturgies of the primitive church—liturgies in which the High Church took a great interest—Clementine, 18 St. James, and St. Basil’s. For example, when the priest takes the bread in the Clementine Liturgy he says, “taking bread into His holy and immaculate hands, and looking up . . .” (Froude, Remains Vol. 2: 412). This passage meant so much to Harrison that as we have seen, years later, the sea in which she bathed was described to Murray as “wine-griefless, immaculate.” And, Murray did agree to use the word immaculate in his translation: But to all the liveth His wine he giveth, Griefless, immaculate (Bacchae 26 ll.495-496). Water and Sacraments. Not only was the sea a sacramental image, but was so water in general because of its close association to the sacrament of baptism. Harrison writes to Murray from Algiers: It must be kept in mind that much of Harrison’s research for Prolegomena was based upon the writings of the early church fathers and on the chance that she did not know of these liturgies from Dorothea Beale’s sacramental lessons or St. Martin’s in Scarborough, she probably would have come across it in her research.

18

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Feb 1, 04 Grand Hotel des Bains It was like the dew of Hermon to get a learned letter (all wrong) about Jason. Forgive my Biblical similes, if you were here & couldn’t put your nose out of doors without seeing Abraham & Isaac and Jacob all rolled up in bundles you would write like that . . . The thing I really like here is the baths. They are half underground & the light that comes in on the pale green water is quiet & beautiful & Betheseda like & sometimes at sunset, a ray comes slanting in on the water & it seems as if in a moment there must be a Holy Dove & from sheer exhaustion & excess of sulfate magnesium one feels so good & meek & new-born. But Madame la Baigneuse does not approve of me because if I go into the hot baths I have battements de Coeur, and if I go into the tepid one, I transpire less than the smallest political scandal. She speaks of making a bonne transpiration as yr Mother Church speaks of making a good death (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/8). This is a reference to the Baptism of Christ. Matthew 3:16 reads: And Jesus, when he was baptized, went straight out of the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him. The reference to “new-born” also alludes to the High Church doctrine of infant baptism or Baptismal regeneration. Evangelicals of the Low Church believed that salvation came through conversion; the Tractarian view was that a person received salvation as an infant at baptism; it was a gift that once given, God would not take away. The “good death” to which Harrison refers at the end of the letter is the “Bona Mors, Prayers for a Happy Death through the Passion of Jesus Christ,” which appears in the very popular Anglo-Catholic manual, Catholic Prayers for Church of England People (Contemporary Ritual Bowen 80-81). The Lamb. Summer 1905 to Gilbert Murray. The lamb in this next excerpt refers to Murray’s translation of the Golden Lamb chorus in Electra, which Harrison adored saying, “Oh that beautiful Golden Lamb. How did you make him? He (she) is pure delight” (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/10):

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I see what force compelled me to the agora, it was the Lamb, curse him, but I must follow him whithersoever he leadeth (June 14, 1905 Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/10). Carpenter relates that in the High Anglican tradition, the phrase “follow the lamb whithersoever he goest” has a great bearing on the principle of discipleship and is closely related to the Eucharist. He then relates that a prayer from John Keble is based on the same verse: Grant unto us all, and especially to those whom Thy providence hath in any way entrusted with the treasure of Thy holy doctrine among us, Thy good spirit, always so to believe and understand, to feel and firmly hold, to speak and to think, concerning the mystery of the communion of the Body and Blood of They dear Son, as shall be well-pleasing to Thee and profitable to our souls (qtd. in Carpenter, Anglican Tradition 67). Carpenter relates that “the prayer desires that we may believe the truth, whatever it may be” (Anglican Tradition 67). There is also another word here that has special significance as it pertains to Harrison’s work: “curse.” In Prolegomena, she dedicates four pages to the connection between cursing and sacrifice, law, and religion (141-145). She concludes that the “element of cursing and devotion was seen to lie at the root of the later notion of consecration” (Prolegomena 161). The image of the lamb combined with the Bible verse and her own notion of “curse” combine to symbolize the consecration of the Christ as the “lamb.” Eucharistic allusions in letters to Jessie Stewart. There are two Eucharistic allusions in the letters to Jessie Stewart and both are in letters written about Stewart’s dogs. The first one refers to Robin, a Dandy Dinmont who died a few days after Harrison had had her photo taken with him: I am glad too that Robin is safe-at-rest under the ‘stone altar.’ I should like to come & eat that last meal with you—you will have to stay in that house now always—I will miss you horribly (Harrison letters to Jessie Stewart ¼/2). The combination of the terms “stone altar” and “last meal” is not a coincidence. The stone altar refers to the Anglo-Catholic belief that the Eucharist was a sacrifice that

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required an altar; “last meal” is a reference to the last supper in which Christ instituted the Eucharist. The second letter references Stewart’s dog “Kapi” a black Russian poodle. Stewart relates that “His depredations on the hen-roost led to his disgrace and banishment to a farm in Scotland” (Stewart 69). Harrison and Francis Cornford wrote an inscription to memorize Kapi’s escapades. Harrison relates that: Kapi’s inscription has taken a long time. I have to confess that the neat wedges are from the “deft” hand of Mr. Cornford not from me…but mine is the thoroughly Assyrian inspiration, it is curious how Kapi’s exploits diss 19 [this word is illegible] naturally into the savage lingo. Kapi whom I love like my life Precious the hero mighty girt with honor To slay the fowl of heaven, with its blood He dyed the mountain like scarlet 20 wool thereafter I was distressed, my countenance was troubled He came & kissed my feet & I had mercy on him (Harrison letters to Jessie Stewart 1/4/2). In addition to the obvious religious language including the words confess, heaven, countenance, and mercy, there are two rather fleeting Eucharistic images. The word blood sets the stage for the image of “scarlet wool.” This symbol was part of an analogy that St. Paul used to explain to the Hebrews the concept of the Blood of the New Testament, or the Eucharist. Quoting Hebrews ix. 19 and 20, St. Paul gave an example with which the Hebrews would all be familiar, “When Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying ‘This is the blood of the Testament, which God hath enjoined unto you’ (Froude, Remains, Vol. 1: 141).

19

Stewart reads the word as “drop” (69). Jessie Stewart’s book reads “crimson” wool here (69). There are several drafts of this in the Newnham Archive. It is possible that I took the word “scarlet” from a different draft that the one Stewart used. In Tractarian usage, however, crimson carries much the same connotation as scarlet. 20

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Keble in Tract 89 relates that scarlet when found in “Scripture or in nature”, is “as much intended among colours to symbolize His Blood, as the shape of the cross among forms, or is material, wood, among substances” (Tracts for the Times, Vol. 6: 36). It hardly seems a coincidence that Harrison writes “blood” and “scarlet wool” in such close proximity.

III. The Cross as Sacramental Symbol The cross is a different Eucharistic symbol than the ones discussed above; one might say that it is the prerequisite for the Eucharist. Newman explains the “great and awful doctrine of the cross of Christ”. . . “prepares the way to belief in the sacred Eucharistic feast. . .”, (Selected Sermons 243). With this strong connection to her mystic sacraments, the cross takes unto itself mystic qualities in Harrison’s writings so that the very word cross can become a symbol of the Eucharist or sacrifice. As the major image of the Christian sacrifice, it is not surprising that she alludes to the cross; however, she does it in a manner perhaps best described as “reservedly peculiar.” The word cross is used as an adjective meaning irritated or contrary (usually referring to Harrison herself); that in itself would mean nothing except that often (almost always) cross is used in conjunction with other words, such as atonement, grace, or forgiveness or any other number of Christian images. Before turning to Harrison’s “cross” examples it is important to understand that she is working within the tradition of the ancient church via the Victorian High Church. Keble’s Tract 89 entitled “On the Mysticism Attributed to the Early Fathers of the Church” reveals a similar obsession with the word τò ξúλον, Greek for tree or wood, which came to be synonymous with the cross. Keble explains that “The old Christian writers” . . “believed that the phrase τò ξúλον , wherever introduced in the Old Testament, was intended to lead their thoughts to the cross” (Tracts for the Times, Tract 89, Vol. 6: 24). Just as τò ξúλον could trigger thoughts of the cross in the ancient Christians, it seems that the word cross in any form, whether as an adjective or a noun, could trigger thoughts of the Christian sacrifice in Harrison’s mind, which as with the ancient Christians, became part of her mindset and perhaps her vocabulary. Mirrlees reports that 139

Harrison did have a tendency to quickly make associations among things only tangentially related. For instance according to Mirrlees, certain poems of Swinburne “slept very lightly in Jane's heart.” This meant that things which were only remotely associated with his poetry, “would at once remind her of one of these lines or stanzas and set her mummering it” (Mirrlees biography drafts/notes “Newnham Nightingales” 4/3/3). One explanation, then is that these references to the Christian sacrifice could possibly have been made on a subconscious level or just out of habit. Another explanation is that she may have consciously, through her love of the sacraments and her mystic nature hidden them in her letters working, of course reservedly, within the framework of the High Church. In fact this would be in keeping with Tractarian tradition, since the “sacred doctrine of the Atoning Sacrifice is not one to be talked of, but to be lived upon; not to be put forth irreverently, but to be adored secretly. . .” (Newman, Selected Sermons 243). Allusions to the Sacrifice of the Cross Eleven examples are given below of Harrison’s reference to the Christian sacrifice by her use of the word cross (once the word passion is used) surrounded by Christian imagery and they are, I believe, poetic symbols in keeping with the following statement on poetry from John Keble: Poetry, at least with all that with perfect right can claim that honoured title, to seek retreat from publicity, to avoid the full light, to be coy and hesitant in revealing its secrets save to any whom it believes touched with enthusiasm. Consequently, it does not object to far-fetched subjects: indeed, one may say often prefers them: so long as some secret path is open, whereby it may quietly digress to the themes it naturally delights in and holds dear (Lectures on Poetry, Vol. 2: 103-104). These allusions in these excerpts all occur between the years 1901-1912. I have divided them into two groups: examples 1-6 illustrate how the use of the word cross mimics George Herbert’s use of the same word in “The Church-porch” by anticipating the redemptive qualities of the cross: grace, atonement, and forgiveness; example 7 utilizes another image from Herbert’s poem “Conscience.” Examples 8-10 are more closely

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related to the mysticism of the cross in Keble’s Tract 89. Example 11 involves a very personal episode from Harrison’s life. 1. Cross/Atonement. April 21, 1901. In this excerpt Harrison has written to Murray: A Mr. Secke came to see me just as I was starting to Crete—from you, he said— but I was cross with him for not being you that I was afraid that I was rather short with him. So to atone, I have written a polite note suggesting we should do the enneakvonnos together, which will make him wish he had never come (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/1). Interestingly, George Herbert used the word cross in a similar manner in “The Churchporch”: If God had laid all common, certainly Man would have been th’ incloser; but since now God hath impal’d us, on the contrarie Man breaks the fence, and every ground will plough. O what were man, might he himself misplace! Sure to be crosse he would shift feet and face (ll. 19-24, Patrides 33). The footnote for line 24 reads: “crosse: contrarious, perverse; but the word is always used by Herbert with retroactive irony in so far as it “prevents” (anticipates) its transformation by the Cross” (Patrides 33). Herbert seems to be saying that the perverse nature of humans was ironically what caused God to provide a “transformation by the cross.” And it does seem as though Harrison is employing the same conceit—“transformation by the cross, i.e., “cross” anticipates “atonement.” 2. Atonement/Passion. June 17, 1902 Harrison writes to Murray concerning an illustration of Dionysos for his book on Euripides: “...There is only one way of atonement—you must control your passion for curls and put in this splendid savage—seriously he is fine, his drapery shows him to be the same period as the Hieron vase” (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/2). Again, the passion of Christ anticipates atonement.

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3. Cross/Grace. On December 26, 1902 Harrison writes the following words to Gilbert Murray: I am senseless with turkey & plum pudding also I have had to write several letters to Duchesses to try to get a cross, old Spinster made a “Lady of Grace.” Do you know what that is? (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/5). The cross anticipates grace. Keble in Tract 89 provides a mystic example of the cross anticipating grace; he explains St. Barnabas’ mystical meaning of the number 318. 21 “Because the Cross, which is signified to the eye by the letter Tau, was intended to bring the grace [to which he looked forward;] he adds the three hundred also, the letter Tau representing that number” (Tracts for the Times, Tract 89 Vol. 6: 18). 4. Cross/Forgive. May 1902 she writes a letter to Gilbert Murray with a PS: Put my yesterday's cross letter into the fire. It savored of ubris. She then adds an additional PS: Don't be cross with me―smoke a large and strong cigarette and forgive me. (Harrison 1/1/3). The cross anticipates forgiveness. 5. Cross/Forgive. Dec 1912. In this excerpt Harrison writes to Murray commenting on the obituary notice that he wrote for Dr. Verrall: His criticizing you as he did was a beautiful thing that makes the world better to have happened. I think I tried him too there because I used to rub in yr views—he read that Bacchae preface to me with a sort-of-schoolboy glee & with occasional winks when he came to “wans” & “dims” once I got rather cross & said but surely you see how beautiful it is—don't you care for it? And the he said “of course I care for it why it is pure Gilbert—gilbert yell tus!! & then we clasped our hands over the great truth that you can't possibly love anyone unless they make you laugh at them sometimes consumably. 21

This is a very elaborate argument as to how the number of men in Abraham’s house that were circumcised, 318, foretold the coming of Christ. Take the 18 first which is represented by the numbers 10 and 8, which represent the letters I and H, which Keble says form a “cipher of the sacred Name” [ΙΗΣΟΥΣ Jesus in Greek). The third letter Tau is added as explained above, so that the first two letters IH represent Christ and the Tau represents the Cross (Tract 89 17-18).

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I suppose I believe in God worse luck still for I know there is something I can't forgive for hitting him down & taking him away (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/26). The word cross is not located as closely to the word forgive in this example, but she seems not to be able to finish the letter without adding it. 6. Cross/Sin. Sunday Jan 10, 1904 to Gilbert Murray. In this letter, Harrison relates leaving her suitcase in a taxi and her experience at King’s Cross where the suitcase was turned into the police. Interestingly, when cross is a noun, she does not write out the word but inserts the sign of the cross †, 22 much as a Catholic missal places a † at the place where the congregation cross themselves: I flew to King's † & there a tall angel in dark blue set some mysterious machinery in motion but it was more Providence than anything I've ever experienced. Later in the same letter she says, And the worst is, it was, I know a judgment for Sin, your Sin of Hubris over your new bag—you fleered at my old-fashioned gear and proudly drawing all your things out with a click said that mine had to come out one by one like animals out of the Ark and I could not bear it and went out and got a new one that comes out with a click too and frightens me out of my senses (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/8). The Christian imagery here needs no explanation—angel, providence and sin (which sent her flying to the cross where she met an angel). The ark as a sacrificial symbol, however, is not so clear. Because it was made of wood 23 (τò ξυλον) for the ancient church it was synonymous with the cross. Regester remarks that the ship was a favorite metaphor in the early church and this symbolism is preserved in the first prayer in the Offices of Holy Baptism, “Received into the ark of Christ’s Church…may so pass the waves of this troublesome world” (21). 7. Cross/Carp. Sept 4, 1904 Harrison complains to Gilbert Murray: “…Oh yes, I promise to be cross enough to please anybody, when you begin to carp in detail—carp away at your leisure” (Harrison letters to 22

This is as close as I can approximate the symbol that Harrison uses in her letter. Keble relates that because the cross was made of wood, any item made of wood could take on the symbolism of the cross (Tracts for the Times, Tract 89,Vol. 6: 28). 23

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Gilbert Murray 1/1/9). It is informative to compare the “carp” imagery in this passage from Harrison to the lines below from George Herbert’s poem “Conscience”: And the receit shall be My Saviours bloud: when ever at his board* I do but taste it, straight it cleanseth me, And leaves thee not a word; No, not a tooth or nail to scratch, And at my actions carp, or catch (ll. 13-18, Patrides 119) *board: i.e. Holy Communion Herbert’s passage with its imagery of “bloud,” “board,” and “tasting” is most assuredly Eucharistic imagery; the words carp and catch refer to fish either as the ancient symbol of Christ and/or a reference to the feeding of the multitude, which was considered a foreshadowing of the Eucharist. If, as I believe, Harrison is using the word cross as a symbol of the sacrifice of Christ, the word, carp functions in the much the same fashion in her passage. The next examples closely resemble passages from Keble’s Tract 89. “People little know what they do, when they deal contemptuously with any thing, be it in Scripture or in common life, under the notion that it is too slight, too insignificant for the ordering of the Most High” (Keble, Tract 89 Vol. 6: 22). 8. Cross/Ships. Jan 13, 1911. Harrison writes to Murray after his trip across the sea: Are you back safe? I think you should be. I hope you did not cross in that great storm. I burnt several candles (Harrison letters 1/1/22). Keble: “There is no crossing of the sea, except this triumphant sign is formed by the yard arm” (Tracts for the Times, Tract 89 Vol 6: 30). 9. Sign of the Cross. In February 1902 she writes to Gilbert Murray. This time, Murray is “cross”: But it is a real good sign that you are cross. (I always knew your psuedo-Xian & rather fine manners hid a fundamental fractiousness) & I bless the lap dog’s holy unknown name. . . (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/2).

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Here, Harrison combines the words cross and sign, hinting, as it were, at the sign of the cross and intensifying the image with the words Xian and Holy name. Sign of the Cross. Keble: We must go back to the days when Christians were used to carry about with them everywhere the Sign of the Cross; when, to use the forcible words of Tertullian: . . the Holy Sign, by incessant use, was, as it were worn into their foreheads" (Tracts for the Times, Tract 89, Vol. 6: 21). 10. Cross/Tree/Water. April 21, 1901 Harrison writes to Gilbert Murray about a room she has found for him in Crete: Oh, why are you not here? Please tell Lady Mary that I have taken room for her next year in a beautiful little Turkish hareem, with a well and a loggia and a lemon tree. . . . . . A Mr. Secke came to see me just as I was starting to Crete—from you, he said— but I was cross with him for not being you--that I was afraid that I was rather short with him so to atone, I have written a polite note suggesting we should do the enneakvonnos together, which should make him wish he had never come (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray1/1/1). The second paragraph of this excerpt was discussed earlier, but the reference to a well and a tree in the earlier part of the letter is also of interest. Keble reports that St. Barnabas found prophetical indications of the water and wood in the words of the first Psalm, “He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of waters, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. . .” St. Barnabas, Keble says, interpreted this to mean, “Blessed are they who, setting their hope in the cross have descended into the water. . .” (Tracts for the Times, Tract 89, Vol. 6: 23-24). From this, the symbols of water and a tree came to be recognized as a token of the cross and became so etched into the minds of the ancient Christians that “so ordinary a sight as that of a flourishing tree by a river side could hardly fail to excite in a devout mind thoroughly familiar with the Psalms. . .” (Tract 89 29). Keble in the Christian Year in “First Sunday after Epiphany” writes: See the soft green willow springing here the waters gently pass, (30).

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In like vein, here is Christina Rossetti’s “Three Nuns”: Oh for the grapes of the True Vine Growing in Paradise Whose tendrils join the Tree of Life To which maketh wise. Growing beside the Living Well Whose sweetest waters rise Where tears are wiped from tearful eyes (ll. 140-145, Complete Poems 723). It is true that this one reference in Harrison’s letter could be totally unrelated to Keble and Rossetti’s poetry or Tract 89; however; there is also another interesting aspect of this symbolism. In Prolegomena, Harrison reproduces the following text from the Orphic Tablets: Thou shalt find on the left of the House of Hades, a Well-spring, And by the side thereof standing a white cypress (573). From a second tablet: I am parched with thirst and I perish.—Nay drink of Me, The Well-spring flowing for ever on the Right, were the Cypress is (574). She then relates that a “magical papyri” from Egypt reads, “Hail to the water white and the tree with the leaves high hanging,” which she states, “seems to echo vaguely the white cypress and the forbidden well” (576). As will be thoroughly discussed in the next chapter, Harrison, working within the Tractarian concepts of economy and typology, often uses Greek text to foreshadow the Eucharist or Christ; it is just possible that with the combination of the tree and water here she senses a foreshadowing of the cross of Christ. The water and the tree also contained other meanings; for instance they could reference Moses’ rod with which he struck the rock which “gave forth water, gushing out of his sight” (Tracts for the Times, Tract 89 Vol. 6: 25). Or as Harrison wrote to Murray in 1911: Sept 12 I have found that thrice blessed note & read the end. It does make me so happy— the sentence at the end—it is so beautiful with the sort of beauty that only you can

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get. I should have known it anywhere for yours & it comes suddenly at the end like fountain unsealed from a hard rock (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/23). And as Christina Rossetti wrote in “Three Nuns”: Oh for the waters of that Well Round which the Angels stand. Oh for the Shadow of the Rock. On my heart’s weary land (ll 145-149 Complete Poems 723) ..... 11. Christian references. December 29, 1910 to Gilbert Murray. 24 In this excerpt, Harrison alludes to the cross, 25 St. Paul, Christ, and quotes two Bible verses: I sent a letter to you last week—but it was not quite rightly addressed (owing to yr habit of foolish jesting wch as the Apostle says is “not convenient”)—I almost hope it miscarried for it was a bad petulant letter. I was cross because material blessings were being heaped upon me & a happy, healthy xmas was being organized for me at Littlehampton by telegram & that—when the thing needful is withheld—exacerbates me—but I broke loose & now am better after all tho my treasure is much diminished it is all laid up in heaven now where neither moth . .,” [Harrison’s ellipses] (Harrison’s letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/21). Including the word cross, there are five Christian references in this passage.

24

Jessie Stewart publishes this letter in her book (132); however, she leaves out this last paragraph. I was able to spot 15 uses of the word cross in the letters I examined (One example in discussed in Chapter 6). This may not a complete listing of all the references to “cross” in Harrison’s letters; however, it does provide a sampling of how the image remains constant from 1901-1912. Here are the three other examples that I noticed in the letters. Sept 1905 to Gilbert Murray Do you realize that you have to write the critical note for Thucy II.15? you will have noted that whenever I was getting bored or cross I said see “critical note.” It can be done on the typewriter in a few minutes (not by the human pen) just a few xx {[], * with perhaps at the end a paroimic hemistitch-last words omnia damnat. April 14, 1902 to Mary Murray I always rely on you for my democratic literature. Please be kind and send me that last bad ILP pennyworth. Your Mr. Tatton took away my last . . . So I have nothing to lend to my young politicians--or to make me cross myself. Oct 20 1910 Yorkshire To Gilbert Murray P. Giles is “Peter”, so known in the best circles here, he is the philologist who trampled in [illegible word]his life work is to cold douche ABC & me-he is a dear you met him at dinner at the Verralls & I was cross to him because he wanted to talk to you and because he wasn't Mr. Neil. 25

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1. The word xmas, which has embedded within it the name of Christ. This is also another example of reserve in that Harrison here and throughout her letters does not write out the word Christian or the word Christmas writing them Xian and xmas. 2. The Apostle Paul, “not convenient.” Ephesians 5:3 “But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; 5:4 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.” 3. “The thing needful.” a. Luke 10:42 But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. b. A sermon by John Newman, “Love, the One thing needful” (Parochial and Plain Sermons 1156). 26 4

“Whether neither moth.” Luke 12:33. “Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.”

This excerpt is very different from the other examples and is I believe very autobiographical. It was written during a very hard period in Harrison life after Francis Cornford, with whom she was is love even though 25 years his senior, married Frances Darwin, her best friend’s daughter. Harrison and Cornford were constant companions and often traveled together. After the marriage, Stewart relates that Harrison went through a series of physical and emotional problems, which seemed not to fully abate for several years (See Stewart 101-113). The references to Luke 10:42 and Luke 12:33 both relate to placing your hopes in God rather than man. The title of the Newman’s sermon points to what was needful for Harrison but lacking—love. In the midst of the pain and the biblical allusions is again the word cross.

26

At least one other sermon by John Newman was based on Luke 10:42, “The Good Part of Mary” This sermon, too, was applicable to Harrison’s situation. In this sermon Newman relates how “servants of God, as St. Paul said, may remain unmarried, not to labour less, but to labour more” (Parochial and Plain Sermons 683).

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IV. Sacramental Allusions from the Liturgy and the Prayer Book The following allusions are somewhat different from the ones above. In order to understand these we must turn to Keble’s Tract 89 again: A reader, versed in liturgical language, will often discover in the writings of the Fathers, sometimes in Scripture itself, allusions to the sacraments conveyed in one word or syllable, allusions primâ facie so faint, that we could hardly dare to reason upon them, were we not aware of the duty of reserve which would hinder the writers from more express disclosure of the particulars of those Holy Mysteries (Tracts for the Times, Tract 89 Vol. 6: 13). In her letters Harrison uses phrases and sometimes single words from both the Eucharist and the Baptismal services: 1. Baptism/Eucharist. In 1908, Harrison writes to Gilbert Murray and includes the following as a PS: I have never been to Rottingdean. You will have to tell me how to get there. I shall probably be in town on Tuesday: I shall not bring a bicycle unless you consider it “generally necessary to salvation” as my church says in the catechism. Whenever Frances is cross with anything she begins “the curse of the crawling lichen” be on you. It is a nice handy curse (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/15). The Anglican catechism reads: How many Sacraments hath Christ ordained in his Church? Answer: Two only, as generally necessary to salvation, that is to say, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord (Book of Common Prayer http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/baptism/catchism.html). It should also be noted that here again, Harrison uses the word cross and as in the example of the lamb, she again uses the concept of curse in close proximity to a Eucharistic allusion. 2. Baptism. In January of 1902 Harrison wrote to Gilbert Murray and to his wife Lady Mary Murray: . . .you are both so hypermoralized and super-spiritualized that you force me to

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think of ‘righteousness, temperance, and judgement-to-come’; in the words of my baptismal service, I have by a healthy instinct of self preservation “renounced them all”…Mr. Verrall always says, and he is right, tho I am by nature rotten with superstition and emotional mysticism (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/2) From the Prayer Book: Dost thou, in the name of this Child, renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, and the carnal desires of the flesh, so that thou wilt not follow, nor be led by them? Answer. I renounce them all (http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/baptism/index.html). 3. Eucharist. January 4, 1908. In order to understand this quote, a bit of background on Gilbert Murray’s religious background is necessary. Murray’s mother was Protestant and his father was Catholic; however, neither of them forced any religion upon the children. In fact, Murray’s father wrote the following in order that his children would not be required to have a Roman Catholic education in case of his death, as a ruling of 1871 had required in Australia. He entrusted the “religious education and spiritual guidance” to their mother, “free from any control and interference whatsoever on the part of my relatives or the Roman Catholic church” (Wilson, Gilbert Murray OM 5). Throughout his life, Murray maintained a strong aversion to the Roman Catholic church. In 1903 he and Harrison visited the home of Bertrand Russell in Italy, I Tatti. He wrote the following in a letter to his wife after a visit to Assisi: I won’t attempt to describe the impression made on me by the Monastery, except that in the end I felt that it was, after all, mad, and its fruits were the crowding beggars in the streets and the monks who had to be suppressed—to say nothing of religious persecution (qtd. in Wilson, Gilbert Murray OM 140). Harrison, knowing of this aversion to Roman Catholicism took every opportunity to jab him with comments concerning Catholicism, most of which are ironic. Here are two remarks out of many: 1) when Westminster Cathedral in 1910 was consecrated she wrote, “Glory be to . . you & yr Holy Mother” (June 30, 1910, Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/19). 2) Concerning Dionysos she wrote, “The Dithyramb is the spring dromenon-mimetic, the origin of the drama—just as medieval drama arose from the

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'quem queritis' of your Holy mother's Easter festival” (January 1911, Harrison’s letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/22). In the excerpt below we see the irony: Murray may not have had a holy mother in whom he believed, but Harrison did: Oh, the worst is I can never make you know the innermost, uttermost joy I have had of that book 27 …It isn't even that I like it or like you. It is just that (as my Holy Mother says in her mass) I “feed on you in my heart by faith with thanksgiving. . . [Harrison’s underlinings] (January 5, 1908, Harrison’s letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/14). From the Prayer Book for Holy Communion: Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving (http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/communion/index.html). 4. Eucharist. Nov 1913. Harrison uses this phrase from the Eucharist service again when she writes Gilbert Murray concerning on book on the origins of comedy and tragedy by Miss Spens: …I have only just rushed thro the ms in 20 min—& will now settle down (not til this evening alack) to feed on it in my heart by faith with thanksgiving. Why have I never met Miss Spens—lay a great laurel crown at her feet for me. (Harrison’s letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/28).

V. Two Letters: An Extended Eucharistic Metaphor and Anglo-Catholic Imagery This letter, written to Lady Mary Murray, Gilbert Murray’s wife, is the exemplar of Harrison’s metaphorical writing. On the surface it concerns the Murrays’ move from their home in Barford in 1905 when Murray took a new position at Oxford (Wilson, Gilbert Murray OM 122). Understanding the Eucharistic symbolism, however, adds a new poetic dimension to the letter: March 23, 1904 27

Most likely a reference to Rise of the Greek Epic, which was published in 1907.

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My Dear Mary, Yr correspondents must be a low lot for here is the grave scandal. I beg you will not let it fall into the hands of the Patriarch, the Ox-Tamer for once he begins putting his foot down (specially in a large jaeger boot) there will be no end of it. Tho' poor why am I so honest? I have to confess that she-of-the-delicatehair who packed my box put into it a fragrant & altogether lovely bag of lavender—that is yours—not mine. The just course to the next visitor (x__ him) (x this reserve is due to fear of the ox-tamer) wld be to send it back, but I don't want to. I will tho' if you write instantly—this promised virtue is I think fairly safe. Mary Crum has just been in moaning softly over the lack of moral purpose in the matter of Bird Protection. We had so much of the Birds last year I cannot restir myself & my whole heart just now in the making of graven images. Just as the Pride of the Valley bore me out of sight I remembered that in all probability I was looking my last at Barford. I felt (please tell Rosalind) like a dove leaving a nice kind Ark. You do make your home very like an ark for all sorts of strange weary beasts and birds. I shall always keep the two white feathers in their silver casket for a charm to bring me back: that was just the sort of present I really do like. A considerable section of my friends knew me as "The Grey Eagle," though they never will explain why. Wherever you set up that Ark it will be a blessed tabernacle (Harrison letters to Lady Mary Murray 1/2/4). Harrison begins the letter with a strong Anglo-Catholic reference, “grave scandal,” 28 which illustrates her playfulness as well as her knowledge of the Roman Catholic catechism. One grave scandal from the catechism seems to fit the circumstances: 2284 Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor's tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense (http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a5.htm). 28

Interestingly, Charles Kingsley in his battle against Cardinal Newman accused Newman of committing a ‘grave scandal:” “But a lie is a venial sin, if it "neither hurts our neighbour or God gravely, or causes a grave scandal" (Newman, Apologia 427).

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Harrison, playing with the language of the church, doesn’t want to inadvertently lead “she-of the delicate-hair” into a “grave offense” by omitting to tell the Murrays about the lavender. This Catholic imagery is continued with the word confess. A grave scandal has been committed and Harrison confesses the sin. The Eucharist imagery begins with this sentence, “The just course to the next visitor (x__ him) (x this reserve is due to fear of the ox-tamer).” It seems that Harrison, as she often does, wants to curse, but “reserve” held her back. Reserve within AngloCatholicism is a reticence, a holding back, but it also has another meaning in connection to the Eucharist. Any consecrated elements from the mass that are not used are reserved to take to the sick or infirm, or for adoration. As is so often the case, Harrison uses this word with a double meaning. In fact, the whole letter when its symbols are explicated will be found to have a double meaning. The first image is the “dove leaving a nice kind Ark,” which is on the surface a reference to Noah’s ark; I’ll come back to this image shortly. However, there is another dove alluded to here; the two white feathers refer to feathers from a dove that Murray’s daughter, Rosalind, has given Harrison (Stewart 80). A silver casket containing the feathers of the dove would have meant something very special to an Anglo-Catholic. Caskets 29 were vessels used for the purpose of reserving the Eucharist. Often they were in the form of a dove or a tower and made out of precious metal, such as silver. (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12784b.htm). The dove represents Christ. Keble reports that “we know from St. Paul, of the descent of the regenerating Spirit of Christ, with a hovering, brooding motion, like that of a dove, first on our Lord Himself, then on each of His Members at their baptism”: (Tracts for the Times, Tract 89, Vol. 6: 179). Dove feathers stored in a metal casket represent the reserved Eucharist. The word present meaning a gift further strengthens the allusion since the sacramental elements are known as gifts. The Eucharistic service of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer reads:

29

A popular manual for 19th century Anglo-Catholics was entitled The Casket and People’s Mass Book and detailed how to receive the Eucharist (Contemporary Ritualism, Bowen 22).

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“Heare us (O merciful father) we besech thee; and with thy holy spirite and worde, vouchsafe to blesse and sanctify these gifts.” (http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1549/Communion_1549.htm). The last words in the letter are also important, “blessed tabernacle.” Not coincidentally, a tabernacle was used for the exclusive preservation of the Holy Sacrament (Walsh 385). To be specific, “It is a receptacle or case placed upon the table of the high altar or of another altar in which the vessels containing the Blessed Sacrament, as the ciborium, monstrance, custodia, are kept” (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14424a.htm). Tabernacles became very popular in 19th century Anglo-Catholic churches and due to the zeal of evangelicals who detailed ritualistic practices there is a record of much 19th century church furniture. For instance, Contemporary Ritualism listed churches that had tabernacles including St. Saviour’s Leeds and All Saints’ Prittlewell. To quote, “In the center of the retable there was a large tabernacle, and hanging above this was a massive crucifix” (Patronage of Keble College, Bowen 22). The image of the ark reappears with the tabernacle. We know from an earlier letter that in the Baptismal ceremony the ark represents the church. When all this imagery is put together, I believe it can be interpreted in the following manner: The tabernacle and casket holding the “dove” are within the ark. To go back to the earlier imagery a “dove leaving a kind ark” is the reserved Eucharist being taken out of the church for the sick. The whole letter, then, is written as a metaphor with the Murray home being compared to the reserved Eucharist. I believe that this extended metaphor was in fact indicative of how highly Harrison regarded the Murrays and their home. Just as the blessed sacrament could be reserved and taken to the feed the sick and retain its holiness; the Murrays could move their home and retain its sanctity, and offer an “ark,” a “holy church” for “all sorts of strange weary beasts and birds.” Anglo-Catholic Imagery The second letter is so filled with Anglo-Catholic allusions and metaphors that I reproduced the whole letter except for a paragraph about Dr. Verrall’s health. Harrison writes to Murray from France:

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Sunday Feb 14, 1904 You will be cross that this is a letter and not a picture card—the fact is that I am so worn out seeing Popes' palaces that I am staying two nights here for a quiet Sunday as an English lady should. I expect you know this place off my heart. I also expect that Rosalind has been decently educated on Algemeine Weltgeschichte and knows why the Popes came waltzing over to Avignon and built this amazing palace and waltzed back again—for anything that I know they might as well have gone to Hamman R’hiva. Before I was born I think Popes and Avignon ran in my head together but I never knew why and now it is too late to ask. As usual though one finds bits that need no history—there is the broken bridge and the empty chapel of S. Bénézet on it –utterly empty with a stone-altar table & sunlight streaming in. "Desolation is a delicate thing." It made me think of a possible worship where all religions have been swept away, like that lovely faith Bertie preaches. Talking of religion, I had such a beautiful dream, but so absurd that all the beauty will go in the telling. I was on a lonely promontory and suddenly I looked up and saw my rug unfurled like a banner and floating gladly up to heaven. I awoke in a sort of holy glow as of one who had seen a great accomplishment, the feeling of awe is still so strong upon me that I scarcely feel like strapping the good old saint up in my hold-all for fear it should make difficulties in his assumption. It was all materially explained by the fact that I was sleeping with a bit of the rug tucked under my chin, but it did look beautiful mounting up to God and I can scarcely laugh over it now. I defy you to make a dream out of your jaeger boots. To come back to this world—I left the Verralls meaning to stay on there until the end of time. The Riviera seemed too uncertain as to weather. [Paragraph about Dr. Verrall’s health is here in the original letter.] At Arles I found a delightful Xian sarcophagus with a Nativity & the Holy Child in a liknon. Some nice cows were nosing at him wch shows clearly that the type of Hermes in liknon with cows has been taken

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over! Are you going abroad with Mr.Bradley? I promise not to shed his blood. What a lot of picture postcards you will have to send me—measure for measure. Are you having a bad illness over the fat one [Harrison’s name for Prolegomena]. He isn’t worth it. Will I have to leave the country? Yours, JEH (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/8) I have grouped the images from the letter above into Eucharistic images and images that illustrate Harrison’s strong High Church background: Eucharistic 1. cross 2. stone altar 3. “I promise not to shed his blood.” High church Images and words 1. The particularly Anglo-Catholic use of S. for St. (Harrison consistently uses this.) 2. “unfurled like a banner and floating gladly up to heaven.” Banners were very popular at High Church ceremonies As Rev. Cornford the Evangelical minister asked, To what purpose are “These waving of banners? These flowery decorations? (11). One of Harrison’s favorite poets, the very High Church Christiana Rossetti’s wrote these lines in “After Communion”: Or call Thy Sceptre on my heart Thy rod? Lo, now Thy banner over me is love (ll. 4-5, Complete Poems 222). 3. Holy glow: The word “holy” as an adjective is particularly Anglo-Catholic and in Harrison’s writings occurs with many nouns including “calm,” “Roman,” “name,” “family,” “mother,” “dove,” “child,” “baptism,” “indignation,” “mountain,” “truth,” “bear,” “ghost,” and “pharmakos” 4. Xian; the reserved abbreviation for Christian (This is consistent throughout the letters; only very occasionally does she write out either Christian or Christmas.

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5. Saint/Assumption. The idea of saints having an assumption was particularly abhorrent to Evangelicals. All of these images combine to paint a picture of a writer with a strong High Church background.

VI. Conclusion Jane Harrison’s personal letters are saturated with the language and the images of the High Church. In particular, she maintains an intense interest in the sacraments, and especially in the Eucharist. Since this seems to be an ongoing obsession, the next chapter will illustrate how these images appear in Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion.

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CHAPTER 5 POETICIZING THE EUCHARIST IN PROLEGOMENA TO THE STUDY OF GREEK RELIGION And if they are blessed who shall eat and drink of that table in the kingdom, so too blessed are they who meditate upon it, and hope for it now, who read Scripture with it in their thoughts, and endeavor to look beneath the veil of the literal text, and to catch a sight of the gleams of heavenly light which are behind it (John Henry Newman, Selected Sermons 268.)

Introduction This chapter presents a new reading of Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion that requires us to take a new look at Jane Harrison without the preconceived notions of an agnostic locked in a battle against Christianity. We need to try to view her through new eyes as a religious mystic obsessed with the sacraments of the High Church, who was, as in Newman’s quote above, endeavoring to “look beneath the veil of the literal text” (Selected Sermons 268). Perhaps the best way to begin is to retrace my own steps in trying to form some pattern out of Harrison’s allusions. I knew that words and images from her Anglo-Catholic heritage permeated Prolegomena but there seemed to be no “method to her mysticism.” However, a clue appeared in the following passage about Epimenides’ purification of Athens, which contains the imagery of lambs, altars, and atonement grouped together. Wondering if this passage was a singularity or part of a larger scheme, I reread Prolegomena, keeping in mind the concept of reserve and, of course, Harrison’s mystical sacraments. What I discovered is that she has traced the history of sacrifice in ancient Greece from Homer to Dionysos and Orpheus and with every step she has alluded to either the Eucharist specifically or to Anglo-Catholic issues.

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The First Clue/Foreshadowing Jesus as the sacrificial lamb. Harrison relates the following story from Diogenes Laertius about Epimenides’ 1 purification of Athens: Diogenes says that he took a number of black and white sheep and led them up to the Aeropagos and thence let them go whither they would, and he commanded those who followed them to sacrifice each of them wherever the sheep happened to lie down, and so the plague would be stayed. Whence even now, adds Diogenes, you may find in the Athenian demes nameless altars in memory of this atonement. Some such altar as this was still to be seen at or near the Aeropagos when St. Paul preached there . . . (Prolegomena 241). When I first read this passage with its imagery of lambs, sacrifice, altars, and atonement I thought that perhaps Harrison had translated the text to accommodate her own obsessions, which she sometimes does, as we will see in Chapter 6. When I looked at the Greek text, however, all the key words, altar (βωμοùς), sacrifice (θύειν), and atonement (έξιάσεως) were there. Of course, the mention of St. Paul was not in the original Greek, and it turns out that St. Paul in this context has a special connotation for Anglo-Catholics. Hutton relates that John Henry Newman used St. Paul’s actions at the nameless altar on Mars Hill in Arians of the 4th Century to illustrate another form of reserve known as economy i.e., setting out the truth to advantage (http://www.newmanreader.org/biography/hutton/chapter2.html). Here is Newman: The Economy is certainly sanctioned by St. Paul in his own conduct. To the Jews he became as a Jew, and as without the Law to the heathen. His behaviour at Athens is the most remarkable instance in his history of this method of acting. Instead of uttering any invective against their Polytheism, he began a discourse upon the Unity of the Divine Nature; and then proceeded to claim the altar, consecrated in the neighborhood to the unknown God, as the property of Him whom he preached to them, and to enforce his doctrine of the Divine Immateriality, not by miracles, but by argument, and that founded in the words of a heathen poet (Newman, Arians 65). 1

Keble relates that Clement of Alexandria (whom Harrison quotes in Prolegomena) considered the philosophers of Greece as sort of prophets corresponding to those of Israel who “were divinely sent for the sake of the Greeks, that they might prophecy to them in their own tongue.” Clement, Keble says, considered Epimenides, a “prophet of the Cretians” (Lectures on Poetry, Vol. 2: 476).

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Perhaps Harrison’s reference to St. Paul in this context is a coincidence, but if we take into consideration the instances of quoting or referring to Newman in her autobiography (i.e., gingerbread school, a pun of his name, mass of undigested knowledge, allusion to his autobiography, etc.) it seems quite likely that she knew exactly what she was doing here. No doubt, Anglo-Catholics would not have missed this allusion. And, I believe that it may provide three clues about Jane Harrison: 1. She, like Paul, accommodated her behavior to conform to whomever she was with. With her atheist, nonmystic, friends, she kept her mysticism somewhat under control. As was discussed in Chapter 4 both D.S. MacColl and Gilbert Murray 2 had a strong aversion to Catholicism and Harrison relates that “FMC [Francis Cornford] foams at the mouth when you mention his immortal soul” (August 21, 1911, Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/22). 2. She understands and uses the concept of economy. 3. Perhaps, just perhaps, that like St. Paul she is using the symbol of “heathens” to reach the uninitiated and to communicate to those who would understand. Thus, this reading of Prolegomena will argue that Harrison was following in the steps of John Keble and John Newman who believed that God gave to the ancient Greeks traces of his true light. Read in this light, Christianity for Harrison becomes not just another manifestation of primitive religion; Dionysos and Greek religion were dim shadows of the “real truth”—the wine of Dionysos was but a foreshadowing of the Eucharist as her mystic High Church vision spills onto the pages of Prolegomena. From this angle, Prolegomena can be viewed as a continuation of Harrison’s fascination with the High Church and its sacraments, “foreshadowing” the Christian Eucharist by cleverly using excerpts from ancient Greek texts including Euripides, Diogenes Laertius, and Pausanias, which contain the same Eucharistic symbols that the Victorian High Church used. This technique of finding hidden meanings in ancient text is very much in keeping with the Tractarian tradition; John Keble and John Newman, not surprisingly, both wrote sermons on symbols that they believed foreshadowed the 2

In fact, according to Newsome, a sort of agnosticism was pervasive at Cambridge during this time, “This was agnostic Cambridge. The great figures of the 1870s and the 1880’s were the free thinkers and the skeptics. Where thirty years before the future leaders of the church had met in eager debate and high idealism, now future politicians, social reformers and advocates of free enquiry had taken over their positions with a confidence and a sense of vision no less eager or idealistic” (36).

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Eucharist utilizing ancient text from the Old Testament. What is surprising, however, is that the Tractarians also found within the writings of the Greek poets, tragedians, and philosophers hints and traces of scripture and of Christianity. Keble in a reference to Pindar explains that the lyric poets kept alive: some of those holier feelings and thoughts which otherwise would quickly have returned to heaven which gave them: an office which belonged in earlier days to rhapsodists and lyrists, afterwards to tragedians; last of all to the band of philosophers. And thus was brought about the truth which we are taught in Holy Scripture, ‘He left not himself without witness,’ even before that truer Light, never to be overshadowed, arose and cast abroad its illuminating rays. (Lectures on Poetry Vol. 2: 198) Can we hear a faint echo of Keble’s sentiments in Harrison’s assessment of Pindar? She abruptly breaks off her criticism of Pindar for his “innate temperal materialism” to remark, “But sometimes, just because he is supremely a poet, he is ware of a sudden sheen of glory, an almost theatrical stage-effect lighting the puppet show. It catches his breath and ours” (477). Harrison’s particular genius is to meld the Old Testament Eucharistic symbols identified by Keble, Newman, and others with identical images from ancient Greek text and work with them “under a veil” to foreshadow the Eucharist in Prolegomena. The symbols of lambs, wine, vines, and threshing floors are constant from the Hebrews to the Greeks to the Victorian High Church. However, often times when Harrison uses these symbols she surrounds them with text that “reservedly” refers to the Eucharist, Archbishop Laud, or any other number of Anglo-Catholic issues. Understanding how certain images in Prolegomena, such as threshing floors, winepresses, and first fruits, foreshadow the Eucharist requires an explanation of concepts such as Economy and typology and a discussion of 19th century Eucharistic symbols. However, it also requires us, as 21th century secular readers, to do two things: 1. We must let go of our rationalism, and step into a more mystic, poetical mode to a time when the Old Testament 3 was studied in minute detail to foreshadow some

3

It should not be overlooked that Harrison had extensive Biblical training. In Reminiscences she states:

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aspect of Christ or the sacraments with imagery and symbols, which were marked with the “authority of the GREAT CREATOR Himself” (Tracts for the Times, Keble, Tract 89, Vol. 6: 143). Even though Harrison was a working within a “mystic” tradition she was not that far removed from the mainstream; most church-going Victorians would have understood the symbols in Prolegomena if they had known to look for them. As Landow points out, “the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century saw a great, almost astonishing revival of biblical typology, which has left its firm impress on Victorian literature, art, and thought” (3). Further, Landow believes that “Ignorant of typology, we under-read and misread many works, and the danger is that the greater the work, the more our ignorance will distort and inevitably reduce it” (3). 2. We must not underestimate the extent to which Tractarians and Anglo-Catholics (such as Dorothea Beale) saw their own religious feelings and practices mirrored in the text of ancient literature. Far from considering it “heathen” literature, they found in it divine sanctions. Quotes, such as the one below from Keble concerning the Choephorae by Aeschylus, provide an opportunity for us to see that Harrison as an Anglo-Catholic could have read ancient texts from a much different perspective than has been previously noted, finding holiness in unexpected places: First, the form and feature of the whole Tragedy are conceived after the manner of a religious function. Secondly, all the characters are governed throughout by the utterance of the Sacred Oracle, namely that of Apollo of Delphi, who never for a moment fails to protect Orestes with his divine presence. Thirdly, Orestes and Electra appeal to the shade of Agamemnon, not once or twice merely but whenever they have to give effect to their solemn vows, and they appeal to him, I repeat, in such words as show that to them he was silently present hearing and

“Sunday was an exciting if laborious day. I taught twice in the Sunday School, and from the age of twelve played the organ at two services. I followed the prayers in Latin, and the lesson in German, and the Gospel in Greek…We always had to write out one of the sermons from memory, and were never told which” (19). “On Saturdays we repeated the Books of the Bible in their correct order and the Kings of Israel and Judah”. . . (22). “Every Sunday I learnt the Collect for the day and either the Epistle or the Gospel” (20). “But for some things I am devoutly thankful. I was made to learn for some fifteen years three verses of the Bible everyday” (22-23).

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supporting them. Lastly, if we carefully scrutinize the leading characters of the play, we shall find, beyond all question, the weightiest indications of pious reverence (Lectures on Poetry, Vol. 2: 6-7). It is quite possible that Keble and Newman would have been very pleased with the reverence with which Harrison approached ancient Greek religion (except, of course, for her sometimes harsh criticism of the church fathers). The High Church symbolism and Harrison’s utilization of it will be detailed in three sections: the first will discuss the ancient concept of economy, which the Tractarians accepted as their own, as well as typology. This will be followed by an explication of Harrison’s “mystic” use of ancient Greek text and art that contain similar imagery to the 19th century prefigurement of the Christian Eucharist. The last section will detail how Harrison uses Dionysos to foreshadow Christ.

I. Economy and Typology: The Seeds of Prolegomena

Economy Economy is “exemplified in the dealings of Providence toward man” (Newman, Arians of the Fourth Century 74). That is, God revealed himself in varying degrees to different cultures and people to the extent that each could comprehend his message. The Patriarchs, Williams believes, had an, “indefinite, but full assurance of GOD’S unfailing goodness,” that was revealed to them “as they could bear it” (Tract 80, Vol. 4: 4). Economy, as it pertains to the Greeks and other pre-Christian people, was termed the “Dispensation of Paganism” (Newman, Arians 81). This dispensation, or economy, according to Newman was the belief that “heathen poets, sages, or sibyls” may have been to a “certain extent divinely illuminated” and may have conveyed a “religious and moral truth” even though they did not fully understand from whom the gift came and “their perception” of it may have been “faint or defective” (Newman, Arians 82). And it is these “faint truths,” these shadows, some barely perceptible that Harrison has worked into the pages of Prolegomena.

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Human Economy. Economy also exists on the human level as reserve with a slight twist. Newman describes the difference, “If it is necessary to contrast the two with each other, the one [reserve] may be considered as withholding the truth, and the other as setting it out to advantage” (Newman, Arians 65). He further explains that economy is an “accommodation” to the prejudices and feelings of the hearer so as to lead “him to the reception of a novel or unacceptable doctrine” (Arians 71-72). Since most of Harrison’s friends and colleagues (at least the ones we know of) were atheists or agnostics, setting out the magic of her timeless sacraments couched in terms of the ancient world was an accommodation to their prejudices; they would eagerly read and study about these rituals in the ancient world, but would have rejected any notion of her beloved Anglican sacraments. The following words from Keble describe sacred poets who practiced reserve and may have some import in relation to Harrison: There are those who “veil. . . the sacredness of the subject—not necessarily by allegory, for it may be done in thousand other ways—and so deceive the world of taste into devotional reading” (qtd. in Tennyson 33). Typology This concept is closely related to analogy in that people and events in the Old Testament were thought to foreshadow a more perfect truth to come or as Landow puts it “the assumption that God placed anticipations of Christ in the laws, events, and people of the Old Testament” (ix). Particularly important to the study of Prolegomena, the Tractarians believed that rituals in the Old Testament, such as burnt-offerings and firstfruits were a “type” of sacrifice that foreshadowed the Holy Eucharist just as Moses was a “veiled” type of Christ. What is thus prefigured is called the antitype. For instance, Moses is the type: Christ is the antitype. Harrison was almost surely exposed to the idea of typology, 4 as well as analogy, at St. Martins-on-the-Hill in Scarborough. One of the sermons reproduced in Path of the 4

Typological interpretation may have been what ultimately kept Harrison in the Anglican fold, albeit on her own mystical terms. Newman wrote to Pusey about the damage being done to Christianity by David Friedrich Strauss’s Life of Jesus, “The only way to meet it is by your work on types. I think so.” Rowell believes that Newman was suggesting that “the subjective mythological reductionism of Strauss could only be met by a clearly worked out symbolic and sacramental theology” (qtd. in Rowell “Making the Church of England Poetical” ).

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Just by Henning Parr the priest at St. Martin’s was entitled “The Priesthood of Christ.” Here, he wrote that the Epistle to the Hebrews concerns the fact that the “office and work of Jesus Christ, as the great High Priest” is the reality of which the “ritual of the Jewish altar, with its priests and sacrifices, its solid and splendid worship, its comforting message to sin-stained conscience, was but a dim shadow and type.” (265). The concept of analogy is also embedded in one of Parr’s sermons from this book. In “Many Crowns Christ as King,” Parr writes about the gifts brought by three kings who came to visit the baby Jesus. The church had, Parr stated, “from the earliest times, attached to their gifts a mystic meaning” (129). He then quotes Isaac Williams, “All ancient writers suppose these offerings to be replete with Divine Significance” (129). The gifts were an analogy from nature: the gold represented his kingship, the frankincense his godship, and the myrrh his manhood (Parr 129). The Greek Dispensation As was briefly discussed above, Keble, Newman, and other Tractarians did not limit their typological imagery to the Hebrew literature. And, Dorothea Beale taught Jane Harrison that not only the legends and writings of the Hebrews, “but those of all preChristian peoples, recorded the progress of God’s early revelation of Himself to man” (Steadman 103). The idea that God foreshadowed events and rituals of the Christian Church in ancient Greek literature and religion is a theme that runs deeply throughout the writings of the Tractarians. For instance, John Keble wrote the following words concerning Euripides’ Hippolytus: But I hesitate to suggest what source should be assigned to the lines which follow, so weighty are they, so chaste, so holy: so nearly approaching the majesty of Scripture: Vouchsafe, O dearest Goddess, to receive This braided fillet for thy golden hair, From me a pious votary, who alone Of all mankind am for they worship meet, For I with thee reside, with thee converse, Hearing thy voice indeed, though I thy face

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Have never seen. My life as it began, My I with spotless purity conclude! (Keble Lectures on Poetry, Vol. 2: 252). Keble concludes from this passage that, “This seems (I speak with all reverence) to foreshadow as it from afar that divine sentence: THE PURE IN HEART SHALL SEE GOD” (Lectures on Poetry, Vol. 2: 252). Newman explains how he interpreted the writing of the Church fathers, “These were based on the mystical or sacramental principle, and spoke of the various Economies of the Eternal. . . Nature was a parable: Scripture was an allegory: pagan literature, philosophy, and mythology, properly understood were but a preparation for the Gospel” (Apologia 55). Isaac Williams in a tract entitled “On Reserve in Communicating Religious Knowledge” wrote that there was is “great reason to believe that the pagan mysteries took their rise from something more holy than themselves.” Further he believes that Herodotus’ account of Egypt and the “mysterious awe” with which he spoke of their religion, leads him to believe that there is much more in it than “any system of man’s invention.” (Tract 87, Vol. 5: 9). Thus, when Harrison wrote Prolegomena she had at hand the High Church tradition of finding traces of the “true light” in Greek literature, religion, and ritual. As we will see below, she also had a rich High Church heritage of Eucharistic symbols 5 that corresponded to imagery in Greek literature.

II. A New Reading of Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion

Eucharistic Imagery Below are twelve examples of how Harrison foreshadows the Eucharist in Prolegomena, which are divided into three categories. Examples 1 and 2 illustrate 5

It is important to note that many cultures in the Mediterranean area grew and ate the same crops and animals, such as wheat, olives, oxen, and sheep, and utilized threshingfloors and wine presses, and in turn developed similar religious symbols as a result of agricultural processes. Therefore, it is not surprising that Harrison’s Greek types and religious symbols mirror those of the Victorian High Church and thus the Hebrews from which the High Church borrowed.

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sacramental meals featuring the imagery of the High Church that symbolized the Eucharist beginning with that of the feast, grain, the altar, and sacrifice. Intermingled within these images are subtle allusions to Anglo-Catholicism. As Harrison traces the history of sacrifice under the Greek economy, the imagery becomes more poetic, as well as more familiar. The second set of examples 3–7 illustrate the sacrifice of the lamb, the imagery of bread and wine, and a portrayal of the Eucharistic meal. The third and final set involve the appearance of Dionysos and the imagery then evolves into higher sacramental symbols including the gifts of the Eucharist, wine, the image of the consecrating priest and finally the ultimate sacrifice—the omophagia in which an animal is eaten raw in order that the participant may be one with the god. 1. Feast imagery and Anglo-Catholic allusions. In a sermon entitled “The Gospel Feast” Newman related that the Eucharist, the Feast, is typified and prefigured in “all parts of Scripture, in history, in precept, and in promise, and in prophecy. . .” (Selected Sermons 268). Just as the Bible contained allusions to Christ and his resurrection, so, too, Newman believes, should there be “reverent allusions to His most gracious feast—allusions which we would not know to be allusions except for the event. . .” (270). From the very beginning, according to Newman, “the greatest rite of religion” has been a feast,” the partaking of God’s bounties in the way of nature. . .” (Selected Sermons, 272). In fact, Harrison begins Prolegomena by firmly establishing the concept of a sacramental meal, “In Homer sacrifice is but, as it were, the signal for a banquet of abundant roast flesh and sweet wine; we hear nothing of fasting, of cleansing, and of atonement” (1). The last words reference Anglo-Catholicism and establish an immediate contrast between the primitive “nonmystical” sacrifice and that of the Anglo-Catholic sacrifice with its insistence on fasting before the Eucharist and its emphasis on cleansing and atonement. The first sacrificial meal that Harrison describes is Agamemnon’s sacrifice to Zeus (11), and she begins the discussion with an allusion to Archbishop Laud’s uniformity of ritual: The ritual of the several Olympian deities does not vary in essentials; an instance of sacrifice to Zeus is selected because we are about to examine the Diasia, a festival of Zeus, and thereby uniformity is secured (11).

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Newman related that the feast was preceded by “a direct act of religion , by a prayer, or blessings, or sacrifice, or by the presence of a priest which implied it” (Selected Sermons 272).> Harrison could not have chosen a passage that more perfectly matches Newman’s requirements for a religious feast than in the following description of Agamemnon’s sacrifice to Zeus: “The first act is of prayer and the scattering of barley grains; the victim, a bull, is present but not yet slain”: They gathered round the bull and straight the barley grain did take, And ‘mid them Agamemnon stood and prayed, and thus he spake. . . (qtd. in Prolegomena 11). Within a sacrificial context, the imagery of the grain takes on Eucharistic symbolism, just as in Rossetti’s “Feast of the Presentation”: O Firstfruits of our grain, Infant and Lamb appointed to be slain (ll. 1-2 Complete Poems 444). Or, George Herbert’s “Peace,”: Take of this grain, which in my garden grows, And grows for you; Make bread of it; and that repose And Peace which ev’ry where With so much earnestnesse you do pursue, Is onely there (ll. 37-42, English Poems 137) The Eucharistic overtones become more apparent as Harrison adds, “Nothing could be simpler, cleaner. There is no mystic communion, no eating of the body of the god incarnate in the victim. . .” (12). These words quickly bring to mind Pusey’s mystic communion with God and the Anglo-Catholic Eucharist: For as, if one entwineth wax with other wax, and melteth them by the fire, there resulteth of both one, so through the participation of the Body of Christ and of His precious Blood, He in us, and, and We again in Him, are co-united (“The Holy Eucharist a Comfort to the Penitent” note 19).

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2. Grain and altar imagery/Uniformity and innovation. The next example again turns to Homer with the images of grain, 6 sacrifice, and altar with the latter two images being of great importance since they played such a major role in the 19th century drama. And again Harrison alludes again to Archbishop Laud within a discussion of sacrifice: The first act in a Homeric sacrifice was uniformly prayer and the sprinkling of grain. . .It was important to note that the grain was poured on the altar and was therefore in itself a sacrifice. . .” (86). The sprinkling of salted meal (mola salsa) was, if we may believe Athenaeus, a later innovation (87). The grain and the altar provide the imagery and words uniformly and innovation leave little doubt that Anglican ritual and the Christian sacrifice are never far from Harrison’s heart and mind. 3. Poetic imagery of the lamb. The symbol of the lamb as Christ is well established and widely used. In Keble’s sermon, “On Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving,” 7 he counts the offering of “the firstlings of Abel’s flocks” as a prefigurement of the Eucharist (Sermon of Praise and Thanksgiving 341). Pusey relates that we “truly assert that that which we receive from the holy altar is Christ, the Lamb of God” (Doctrine of the Real Presence 7). With these symbols in mind, the two lines that Harrison cites from Euripides’ Electra, take on new meaning. And not coincidentally, Harrison is discussing here a form of sacrifice, that known as sphagia: I saw upon the pyre with its black fleece A sheep, the victim, and fresh blood outpoured.

6

See also page 94 where wheat and barley and cakes are laid on the altar on Delos; page 111 for a description of the wheat and cakes made of barley mixed with wheat or cakes made of them are laid on the Altar of Zeus at the Acropolis. 7 It is interesting to note that Keble states that “in all ages, the Holy Supper has been called the Eucharist; which word means ‘a sacrifice of thanksgiving’” (344). Harrison uses the word thanksgiving within a sacrificial context in following passage from Prolegomena: “To mark the transition from rites of compulsion to rites of supplication and consequent thanksgiving is to read the whole religious history of primitive man” (124). On page 58 she states, “Language and ritual could scarcely speak more plainly: θúειν is to the Olympians, a joyous thanksgiving to gods who are all white and bright, beneficent, of the upper air. . .” On page 69 she discusses the active and middle forms of two Greek verbs. θúειν and σφάγια. “The active is of the nature of thanksgiving, the middle partakes of prayer and impulsion. In the case of σφάγια, the active is very rarely in use, and naturally, for the sacrifice of σφάγια has in it no element of thanksgiving.”

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In addition to the images of the lamb and blood is the act of pouring (outpoured), which is very closely connected to the Eucharist. Keble refers to Jesus who “poured out his Soul unto Death. He kept nothing back from us: and we ought to pour out ourselves” (“On Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving” 338). Pusey paraphrasing the words of the consecration says, “This is my Blood of the New Testament, which for you and for many is poured out and given for the remission of sins (http://anglicanhistory.org/pusey/pusey4.html). Christina Rossetti writes: Your vessels are by much too strait/Were I to pour you could not hold/Bear with me, I must bear to wait/A fountain sealed thro’ heat and cold. . . I full of Christ and Christ of me (“The heart knoweth its own bitterness,” ll. 41-44 Complete Poems 798). Harrison continues with her description of σφάγιον: It is interesting to note in this connection that the word σφάγιον is always used of human victims, and of such animals as were in use as surrogates. . . As a σφάγιον Polyxena is slain on the tomb of Achilles; she dies as an atonement, a propitiation, as ‘medicine for salvation’ (Prolegomena 64-65). This passage also contains two other loaded words: •

Atonement, which carried a very special sacrificial connotation to the High Church. Newman states that the “sacred doctrine of the Atoning Sacrifice is not one to be talked of, but to be lived upon” (Selected Sermons 243). Its use here in connection with the lamb, blood, and imagery of pouring calls forth the image of the Christian sacrifice.

•

Propitiation is repeated over and over in the Eucharistic literature. To quote Pusey, “we drink His Holy Blood to the propitiation for our sins, and participation of the immortality in Him” (“Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist” http://individual.utoronto.ca/hayes/anglican/pusey.htm)

Perhaps the most interesting phrase in this passage, however, is “medicine of salvation.” Pusey provides a series of metaphors for the Eucharist that are very similar to Harrison’s phrase, “The Holy Eucharist is," the Homilies say, "the salve of immortality and sovereign preservative against death, a deifical Communion, the sweet dainties of our Saviour, the pledge of eternal health. . .” (“Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist” http://individual.utoronto.ca/hayes/anglican/pusey.htm).

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4. Threshingfloors and first fruits/bread and wine. Gerard Manley Hopkins, perhaps the best-known High Church poet, wrote the following lines in a poem entitled “Barnfloor and Winepress”: 8 Thou that on sin’s wages starvest, Behold we have the joy in harvest: For us was gather’d the first fruits, For us was lifted from the roots, Sheaved in cruel bands, bruised sore, Scourged upon the threshing-floor: Where the upper mill-stone roof’d his Head, At morn we found the heavenly bread, And, on a thousand altars laid, Christ our sacrifice is made! (qtd. in Landow 180). For High Churchmen and women winepresses and threshingfloors come to symbolize the Eucharist because that is “where the making of bread and wine begin” (Landow 181182). Hopkins draws this imagery from George Herbert and the Old Testament (Landow 180). Numbers 18:26-7 reads: And this your heave offering, shall be reckoned unto you, as though they were the corn of the threshingfloor, and the fullness of the winepress. From George Herbert’s “The Bunch of Grapes”: Who of the laws sowre juice sweet wine did make, Ev’n God himself, being pressed for my sake (ll 27-28 Complete English Poems 140). Note closely the imagery in the following passage that Harrison reproduces in Prolegomena: There is celebrated, according to Pausanias, a feast of Demeter and Dionysos called the Haloa. He adds, in explaining the name, that at it they were wont to carry first-fruits from Athens to Eleusis and to sport upon the threshing-floors, and that at the feast there was a procession of Poseidon (146). 8

Much of Hopkins’ poetry was not published until after Prolegomena was written; however, this particular poem was published in the Anglo-Catholic organ Union Review in 1865 and in a collection entitled Lyra Sacra in 1895 (Gray, footnote 12).

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It could be a coincidence that Harrison uses this reference, and perhaps it is another coincidence that she later in the book she remarks that among Dionysos’ names is Lenaios “He of the Wine-Press” (413). However, when the images of first fruits and threshingfloor are combined with the next sentence there is little room left for coincidence. “The affiliation of the worship of the corn-goddess to that of the wine-god is of the first importance” (Prolegomena 146). The importance of connecting corn with wine cannot be stressed enough in terms of Eucharistic imagery. Newman writes that special items were chosen by God for means of obtaining “unknown spiritual blessings.” The most frequent of these are corn or bread, and wine (Selected Sermons 273). However, the specific gifts of the earth that God “at length fixed on” were bread and wine (Selected Sermons 274). Christina Rossetti provides a sterling example of corn as a Eucharistic image in “Consider the Lilies of the Field”: The poppy saith amid the corn: Let but my scarlet head appear And I am held in scorn: Yet juice of subtle virtue lies Within my cup of curious dyes (ll. 6-10 Complete Poems 70). John Newman believed that the words of Zechariah the prophet anticipated the Gospel Feast, “corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wines the maids” (Selected Sermons 275). Harrison relates that the link between corn and wine is important because “the coming of Dionysos brought a new spiritual impulse to the religion of Greece” which the Elusinian mysteries picked up. The Haloa, Harrison states, is the “primitive prototype” (146) of the Elusinian mysteries. And although she doesn’t say it, the symbols of first fruits, the threshingfloor, Demeter’s corn, and Dionysos’ wine foreshadow the Eucharist. 5. More first fruits and threshing floors. Harrison again employs ancient text that features the images of first fruits and threshing floors. In discussing the meaning of the word Thargelos she cites Krates, “The thargelos is the first loaf made after carrying home of the harvest.” From Athaneaus she reports that the cake called thargelos was

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“sometimes also called thalusios” (Prolegomena 78), which is the festival of first fruits, “familiar to us from the lovely picture in the Seventh Idyll of Theocritus”: The road on which our feet are set it is a harvest way, For to fair-robed Demeter our comrades bring to-day The first-fruits of their harvesting. She on the threshing place Great store of barley grain outpoured, for guerdon of her grace (qtd. in Prolegomena 78). A close analysis of this passage reveals not only the images of harvest, first fruits, threshing place, familiar from the poetry of Hopkins and Rossetti and the Bible but also importantly, again we find the words outpoured and grace. 6. Wine/Grapes/Vine. Keble considered wine, above all else to be God’s ultimate symbol. To quote, “Wine in God’s Hand (the allusion is too sacred to be expressed without fear and hesitation,) may, consistently with the rest of Holy Scripture, be interpreted of the highest and most mysterious of all privileges. . .” (Tract 89 Vol. 6: 175). The allusion extended to the vine, as well as the grape. Christina Rossetti wrote, “O Christ, the Vine with living Fruit…Sweeter than clustered grapes, Thou Vine;/O Best, Thou Vineyard of red wine/Keeping Thy best wine till the close” (ll. 1-8 “I Know you Not”) Harrison uses the imagery of bread and wine in a straightforward manner in Prolegomena and then directly veils another allusion. She traces the evolution of the material for sacrifice, from the natural fruits of the earth to the “most primitive form of artificial food, i.e., the pelanos, a sort of porridge” (88). The next sentence seems to come out of the blue: We speak of Bread and Wine as sacramental elements, but both are far removed from being elemental. Leavened bread, the Greek, ἂρτος is a product of advanced civilization, and with a true conservative ritual instinct the Roman Church prescribes to this day the use of the unleavened wafer. Athenaeus, citing the author of a play called the Beggars tells us that the Athenians set a meal in the Prytaneum for the Dioscuri they serve upon tables cheese and barley-porridge (φυστήν) and chopped olives and leeks making a remembrance of their ancient mode of life (88).

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The Eucharist it seems is never far from her mind. But Bread, Wine, and sacramental are not the only important words in this passage. In fact, it is very easy to overlook the last section of this passage altogether. However, three very important words appear here: meal, table, and remembrance, which allude to the Eucharist. (http://www.ondoctrine.com/2ry10101.htm). The evangelical J. C. Ryle (1816-1900) preached the following words in a sermon entitled, “The Lord’s Supper: Going to the Table”: If any one believes that Paul’s words to Hebrews, “We have an altar” (Hebrews 1:10) are a proof that the Lord’s table is an altar, I remind him “Christians have an altar where they partake. That altar is Christ our Lord, who is Altar, Priest, and Sacrifice, all in One. . . .The Bible teaches expressly that the Lord’s Supper was ordained to be “a remembrance of Christ’s body and blood,” and not an offering (http://www.ondoctrine.com/2ry10101.htm). [my emphasis on table and remembrance] For Ryle, communion was a meal conducted on a table as a remembrance and it hardly seems a coincidence that these images appear just after a direct reference to the Eucharist. At first reading, I thought that Harrison was referencing the inferiority of the Protestant communion with its lack of an altar and sacrifice. However, I think that it is much more likely that she used the words from the anonymous author of Beggars to foreshadow the description of the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper from Luke 22: 19 And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. 20 Likewise, also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you. 21 But behold, the hand of one of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table (King James Version). As a bit of a bonus, the accounts of the institution of the Eucharist in Matthew (26:26-30) and Mark (14: 22-26) contain another bit of imagery from Harrison’s passage above: The disciples went to the Mount of Olives after supper.

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7. Loaves, ceremonial drink, and uniformity of ritual. Harrison also utilizes Greek art to foreshadow the Eucharist. Figure 2 is advanced enough in its imagery that it can stand alone as a Eucharistic foreshadowing with a minimum of explanation. However, the text that comes just before this illustration is of great interest because Harrison is yet again overlaying Greek religion with the turmoil of the 19th century and leaves no doubt that Anglicanism, its rites of fasting, 9 drinking the ceremonial drink, partaking of the sacraments, and Archbishop Laud with his uniformity of ritual are on her mind; this is further enforced by quoting the Anglican creed: “It is significant of the whole attitude of Greek religion that the confession is not a confession of dogma or even faith, but an avowal of ritual acts performed. This is the

Figure 2: An Ancient Eucharist?

measure of the gulf between ancient and modern. The Greeks in their greater wisdom saw that uniformity in ritual was desirable and possible; they left man practically free in the only sphere where freedom is of real import, i.e., in the matter of thought. So long as you fasted, drank the kykeon, handled the sacra, no one asked what were your opinions or your sentiments in the performance of those acts; you were left to find in every sacrament the only thing you could find—what you brought. Our own creed is mainly a Credo, an utterance of dogma, formulated by the few for the many, but it has traces of the more ancient conception of Confiteor, the avowal of ritual acts performed. Credo in unam sanctum catholicam et apostolicum ecclesiam is immediately followed by Confiteor unam baptismum, though the instinct of dogma surges up again in the final words in remissionem peccatorum.

9

Crouch relates that Henning Parr, the vicar at St. Martins in Scarborough was “very assiduous in urging regular communion, always with due preparation, preferably fasting. Communion became daily in Holy Week and Easter week from 1872” (“Anglo-Catholicism” 3).

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The preliminary fast before the eating of sacred things is common to most primitive peoples. . . (156). The image 10 is from a Greek vase that appears facing the text above and Harrison describes it thus: Two worshippers, a man and a woman, are seated side by side; before them a table piled high with food, beneath it a basket of loaves. They are inscribed Mysta (Μυστα). A priest holding in the left hand twigs and standing by a little shrine, offers them a cylix containing some form of drink (157). Loaves were a particular image that prefigured the Eucharist. Newman relates that the miracle of the loaves involves “the same outward acts” as in the “mystery of his Supper,” “taking bread, blessing or giving thanks, and breaking.” (Selected Sermons 263). When this vase painting is combined with Harrison’s obsession, the text, the Anglican creed, and the words uniformity of ritual, fasting, shrine, with a what Harrison identifies as a “priest” presenting a ceremonial drink with loaves present and the word Μυστα (the initiates into the mysteries), it is hard to believe that this scene is not somehow related to Harrison’s obsession with the Eucharist.

III. Dionysos as Type, Christ as Antitype, and Eucharistic Images The portrayal of a meal is the last major Eucharistic image before the appearance of Dionysos; after his “appearing” the Eucharistic imagery leaves behind the agricultural symbols and takes on the “real truth” in the form of blood, Eucharist gifts, consecrating priest, and the ultimate symbol of eating the god incarnate. And there is a very good reason for this type of imagery in connection to Dionysos; simply put, Dionysos is, for Harrison, a foreshadowing, a “type” of Christ. In large part, Harrison draws her material for Dionysos from Euripides’ Bacchae. “In the end,” she relates, “it is only the mystic who penetrates the secrets of mysticism. It is therefore to poets and philosophers that we must finally look for help and even with this help each man is in the matter of mysticism peculiarly the measure of his own 10

This image is reproduced from page 157 of Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion © Princeton University Press, 1991.

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understanding” (364). It cannot be stressed too heavily that by turning to the poets, she is following in the steps of John Keble. The Jewish prophets “silently moulded the minds of the Jews for a reception of the truth,” Keble tells us, and in addition he says that the Greeks, the “other race” whose members first joined the ranks of Christians, by no means lacked its own special schooling. . . Therefore we fully endorse the reasoning of those who hold that Greek and Latin literature fulfilled nearly the same office, as far as regards those races, as did the vision of the Prophets for the Jews (Lectures on Poetry, Vol. 2: 475). Of particular interest to this study is Keble’s view on Euripides’ Bacchae. One might suppose that the conservative Keble would have been insulted by the wildness of the Bacchae; however, his opinion was quite the opposite: Finally, in the Bacchae, Eurpides’ aim seems to have been to exalt the characteristic mystery, which so deeply pervades all divine things: and to impress on us that nothing in religion is to be held of light account, simply because its justification is not immediately apparent or does not readily commend itself to the mere human sense (Lectures on Poetry Vol. 2: 254). Foreshadowing Christ. In her own words, in the words of the Bible, and in Euripides’ words, Harrison time and time again foreshadows Christ with the image of Dionysos. The examples listed below do not exhaust the imagery that links Dionysos and Christ; nor do they cover the many prefigurements 11 to the Virgin Mary and the Trinity but they are the most blatant samples. 1. Harrison explains why, in the popular tradition, Dionysos is depicted as having come from Asia, “Wise men are not slow to follow the star that leads to the east.” (374). Matthew 2:1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem. 2. Describing Euripides’ Dionysos, Harrison states “. . . though his Dionysos is at the outset all gentleness and magic, “his kingdom scarcely of this world, Teiresias 11

It is important to note that these allusions could be interpreted as the anthropological comparative method because the basic premise is similar to typology; however, considering Harrison’s references in her letters and the reserved Eucharistic foreshadowings discussed above, her mystic nature seems a much more plausible explanation for these allusions.

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knows that he is not only Teacher, Healer, Prophet, but ‘of Ares’ realm a part hath he.. . .’ Dionysos, for all his sweetness, is to the end militant, he came not to bring peace upon the earth but a sword . . .” (Prolegomena 377). Matthew 10:34 [Jesus says] Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 3. Referring to Dionysos in the form of Liknites Harrison says, “they worshipped and tended no full-grown god, but a baby in his cradle” (401). Matthew 2:11 And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. 4. Harrison quotes from Euripides’ Bacchae: Why, O Blessed among Rivers, Wilt thou fly me and deny me? By his own joy I vow, By the grape upon the bough, Thou shalt seek him in the midnight, thou shalt love him even now. Harrison adds, “He came unto his own and his own received him not” (Prolegomena 373). John 1:11 And he came unto his own and his own received him not. 5. Harrison relates that in the Bacchae, “When Pentheus has imprisoned the ‘Bacchos’ he finds in the manger not the beautiful stranger but a raging bull; . .” (432). Harrison is not utilizing her considerable imaginative abilities here by using the word manger; Eurpides writes the Greek word φάτναις which is translated “manger” or “crib” (πρòς φάτναις δè ταûρον ευ̉ρών ll. 615-618 27). Luke 2:7 She wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

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6. Harrison describes the birth of Brimos (Dionysos 12 ) at Eleusis, “We may take it then as certain that to the epoptae at Eleusis was shown as the supreme revelation a ‘fresh ear reaped’ and that by night there was declared to these epoptae the birth of a sacred Child: Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given” (549). Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. 7. Harrison again writes of the birth of a child during the rites at Eleusis, “The mystic child at Eleusis was born of a maiden; these ancients made for themselves the sacred dogma, “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son” (552). Isaiah 7:14-17: Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. 8. In this example Harrison is a bit less transparent as she writes about the worship of Dionysos, “Once fairly uprooted from his native Thracian soil, it was easy to plant Dionysos anywhere and everywhere wherever went his worshippers” (378). This description is so reminiscent of Newman’s description of Christ replacing the temple that it hardly seems a coincidence. Newman explains that before the coming of Christ “under the law, the Presence of God was but in one place; and therefore could be approached and enjoyed only at set times.” With Christ, however, “Faith opens upon us Christians the Temple of God wherever we are; for the Temple is a spiritual one, and so is everywhere present” (Newman Selected Sermons 170). 9. Harrison discusses the Bessi, the wild tribe who lived around Mt. Haemus. “The evil reputation of the Bessi lasted on till Christian days, till they bowed beneath the yoke of one gentler than Dionysos” (370). She then quotes four stanzas of a poem by Paulinus celebrating the conversion of the Bessi. The last stanza reads: There where of old they prowled like savage beasts, Now is the joyous rite of angel feasts. The brigabands’ cave is now a hiding place 12

Harrison explains that Brimos become Dionysos.

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For men of grace (qtd. 270). In this passage, we see a tenderness toward Christ and a “reserve” in not mentioning his name. The poem at the end serves to compare and contrast the type and antitype: Dionysos, the type offers “savage beasts”; Christ the antitype offers “angel feasts”; as we will see, it is a comparison of the omophagia and the Eucharist “Exalting the characteristic mystery” The following examples are Eucharistic prefigurements connected to Dionysos: Foreshadowing the Gifts of the Eucharistic. Harrison explains why Dionysos gained such popularity in Greece: His dominance is unquestionably due to the introduction and rapid spread of the vine. Popular tradition enshrined as it usually does a real truth—the characteristic gift (χάρις) of Dionysos by which he won the all hearts was wine, wine made not of barley but of the juice of the grape (424). Harrison goes on to explain that although Athena had her symbol of the olive, it “never had the divine omnipotence of the vine.” Olive oil replaced primitive grease and butter, Harrison explains, “But the supersession of butter by oil was a quite, unnoticed advance, not a triumphant progress like Coming of the Vine” (424). Within this imagery of wine, and grapes, and vines, ostensibly concerning Dionysos, are embedded very mystical words—“real truth, “characteristic” gifts, χάρις.” John Keble in Tract 89 “On the Mysticism of the Early Church Fathers” explains that the word truth has a very specific meaning: Careful readers, of the Epistle to the Hebrews more especially, must have noticed how the things of the Christian Dispensation, as distinct from those of the Jewish, are characterized by this epithet, ẚληθινá [truth]. . . Thus our SAVIOUR is designated as τϖν ἁγίων λειτουργὺς, καὶ τῆς ẚληθινῇς “a Minister of the Sanctuary, and of the True Tabernacle.” And afterwards the holy places made with Hands are spoken of as merely ẚντίτυπα τῶν ẚληθινῶν, "Figures of the True." The word has evidently a relative signification: it implies the substance in opposition to the shadow; answering perhaps most exactly to "real" in the language of the present day. . . .

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. . . .The word, Truth, may be understood by way of contrast to the old figures or types, which were not the Truth, οἳτινες οủκ ᾖσαν ẚλήθεια. With this notion on our minds of the force of ẚλήθεια and its kindred words, let us proceed to examine such places as the following: "That was the True Light, τὸ φῶς τὸ ẚλμηθινòν, which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world:" "I am the True Vine, ᾑ ἅμπελος ἡ ẚληθινή —and My Father is the Husbandman: . . ." (Tracts for the Times, Tract 89, Vol 6: 162-164). Pusey echoes this sentiment, “S. Ephrem speaks of the Holy Eucharist as ‘the image of His Truth and as shadowing forth Christ in a very remarkable passage in which he regards it as displacing heathen idolatry, . . . ” (Real Presence 102). With the words real truth, Harrison on the surface references the wine of Dionysos; however the Christian Eucharist was the “real truth” hidden under the surface. And she provides even more solid evidence that she is referring to the mystic sacrament of the High Church with the words gift and χάρις. In Pusey’s sermon, “The Holy Eucharist, a Comfort to the Penitent, Excerpts from Some Writers on the Doctrine of the Holy Sacrament” he cites Bishop Hacket: There is far more than a shadow, than a type, than a figure. Christ did not propose a sign at that hour, but also he gave us a Gift, and that Gift really and effectually is Himself, which is all one as you would say, spiritually Himself; for spiritual union is the most true and real union that can be (http://anglicanhistory.org/pusey/pusey5.html). And the most important word is χάρις, which in Greek means grace or favor; however, it is closely related to the Greek word ευχάριστία, means thanksgiving or the Holy Eucharist. “Divine omnipotence” and “Coming of the Vine” are also important words that bring to mind Christ. Foreshadowing the blood of the Eucharistic. Harrison cites these lines from Gilbert Murray’s translation of Euripides’ Bacchae concerning the “Principle of Moisture and Dryness”: Two spirits there be, Young prince, that in man’s world are first of worth.

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Demeter one is named. She is the Earth— Call her what name thou wilt!—who feeds man’s frame With sustenance of things dry. And that which came Her work to perfect, second, is the Power From Semele born. He found the liquid shower Hid in the grape. Harrison continues: This is the rationalism not of the poet Euripides, but of the priest Teiresias. This is clear, for the poet in the next line breaks clean away from the tiresome Dryness and Moisture and is gone to the magic of sleep and the blood of the God outpoured (430). This translation by Murray is more of a poetic rendering than a literal translation, which Harrison read and critiqued before publication. One line had such special significance that she wrote to Murray about it, “Thank you for the ‘liquid shower, hid in the grape.’ It is just right.” (July 21, 1902 Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/3). It is not hard to see why she would enjoy this particular imagery. It is the essence of reserve and analogy with the furtivity of the wine and the Eucharist hid in the grape. At the same time a subtle allusion to baptism appears with the words “liquid shower.” Any doubt that Harrison uses Euripides’ text (or Murray’s translation) to refer to the Eucharist, vanishes as her next sentence leaves behind the grape imagery and directly references the “blood of the God outpoured,” or as Pusey said, “Lo! Thy Image is shadowed forth in the blood of the grape on the bread” (Real Presence 102). In addition to the blood, the imagery of the “hidden” grape and the blood of the god combine with the High Church image of “outpoured” to provide very powerful reserved Eucharistic symbolism. Foreshadowing the sacrifice of Christ as the consecrating priest. Harrison quotes Plutarch on sacrifices that were held at Delphi, “They call Hosioter the animal sacrificed when a Hosios is designated” (501). The animal became Hosios (őσιος) when he was pronounced “pure, unblemished and uncorrupt in body and soul” (501). Harrison goes on to explain that:

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. . . the word ὃσιος, it appears, carried with it the double connotation of purity and consecration; it was used of a thing found blameless and then made over to, accepted by, the gods. The animal thus consecrated was called Hosioter, which means “He who consecrates.” We should expect such a name to be applied to the consecrating priest, rather than to the victim. If Plutarch’s statement be correct, we can only explain Hosioter on the supposition that the sacrificial victim was regarded as an incarnation of the god (501). This demonstrates the “economy” of sacrifice under which the Greeks lived. The supreme “pure and unblemished sacrificial” victim, as well as consecrating priest and incarnation of the god was, of course, Jesus Christ. Pusey explains that the sprinkling of blood in sacrifice in the Old Testament foreshadowed the Atoning Blood on the cross by saying that the “blood of the Old Testament was a shadow, not in itself, but in its value. It was the real, although unavailing, blood of bulls and goats, picturing that the Atonement should be through the shedding of the Precious Blood of Christ. But the picture itself was real blood” (Sermon on the Presence of Christ http://individual.utoronto.ca/hayes/anglican/pusey.htm). In addition, the word consecrate, which is used with abandon throughout Prolegomena, is especially prevalent in this context with the English word consecrate appearing 5 times on this page and the Greek word Hosios or a form of it appearing eleven times. Since this was one of the most hotly contested concepts in the 19th century saga, it is a word that should be closely noted. Harrison continues, leaving no doubt that she sees these rites and doctrines as forerunners to Christian doctrine. She explains that this concept of Hosia “lay ready to hand as a vehicle to express the new Orphic doctrine of identification with the divine.” This combined with the concept of consecrated and free (ὃσιος ĸαì éλεύθερα) from the cult of Demeter is the dawning of the grace in use to-day ‘Sanctify these creatures to our use and us to thy service’; it is the ritual forecast of a higher guerdon, ‘Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free’ (503).

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Again, we return to the “truth” and again it is surrounded by Eucharistic language in the words “sanctify these creatures,” which is a reference to the sacrifice of Christ and its reenactment in the Eucharist. Pusey, in a sermon entitled “The Holy Eucharist a Comfort to the Pentinent” quotes Bishop Overall who says that before consecration, the Bread and Wine are called “God’s creatures” (Pusey http://anglicanhistory.org/pusey/pusey5.html). The Eucharistic service of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer reads,” vouchsafe to bl esse and sanc

tifie these thy gyftes, and creatures of bread and wyne, that they maie be

unto us the bodye and bloude of thy moste derely beloved sonne Jesus Christe” (http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1549/Communion_1549.htm). The 19th century saw a renewal of the prayer of consecration. Bowen reproduces an excerpt from the Anglo-Catholic manual, The English Priest’s Vade Mecum which bids the Priest to make the sign of the cross when he says “these thy

creatures”

(Contemporary Ritualism Bowen 61). Prefiguring eating the god. The culmination of sacrifice in Prolegomena occurs with the Omophagia, the eating of an animal in order to become one with god; this is the climax, the culmination of the whole book. Harrison cites a confession found in a fragment of the Cretans by Euripides on the steps involved in becoming a Bacchos. Four lines concern us here: Fulfilled his red and bleeding feasts; Held the Great Mother’s mountain flame; I am Set free and named by name A Bacchos of the Mailed Priests (479). The “red and bleeding feast” was the ω̉μοφαγία (omphagia) where a beast was slain and eaten as a religious rite. Plutarch explains that there are ceremonies “in which take place eatings of raw flesh” and fastings and beatings and mad ravings and “tossing of the neck to an fro” (qtd. in Harrison 483). Harrison then picks up the narrative: Plutarch’s words read like a commentary on the Orphic ritual under discussion: we have the fasting, we have the horrid feast; he sees the savage element of ‘riddance,’ but he misses the saving grace of enthusiasm and mystic significance (483).

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Harrison, however, has not missed the mystic significance. She explains that at first the animal may have been eaten to absorb its strength without “any notion of a divine sacrament” (486). Speaking the language of an Anglo-Catholic, Harrison relates, “It is not hard to see how this savage theory of communion would pass into a higher sacramentalism, into the faith that by partaking of an animal who was a divine vehicle you could enter spiritually into the divine life that had physically entered you, and so be made one with the god” (487). Or as Pusey said, the signified Christ in the bread and wine is undoubted Catholic teaching, and the most literal import of Holy Scripture, and the mystery of the Sacrament, that the Eternal Word, Who is God, having taken to Him our flesh and joined it indissolubly with Himself, and so, where His Flesh is, there He is, and we receiving It, receive Him, and receiving Him are joined on to Him though His flesh to the Father, and He dwelling in us, dwell in Him, and with Him in God (Real Presence xx). It has not gone unnoticed in the critical literature that Harrison saw similarities between the Omophagia and the Eucharist. Henrich states that she “implied that the maenadic meal in which divinity was consumed in its raw state was not very different from the Christian Eucharistic, except that it was more primitive” (229-230). This is true, but distorted. Harrison realized that “The Omophagia, deep though its spiritual meaning was, is in its actual rites savage and repulsive” (545). Within the context of the omophagia containing a deep spiritual meaning, this excerpt from a playful letter written to Gilbert Murray in 1912 gives new meaning to what could otherwise be considered a sacrilegious statement: Today being Easter Day, there is an Omophagia in the quarter deck & surplices are flying about looking important & carrying divers forms of hocus pocus. 13 If I ever feared that my mother church was on her last legs I am undeceived (Easter Day 1912 Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/24). Harrison does consider the Omophagia a metaphor for the Eucharist; in Tractarian terms it was a “trace” of the light of Christianity coming into Greece; a symbol used but not

13

Hocus pocus comes a corruption of from the words the priest says at consecration Hoc est corpus meum (This is my body.)

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fully understood. Isaac Williams’ remarks on the religion of Egypt apply also to Greece: “that amidst the corruption of primitive religion, which took place in that country, there still remains an indefinable fear, which could only find its correspondence in the sense handed down of the awfulness of the true God” (Tract 87, Vol. 5: 9).

IV. Conclusion Gilbert Murray helps us understand how Harrison could have, in good faith, crafted such a characterization of Dionysos and Christ: Like William James, she entirely rejects what she calls “monarchial diesm,” she will hear nothing of any immortal god; but she does passionately believe in a being—or at least accept the worship of a being—who labours for man, is man, suffers and dies for man, and though dead shall rise again. If, as some of the fathers say, all religious language is necessarily nothing but a metaphor, attempting to indicate by human words what is admittedly inexpressible, it is interesting to see how in this fearlessly and almost recklessly sceptical mind the orthodox Christian metaphor finds such warm hospitality in the end (Harrison, Themis 572). Although this description of Harrison dates to 1928 and the “being” Murray refers to is the dying and rising Year Spirit that Harrison formulated in Themis, it does point to a predeliction to reverence and to believe in spirits such as Dionysos and Christ and to see connections between the two and most of all to work within the Christian metaphor. And it may just be that the Year Spirit was how Harrison ultimately reconciled her Anglican religion with ancient religion. In 1924 she wrote a letter to Athena Clough at Newnham about translating the autobiography of Avvakum the Archpriest from the Russian: I couldn’t make it out except for an enchanting refugee who helps and who is more like a bogey in a hee than anything human—he has a colossal wife called Sevaphina Navlovna & they love each other to madness. They gave us a Vaseal tea with a cake and a whole cheese like a mountain—then they kissed & announced that “Christ is risen”--& yes he really is—strange to say! I almost

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wept! It was so bear-like. All my blessings to you & the principle. The creature never writes and I don’t wonder. This wants no answer but do come along soon (Letter to Blanche Athena Clough 1924 Add. 72828 f. 89. British lib). Christ, Dionysos, and the Year Spirit all blend for Harrison and seem to serve as a metaphor of something beyond comprehension.

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CHAPTER 6

ANGLO-CATHOLIC RITUALIST: LETTERS FROM 1876-1924 The ritualist leads “captive silly women” with “his trumpery childish toys, his millinery, his candlesticks, his incense pots, his mystifying and nonsensical genuflections.” 1

Introduction This dissertation has thus far traced Jane Harrison’s Anglo-Catholic roots and her obsession with the sacraments that began during her days in Yorkshire, was nurtured under the tutelage under the High Church Dorothea Beale at Cheltenham, and which is embedded in her letters, as well as Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. What remains is to firmly connect Harrison to the Anglican rituals discussed in Chapter 2, which I have argued, provided the emotion and mystery that were the impetus for her life’s work on ancient religion. One way in which to connect Harrison to Anglican ritual is to demonstrate that she was part of a distinctly Anglo-Catholic culture, which, Reed relates, included customs or “party badges” that set them apart from other churchmen. Nine of these religious and cultural identifiers are listed below: 1. fasting and conspicuous Lenten observations; 2. burning candles on the altar; 3. attending confession, or the sacrament of penance; 4. genuflecting and crossing oneself; 5. abbreviating the word Saint as S, rather than St.; 6. using the word Mass;

1

Qtd. in Reed, 189.

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7. using liturgical terms including knowing the name of specific Roman vestments; 8. wearing a cross (See the picture of Harrison in chapter 2.); 9. speaking of the Holy Altar and Blessed Virgin (Reed 81-83) By detecting these “cultural identifiers” in Harrison’s letters, as well as Prolegomena, it becomes clear that Jane Harrison was deep-dyed in Anglo-Catholicism and its rituals; references to the Holy Mother, genuflecting, and Lent are all part of a this culture. While none of these items strike a cord within our consciousnesses, in late 19th and early 20th century England, such rites were still quite controversial and many AngloCatholics preferred to keep their religious preferences to themselves. Castle’s Cambridge Churchmen is a proud chronicle of the contributions made by Cambridge men to the Anglo-Catholic cause. Castle states, however, there “many omissions from the book have been intentional” because ‘it was thought to be undesirable to refer to contemporary Anglo-Catholics because it would be invidious and perhaps sometimes indiscreet” (Castle Forward). The Catholic bias ran deeply as Harrison had surely learned from her father; however, traces of her love of its ritual remain in her writing. This chapter will draw out those remnants to establish a connection to a ritualistic element in Harrison’s life that has gone undetected. The first section details references to Anglican ritual by using excerpts from Harrison’s letters, 2 Reminiscences of a Student’s Life, and Prolegomena and, as we will see, this fanaticism ran deep as the rituals became a part of her everyday language, although “reservedly.” I have grouped the excerpts from her writing by ritual, such as Lenten observations and fasting, burning candles, burning incense, etc, and then arranged them chronologically to illustrate that Harrison’s interest in Anglican ritual remained constant over a long period of time. In order to avoid repetition, I have reproduced, in most cases, only two excerpts concerning each ritual; other similar excerpts are contained in Appendix D. The second section details liturgical references from the Prayer Book around which the High Church worship revolved. Of particular interest are Harrison’s references to music, including Nunc Dimittis and the Magnificat, which were regarded as strictly Anglo-Catholic. Around the turn of the century, Anglo-Catholic manuals became 2

There is a problem in using Harrison’s letters since we do not have Murray’s responses; however, her Anglo-Catholic symbols and language, which run throughout her life serves to illustrate that her letters to Murray are in no way unique.

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popular, which supplemented the Anglican Prayer Book and, in some churches, replaced it. Phrases from the liturgy of these manuals, including the Divine Praises and the Bona Mors occur scattered throughout Harrison’s writings. The third section discusses instances in which Harrison directly alludes to Anglican ritual both playfully and ironically. The fourth section discusses a letter written by Virginia Woolf in which she describes a religious discussion she had with Harrison in 1923. Not surprisingly, Catholic ritual is its main focus.

I. Anglo-Catholic Ritual Chapter 3 related the circumstances of Harrison’s first recorded ritualistic encounter, which seems to have occurred around 1867 when she was 17 years old. At that time a visiting curate, the very High Church Mr. Houseman, deeply affected Harrison’s religious views and rituals. Mirrlees reports that Harrison’s stepmother became very angry when one morning she saw young Jane receiving the communion in the High Church fashion with palms one on top of the other (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 175). This ritualistic act symbolized the belief that Christ was present in the bread and must be carefully protected, indicating a more “Romish” belief than the Evangelical way of receiving the bread between the finger and thumb. This, I believe, set the course for Harrison’s life work. Lenten Rituals and Fasting, 1871-1903 Reed writes that one way in which “Anglo-Catholics set themselves from their fellow churchmen” was by their “frequent fasting and conspicuous Lenten observance” (82). A poem written by Harrison illustrates her awareness of such observances, but even more interestingly, Anglo-Catholic Lent and fasting also appear as a subtext in Prolegomena. As often happens in Harrison’s work, ancient ritual is not solely concerned with the ancient world; the 19th century sometimes lurks beneath.

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Circa 1871, after Cheltenham/Lent, Fasting. Around this time, according to Mirrlees, Harrison wrote a poem entitled “Three in One” 3 in which a “High Church young lady rhymes about a carnelian cross,” dresses in black for Lent, feels guilty because she wishes Lent were over, and then decorates the church for Easter. It contained, according to Mirrlees, only one “passable line”: Harrison describes life as “one long God-ward emotion” (Mirrlees “Chapter V Palinode” 4/3/4), perhaps echoing Henning Parr 4 in his 1872 Epiphany address as he defined conversion as “the turning of the heart and will to God” (Mant 43). Harrison’s description of Lent in “Three in One” illustrates an intimate knowledge of mid-19th century Anglo-Catholic Lent rituals. Pollen, who served at S. Saviour’s, Leeds, which was the first openly Tractarian church in England, (not far from Harrison’s Scalby home), describes the Eucharistic service on Thursday night of Holy Week and echoes much of the imagery described by Mirrlees in Harrison’s poem. He also illustrates the great emotion involved in a Eucharistic service: The house meal was postponed. Some fasted from noon, a few from midnight. . . at that Liturgy the chancel was dark and bare, and it was not easy to see what numbers came, till the officiators had stepped down with the Sacrament before the sacrarium: then loud sobs from men and women prostrate on the floor, broke the silence, and nothing else, except the muttered words, “The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ,” &. When the Liturgy was ended, while the Sacrament was consumed the choir sang “Pange Lingna gloriosi” of St. Thomas. . . As soon as it was over, the purple cover of the altar was stripped off and taken away in remembrance of our Lord. The next day it was black, and the singing used to cease till the Evensong of Holy Saturday, the eve of the festival. Then came the procession with the “Jesus Christ is risen to-day Alleluia”. . . The Easter brightness soon changed the look of things. The choir was nearly doubled, the dresses were all of the freshest. The Church was decked with green and flowers and large banners, some of them handsomely embroidered, were hung against the pillars (Pollen 109-111).

3 4

There is no definite date on this poem; however, it was written sometime between 1870 and 1874. Henning Parr was the vicar at St. Martins-on-the-Hill in Scarborough.

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High Church Lenten customs were also quite strict. The 1875 Lenten address by Parr provides a hint as to why the young “High Church” girl in Harrison’s poem might wish Lent were over. “The enjoyments and amusements of Society are of course generally given up.” Parr goes on to say furthermore, each day in Holy Week should be a day of partial abstinence, and that there should be an attendance at some of the Church’s services (Mant 53). Lenten and fasting, 1903. Harrison’s interest in Lent rituals lingers and is manifested again in Prolegomena. In a discussion of the evolution of the Greek festival of Anthesteria she writes: The transition from the revocation of ghosts with its dire association to a drunken revel may seem harsh, but human nature is always ready for the shift from Fast to Feast, witness our own Good Friday holiday (55). The phrase “fast to feast” is but an echo of the “High Church” young lady in Harrison’s poem who dresses in black and then decorates the church. Parr points out the controversy involved in some of these rituals, which was no doubt echoed by Harrison’s parents, “It is a strange thing, and surely a very sad one, that many churchmen not only altogether disregard the Church’s plain rules about fasting, but are very angry with those who do obey them” (Mant 53). 1903 Fasting. Fasting also plays an important role in Prolegomena. 5 Harrison, in fact, begins Prolegomena with a reference to fasting, which contrasts Homeric religion with Anglo-Catholicism, “In Homer sacrifice is but, as it were, the signal for a banquet of abundant roast flesh and sweet wine; we hear nothing of fasting, of cleansing, and of atonement” (1). Another reference from Prolegomena is rather ironic: The preliminary fast before the eating of sacred things is common to most primitive peoples; it is the simplest negative form of purification. . . (156). Calling those who fast “primitive” would seem to be an insult; however, the twist is that Harrison loved primitive rites. As she says in Reminiscences of a Student’s Life, “A thing has little charm for me unless it has on it the patina of age. Great things in literature,

5

Other references to fasting are found on pages 39, 155, 483, and 507, “He fasts before the Divine Sacrament.”

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Greek plays for example, I most enjoy when behind their bright splendours I see moving darker and older shapes. That must be my apologia pro vita mea” (86-87). Shrines/Relics Among the new rites that the Protestant population of England found most appalling was the appearance of shrines and the veneration of relics, which by the late 1800s, had found their way into Anglo-Catholic services. Walsh describes a ritualistic service during Holy Week. “When the palms are being distributed, a SHRINE WITH RELICS [that is, with the holy bones of some supposed Saint] shall be made ready, in which shall hang in a Pyx the Host” (248) [Welsh’s emphasis on “shrine with relics"]. We should, therefore, not be surprised to see this type of imagery in Harrison’s writings and to recognize these references as what they are—artifacts of her Anglo-Catholicism. 1876/Shrine/Relic. A letter from 1876, 6 which Stewart describes as the “single surviving letter written during Jane’s second year at Newnham,” (8) is on the surface a playful letter to a friend; however, setting it within the 19th century High Church controversies provides a new context to its words. Written to a Miss Edith Wilson, the excerpt from this letter describes the thrill of meeting Arthur Sidgwick: Who do you think shed the light of his countenance upon us this afternoon? You know, by the way, for he said he had seen you. Miss Paley knowing that I had long cherished a secret passion for the “Scenes from Aristophanes”, brought the much adored author to my room and Oh, rapture, he sat in my blue chair, which, when you return you will find shrouded beneath a large glass case with incense smoking in front of it. . . . I should have liked to have held communion with him on that subject 7 . . . (qtd. in Stewart 9). The reference to incense and the glass case imply that Harrison is, playfully, of course, worshiping Sidgwick’s chair as a relic─making it into a shrine and that she is well aware of such rituals. This letter, and in particular this portion of the letter, has been overlooked as having any substantive value. Stewart cites this letter only as an early example of Harrison’s letters and Robinson includes part of the letter in her book but expunges this

6 This letter is not in the Newnham archives and is reproduced in Stewart’s book. 7 The “subject” referred to here seems to be an inside joke about water.

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paragraph (48). However, the same hand that “rhymed about the High Church girl’s Carnelian cross” and penned the lines about dressing in black for Lent writes this letter. We also know from Harrison’s own statement that she during this time she was attending “mass or the nearest High Church simulation” (Alpha and Omega 146) and that she did practice a very wild brand of High Churchism, so we should not be so quick to dismiss this allusion to shrines and relics; this type of ritual most definitely played a part in High Church rituals of 1876. In fact, Newman’s novel, Loss and Gain, which was first published only two years before this letter was written, describes a very similar shrine in the dorm room of the main character’s friend: A large ivory crucifix, in a glass case, was a conspicuous ornament between the windows; an engraving, representing the Blessed Trinity, as is usual in Catholic countries hung over the fireplace (http://www.newmanreader.org/works/gain/index.html). The words “countenance” ”rapture,” “passion,” and “communion” also add to the religious connotations of the letter to Ms. Wilson. The time frame in which this letter was written is also important in understanding its context. In 1874, the Public Worship Regulation Act was passed making certain ritual acts illegal; however, the law only made the ritualists regroup and decide which rituals were sacred and were worth fighting for. In 1875 the ritualistic English Church Union decided upon six main ritualistic points for which they were willing to risk arrest: vestments, the eastward position, altar lights, the mixture of water and wine in the chalice at Holy Communion, wafer bread, and incense. (Bentley 21). In November of 1876 as Harrison was writing about enshrining a chair and incensing it, one of the most famous ritual cases, that of Father Arthur Tooth, 8 was in full swing. In the spring of 1876, Father Tooth was charged with “wearing of illegal (Eucharistic) vestments, mixed chalice, elevation of the host, and holding communion services at which the congregation did not communicate” (Lee 7). Father Tooth, who was a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, was finally arrested and sent to jail for 28 days in January of 1877. 8

See Appendix B for an overview of ritual arrests and Father Tooth’s tribulations.

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From April 1876 until January 1877, the controversy was kept very much in the forefront in the newspapers and one can only imagine the consternation of the rather small High Church community at Cambridge during this time, which quite likely included Harrison. It is certainly possible then that underneath the playfulness, lay a more serious, or perhaps ironic, thought. December 24, 1902/Shrine. In the excerpt below, Harrison takes the nickname, Madonna Mary, that Gilbert Murray has given his wife and builds a series of Catholic images around it: Madonna Mary, This is too much. You send me your Holy Family which is altogether lovely of you but no eikon of your Blessed Self. Well, never mind. I am coming to fetch it myself, and I will not go until I get it, and then I will make a little shrine and do a Christmas 9 rite before you. Those children are delicious especially S. 10 Denis with his dear little mouth open—they look as if they had found Basil in a wood—whoever grouped them so— did you? –was an artist. (Harrison letters to Mary Murray 1/2/5/). Holy Mother The reference to the Virgin Mary, or as Harrison calls her, the Holy Mother, is another of Reed’s Anglo-Catholic identifiers. We should also keep in mind that Harrison 9

This is one of the very rare instances in which Harrison spells out the word Christmas. Harrison consistently uses the Anglo-Catholic S. instead of the St. as abbreviation for Saint. Here are a few examples, ranging from 1902-1924: May 9, 1902 I am so deeply conscious that like S. Paul I know nothing by myself. I always owe what the preface calls "the inception of my work" to someone else, it gives me cold misgivings as to whether secondhand stuff is worth doing at all. I feel like a miserable clergyman belabouring a beautiful text (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/3). Nov 4, 1908 I am struggling by inches with the Darwin article. I have piles of things to say & no power to say it & It is dull-dull. Will you liven it up for me at S. Remo? (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/16). Sept. 1911 I shall have to sail to Columbia to hear you on the Peloria, a splendid subject better than S. Paul—there will be headlines “the Professor & Paul & the Peloria” (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/23). In Prolegomena, she most times uses the S; but occasionally uses St. For example, S. Jerome (419); 470 S. Augustine (470); S Nilus (485), St. Paul (142) and St. Paul (241). Nov 23, 1924 to Prince Mirsky S. John of the Cross (historian Alexsandrkayné[illegible]) has just brought out a [illegible word] & has given us a copy so we must read it (Harrison letters to Mirsky 1/5/3). 10

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occasionally broke her reserve as when she quoted from the mass in the following letter written to Murray on Jan 5, 1908: Oh, the worst is I can never make you know the innermost, uttermost joy I have had of that book…It isn't even that I like it or like you. It is just that (as my Holy Mother says in her mass) I “feed on you in my heart by faith with thanksgiving…” [Harrison’s emphasis] (January 5, 1908, Harrison’s letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/14). Murray may not have worshiped a Holy Mother, but it certainly seems as though Harrison did. July 1906/H.M. Harrison refers to the Holy Mother while visiting a Catholic church and remarks upon her fondness for her: The most beautiful thing I have seen in this country (& I am gorged with beauty) is the portal of the collegiate church of the Holy Bear―who is Saint Ours―really yr Holy Mother is Catholic in her canonizations. I love her for it (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/12). Jan 1911/H.M. The Dithyramb is the spring δρώμενον⎯mimetic, the origin of the drama⎯just as medieval drama arose from the 'quem queritis' of your Holy Mother's Easter festival (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/22). Burning Candles One Catholic ritual, which Harrison seems to have transferred from the church to her home or in some cases, her heart, was burning candles. From these two excerpts themselves we can see that this ritual did have religious significance to her and in several of them in Appendix D we can see that she did have a more religious side than the critical literature would lead us to believe. May 15, 1902/Burning Candles. Harrison alludes to the delicate subject of Lady Murray’s due date. Note the ironic reference to being a protestant: I don't know how near—you said June & I hope it is early in June. How hard it is to be a protestant and not to be able to burn candles & things to the people we care for in their sick [rest of the word is illegible]. [The last

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line reads:] Til then I will pray without ceasing for you (Harrison letters to Mary Murray1/2/2). 1907. Due to the amount of Christian imagery, I have reproduced the next letter in full. Mary Murray is in bed and expecting another child: New Year's Eve 1907 My Dear Mary, That is the most beautiful Xmas card I have ever had in my life. It was lovely of you to 'remember me from your bed' like the Psalmist & to send me that exquisite star of Bethlehem. Oh why don't we all look like that? I send for you my Xmas card my views on Joseph's bundle of sticks* (footnote reads St. Joseph and the other suitors to the Virgin laid their staves in the Temple. Joseph's budded in the night and therefore he was successful.) But I am ashamed to send them. Wasn't it dreadful. . . I just splashed it off thinking to emend in proof, and the wretched editor who is canvassing down at Newton Abbey printed it straight off….however it is just what I think—or rather feel. Mr. Cornford who is a plain outspoken young man says I never 'think' at all—I am cross that they allowed Sir Richard just about double the space, but that comes of being dead…. You will have a beautiful new year once Feb is over. I wish I could burn candles to yr Virgin for you―but I do burn them in my heart (Harrison letters to Mary Murray 1/2/5). In addition to the traditional Christian imagery of Joseph and the virgin, other AngloCatholic trademarks are present: the Xmas for Christmas; the mention of the cross in the midst of the Christian allusions; and “burning candles to yr Virgin.” Burning Incense/High Altar Incense was one of the “extreme” rituals which caused a debate amongst the ritualistic community about how far to push their agenda. Reed cites The Christian Remembrancer, a Tractarian publication, which worried about offending moderates and

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pushing them into the Evangelical camp. They were concerned about those “who organize Magnificats with incense and varied attitudes” (qtd. in Reed 122). Language was another identifier of Anglo-Catholicism and the term “High Altar,” much like the word mass, was a prominent “badge” of party. In the excerpt below from note how both terms are set off by quotation marks, as the anti-ritualist Wimborne describes the Church of S. Margaret, North Elmsall, Yorkshire, “The “High Altar” bears a cross, standing on a kind of box (resembling a tabernacle, with a brass door), and six candles which are lighted at the 10.30 “Mass” on Sunday morning” (30). December 17, 1881/Incense/High Altar. Harrison writes to Mabel Malleson’s mother from Naples where she and Mabel are touring Italy: We had such a comical archaeological experience yesterday—we found the Director of the Cape Museum to whom I had a letter not at his post so the custodian volunteered to find him for us—to our horror we were escorted to a large church where sort of high mass was going on with much singing and clashing of bells—a small acolyte was dispatched to the high altar and reappeared followed by the priest himself in gorgeous (attire) cassock and lace and stole and many more garments unknown. I stood trembling as I thought all the curses of the Church were about to be fulminated against me. But no! He bowed us into a side chapel and sat down vestments and all to read our letter and give us all information—he was such a jolly fat old man. He called us "brave Signore", and seemed in no manner of hurry to go back and finish his prayer—he was the director himself—one positively never knows where one will find the Italian "Savant" it is just a chance if he is smoking in the nearest public house or saying mass in a cloud of incense-however, nothing puts me out of countenance now (Harrison letters to others, Elizabeth Malleson 1/5/2). It is hard to miss Harrison’s enthusiasm about this “cloud of incense” adventure and four other references in this letter give away her knowledge of Anglo-Catholic ritual. Using the term altar would have pegged Harrison as a ritualist; however, the term “high altar” and “side chapel” even more specifically identify her as Anglo-Catholic. In addition to the mention of the “high altar,” her enthusiasm and description of the priest’s vestments, as Reed indicated is a “party badge” of Anglo-Catholicism. Harrison readily recognizes

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and identifies a cassock, lace, and a stole, although and was probably “economizing” here about “other “garments unknown.” The words mass and acolyte both also point to a knowledge of the language of Anglo-Catholic ritual. 1900/Incense. In an early letter to Gilbert Murray, Harrison writes to ask his opinion on the meaning of the Greek words αỉδώς δίσσαι εỉσίν [there are two kinds of shame]: Can you bear to tell me on a postcard what it means? I and the hungry sheep who look up and are not fed would burn incense to you forever (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/1). This allusion to “hungry sheep” is from Milton’s Lycida, line 125 and it is not possible to hazard a guess why Harrison alludes to it; however, the incense reference is very much like the one in the letter about Arthur Sidgwick; she is worshipping Murray by burning incense. 1903/Incense. Harrison in this excerpt combines Anglican ritual with an ancient allusion; here she has worshiped Murray as the “damon” of orderliness and now he’s losing things: My idol has large clay feet. I have burnt incense to you for two years as the damon of εủκοσμια and now you a. lose Gobi 11 and it seems that writing you a nice birthday letter and sending you a birthday Bear I am to have no present at all. . . (January 11 Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/6). 1906 High Altar. In an article entitled “The Pillar and the Maid,” Harrison writes of young girls worshipping the Maiden and the evidence of a pillar cult at Chartres like Sir Arthur Evans had found at Knossos: “Pass through the Cathedral, through the North Porch, sacred always to the worship of the Virgin. To the left of the High Altar, next to the sacristy, a shrine, more hallowed by a living devotion than any other of the manifold sanctities of the place;”. . . (66). In addition to the reference to the “high altar,” in the article she also states that this great festival begins on the eighth and lasts through the octave, another distinctly AngloCatholic term (Reed 66-67). Perhaps most interesting of all, she submits what she calls an 11

This refers to a book written by Gilbert Murray entitled Gobi or A Story of Three Songs.

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“apologia pro haeresi mea” concerning her love of ancient ritual (65), again alluding to Newman’s autobiography, Apologia pro vita sua. Confession or the Sacrament of Penance Confession, or the Sacrament of Penance as it was known among AngloCatholics, was regarded with suspicion; characterized as “unmanly,” and “practiced in secret preying on the weakness and the penitents of the weaker sex” (Punch, “The Confessional Uncontrolled”). For Jane Harrison, it seemed to have served two purposes: first of all it was a rebellious, though secretive, act against Evangelicalism. Imagine the thrill Harrison must have felt meeting with the “amorous curate” Mr. Houseman to confess her sins behind her stepmother’s back. There may also have been a psychological reason for Harrison’s interest in the Sacrament of Penance, which as we will see shortly, runs throughout her letters as well as Prolegomena. Mirrlees paints a portrait of Harrison as never quite being able to get over her early religious experiences, describing her as “the victim of both Evangelicalism & the Oxford Movement.” She contends that the strong Puritanical element in Evangelicalism taught Harrison to believe that if a thing is “pleasant it must by necessity also be sinful.” The combination of this with the “indiscriminate advocacy of selfsacrifice” required by the Oxford Movement seems to have left “a chronic ache” in Harrison’s conscious. Up to the very end, Mirrlees remarks that Harrison was “conscious of a sense of sin, if she spent the morning in reading” (Mirrlees biography drafts/notes “Newnham Nightingales” 4/3/3). In fact, one wonders if there is not some autobiographical element as Harrison quotes Plutarch’s description of an Orphic, “‘. . . he accuses himself of sins of omission and commission, he has eaten something or drunk something or walked in some road the divinity forbade him.’” Harrison adds, “This morbid habit of self-examination is a thoroughly Orphic trait” (Prolegomena 516). Plutarch’s quote could just as easily have been applied to the Tractarians as illustrated in the following poem by Hurrell Froude: 12 12

This trait ran deep in Tractarian thought. In Froude’s journal entry for Sept 26, 1826 he writes, “To-day I have eaten beyond the bounds of moderation. I must make a vigorous stand, or I shall be carried away altogether (Remains Vol 1: 13-14). On Sept 29 of the same year he wrote, “Looked with greediness to see if there was a goose on the table for dinner; and though what I eat was of the plainest sort, and I took no

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Lord, I have fasted, I have prayed, And sackcloth has my girdle been, To purge my soul I have essayed With hunger blank and vigil keen; O God of mercy! Why am I Still haunted by the self I fly? (Poem XXXVI, Lyra Apostolica 41) In addition to the direct references to the sacrament of penance, Harrison’s letters abound with the words confess, repent, sin, and forgive. 13 Sunday Sept 7, 1902/Penance. In the following letter to Gilbert Murray, Harrison is deeply embarrassed about an error she made in a manuscript she had sent to Murray to review. Oh dear I am so sad and depressed about Phanis and everything. I have taken out that paragraph. What they did or rather didn't do in the 5th cent isn't really relevant. I only put it in to confound you and am myself confounded. I have done penance in full (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/4). Jan 2, 1903/Penance. In order to understand the next excerpt, some background is necessary. Harrison had a very embarrassing run-in with the Catholic writer Hilaire Belloc. Jessie Stewart reports that at a dinner party, Belloc had remarked that J. Peel had variety, yet even this was partly the effect of accident, and I certainly rather exceeded in quantity, as I was muzzy and sleepy after dinner (Remains Vol. 1: 15). Foude, however, was not alone. Walsh reproduces part of a letter from Pusey to Keble who had become Pusey’s “Father Confessor”: “Will you give me some penitential rules for myself? I hardly know what I can do, just now, in a bodily way, for nourishment I am ordered; sleep I must take when it comes; cold is bad for me; and I know not whether I am strong enough to resume the Hair Cloth. However, I hope to try” (qtd. in Walsh 36). 13 For instance, In Feb. 1902 Harrison wrote to Murray: ‘I did worse once. I watered down a text from your book in Quarterly pages. This sin has long lain on my soul” (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/2) May 1, 1902 “I must confess my sins about the Bacchae–I have feloniously copied it all out for myself”. . . (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/4) 1902 PS I must make a sad confession. I took the Bull Hymn to show Bertie and in the scurry of being in someone else's house I lost it-it can't be found anywhere. May 1902 PS Don't be cross with me-smoke a large and strong cigarette and forgive me (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/4). Dec 1912 “I suppose I believe in god worse luck still for I know there is something I can't forgive for hitting him [Verrall] down & taking him away” (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/26). 1924 to Prince Mirsky “Thank you so much for sending Avvakum. I must confess I found it hard reading. . . the part about Avvakum’s style made me feel how rash we had been to attempt translating him—however, I cannot repent—it’s all so pleasant” (Harrison letters to Prince Mirsky 1/5/3).

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been offered a fellowship in Classics at Trinity College, Cambridge without examination. Harrison said that she was sure that Mr. Verrall was examining and would never go along with this. To quote Stewart, “H.B. let fly. Jane bit her lip till it bled and made an excuse to go out and fetch her handkerchief. H.B. when asked why he had stuck to his point, said, “When she said, ‘there wasn’t one jot or one tittle of truth in it,” he could see the woman was a Jewess and resolved not to spare her” (qtd. in Stewart 52). Harrison writes to Gilbert Murray concerning the incident: I still go hot in the dark when I think of the Mr. Beloc [sic] episode. Was ever anyone set right so gently and thereby made to feel so wrong and so bad? I will be a morbid Holy Roman & read the man's worst book & so purge my soul 14 with a Sacrament of Penance (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/6). The irony is thick here with Harrison’s juxtaposition of the phrase “morbid Holy Roman” and “sacrament of penance.” Far from despising the Roman church, Harrison seems to have practiced many of its rituals, including the sacrament of penance, throughout her life. The subject of penance also appears in Prolegomena; the word seems to fall easily from her pen. 1903 Prolegomena/Penance. The next excerpt contains two Anglo-Catholic allusions. First is the similarity that Plutarch’s passage bears to criticism of AngloCatholicism and secondly, Harrison’s bias is revealed by her translation of the Greek word, κολασμοì: Plutarch, sympathetic as he is to some aspects of Orphism, yet, in his protest against superstition, says, ‘these are the sort of things that make men atheists, the incantations, wavings and enchantments and magic, runnings around and tabourings, unclean purifications, filthy cleansings, barbarous and outrageous penances in sanctuaries and bemirings (516). Plutarch’s remarks are quite reminiscent of the criticisms leveled against Anglo-Catholics and I doubt that the similarities escaped Harrison’s notice. Here is a quote from the very protestant Lord Shaftsbury after he visited the ritualistic church at St. Alban’s, Holborn:

14

Compare to the language in the previous poem by Froude, Poem XXXVI.

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Such a scene of theatrical gymnastics, of singing, of screaming, genuflections, such a series of strange movements of the priest, their backs almost always to the people, I never saw before even in a Romish temple. Clouds upon clouds of incense, the censer frequently refreshed by the High Priest, who kissed the spoon, as he dug out the sacred powder. . . (qtd. in Reed 61). Secondly, did Plutarch really allude to “outrageous penances in sanctuaries”? The Greek text from the word unclean to the end of the quote reads, μèν καθαρμοí, ρυπαραì δè ἁγνεîαι, βάρβαροι δè καì παράνομοι πρòς ỉεροîς κολασμοì καì προπαλακισμοί

15

which

literally translated means, “Filthy cleansings and purifications and barbarous and lawless chastisements and befoulings in the temples.” A.O. Prickard translates it as “Purifications which are impure, and cleansings which are filthy, weird illegal punishments and degradations at temples” (234). Russell’s translation reads, “the impure purification and filthy taboos, lawless and barbarous chastisements and befoulings in the temples” (Plutarch, Selected Essays 11). The translation of παράνομοι πρòς ỉεροîς κολασμοì as “outrageous penances in sanctuaries” seems to be much more an artifact of Harrison’s Anglo-Catholic background than a literal reading of the Greek text. 16 Oct 1910/Genuflecting. She writes to Gilbert Murray concerning the opening lines of the Greek text of Oedipus Rex:

15

From Prolegomena page 516 note 2. There may also be another place in Prolegomena in which Anglo-Catholic ritual plays a part in her translation, this time from the Odyssey: (Book viii, ll. 363-66 in the Loeb edition; Harrison cites the lines as beginning at 270). The images of incense, altar-stones, sacramental washings, and raiments in the lines below, which Harrison reproduces and translates in Prolegomena, were all bones of contention in the Victorian saga. And fast away fled she, Aphrodite, lover-of-laughter, to Cyprus over the sea, To the pleasant shores of Paphos and the incensed altar-stone, Where the Graces washed her body, and shed sweet balm thereon, Ambrosial balm that shineth on the Gods that wax not old, And wrapped her in lovely raiment, a wonder to behold (qtd. in Prolegomena 311). Line 363 in which Harrison translates the words “incensed altar stone” reads ες πáφον· ̇ἔνθα δé οἱ τέμενος ßωμóς τε θυήεις (Loeb 298). The Lobe translation reads “to Paphos, where she has a precinct and a smoking altar” (299). Lattimore translates, “to Paphos on Cyprus, where lies her sacred precinct and her smoky altar” (130). And Harrison’s good friends, S.H. Butcher and Andrew Lang translate the lines as “to Paphos of Cyprus, where is her precinct and fragrant altar” (91). θυήεις does mean “smoking with incense”, or “fragrant”; however, according to Lidell Scott ßωμóς is “mostly an altar with a base.” An “incensed altar stone” is a highly Anglo-Catholic image encompassing two of the great battles from the 19th century: stone altar, and incense. 16

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Yes ἐδρας. . .θοαξετε must mean to make swift yr genuflections…only that supposes that ἐδρας could mean falling forward (kneeling) as well as falling backward (sitting) (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/21). The translation from Liddell & Scott for this line reads, “Why are ye in this suppliant position”; the definition of θοαξετε is given as to “sit,” and “to do swiftly.” Harrison’s Anglo-Catholic background, however, interprets this as “genuflecting.”

II. Liturgical References Throughout this dissertation, I have pointed out instances in which Harrison alludes to Archbishop Laud, the uniformity of ritual, and the beauty of holiness. These concepts are based deeply within the High Anglican church and can be traced back to the 17th century. Puritans were opposed to the whole idea of liturgy, and preferred metrical psalms sermons. These arguments continued into the 19th century between High Church and Evangelicals and no doubt between Harrison and her parents. High Anglicans desired a strict following of the Book of Common Prayer with its ordered and uniform liturgy centered around the Eucharist, pleading that “services should not be mangled and adapted, and rubrics should not be ignored” (Jaspar 43). For the High Church the liturgy meant, in Hooker’s phrase, that it was ‘the public prayer of the people of God’ (http://www.anglicanlibrary.org/addleshaw/high/02.htm).. Harrison’s love of an ordered and dignified liturgy is impressed upon the pages of Prolegomena, again within a discussion of the Orphic religion: ‘Within the place of sacrifice no one is to make a noise, or clap his hands, or sing, but each man is to say his part and do it with all quietness and order as the priest and the Archibacchos direct.’ More significant still and more beautiful is the rule, that if any member is riotous an official appointed by the priest shall set against him who is disorderly or violent the thyrsos of the god (Prolegomena 475). It should come as no surprise, then, to see Harrison allude to the liturgy of the Prayer Book. In fact, examples of her doing just that were cited in Chapter 4 in connection to both the Baptismal service and the Eucharist. In addition to the Prayer Book, many Anglo-Catholics, Harrison included, it seems, turned to Catholic devotional manuals such 203

as The Casket and People’s Mass Book, Why and Wherefore, The English Priest’s Vade Mecum, and what was perhaps the most popular, Catholic Prayers for Church of England People. Music and Ritual, 1888-1903 Harrison references the liturgy through the music prescribed by the Prayer Book including hymns and two of the canticles, Nunc Dimittis and the Magnificat. The Magnificat. This canticle is also called the Canticle of Mary and is recorded in the Gospel of Luke (1:46-55). The Magnificat is Virgin Mary's prayer in response to her cousin Elizabeth's greeting in Luke 1: 41-45. It is sung, or chanted, at Evensong. In the following references, Harrison uses the Magnificat as a metaphor to describe ancient religion. April 21, 1901 Magnificat. Harrison writes to Gilbert Murray from Crete about a seal that has been discovered which illustrates the Minotaur seated on a throne: Zeus is nowhere. I always knew he was a tiresome parvenu, and I have been doing my best to discredit him for years, he is so showy and omnipotent, and now at last I can chant a true Magnificat to the old bull-headed god. He has a beautiful curly tail in the seal, which would pervert the most orthodox. What a dear delight it is to “put down the mighty from their seat” (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/1). This letter also illustrates Harrison’s familiarity with the canticle, even though she claims not to have been to church in years she remembers a line from the canticle “put down the mighty from their seat.” Prolegomena/Magnificat. In Prolegomena, Harrison uses the metaphor of the Magnificat to describe a relief from ancient Greece: Here clearly the snake is the object worshipped by the woman and two men who approach with gestures of adoration. The colossal size of the beast as it towers above its human adorers is the Magnificat of the artist echoed by the worshippers (19). In other words, the artist is “chanting his Magnificat” to the snake on the relief.

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Nunc Dimittis. This is the canticle of Simeon, which tells the story of the presentation of the 40-day old Jesus at the temple to Simeon (Luke 2:29-31). Simeon had been promised by the Holy Ghost that he would not die until he had seen the Saviour. The Nunc Dimittis is sung or chanted near the end of Evensong. Circa 1888/Nunc Dimittis. Hope Mirrlees relates how Harrison described an afternoon on the beach with D.S. MacColl and his mother and illustrates how the rites and the music of the High Church have become ingrained in her language: She (DSM's mother) worshipped “Sulty” (footnote: DSM's name in the family) Jane remembered sitting beside her on the beach when he was bathing & her saying in a Nunc Dimittis tone,“ I can see Sulty's black head!” (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 4). In this example, the Nunc Dimittis, for Harrison, seems to symbolize a great reverence. Jan 1902/Nunc Dimittis. Because it was the last canticle at Evensong Harrison, in the following example, uses Nunc Dimittis as a metaphor for leaving. For some reason, which has been lost to time, Harrison often mentions Murray’s Jaeger boots: A postscript to send the Lahmann things―if I can oust Jaeger from your sanitary household. I shall sing my Nunc Dimittis (alas Lahmann makes no boots!) (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/2). April 22, 1902/Nunc Dimittis. Harrison writes to Gilbert Murray after some sort of altercation at the Sesame Club: I found peace in the train and the Bacchae. It was good of you to bring it to me, for they simply fill me with content and happiness. You will laugh I know and well you may, but I think the reason why your verses give me such intense and almost unreasonable delight is that they are just what I would have given my soul to do myself. As a quite young girl I had a dream of being first a poet, next a scholar and though both dreams faded swiftly and completely they have always left a sort of empty ache of something never found—And when I read your things which are quite unlike anything else there comes a sort of Nunc Dimittis peace—I think at first I half jealously resented it, but now I don’t the least mind it being you not me. It is more resting so! (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/2).

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The Nunc Dimittis peace refers to the sentiment behind the canticle and Harrison seems to be saying that she can now be at peace with not being a poet, just as Simeon could die at peace having seen the saviour. Music in Prolegomena. Harrison’s knowledge of Anglican ritual as it concerns music is apparent in Prolegomena. The next two examples indicate how closely Harrison equates ancient and Anglican ritual. ‘Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.’ In this paragraph, Harrison uses an Easter hymn as an analogy for the cry of Bacchos, Her words “an homage beyond articulate speech” illustrate how deeply she experienced the Anglican ritual: Iacchos was a song even down to the time of Aristophanes, and was probably, to begin with, a ritual shout or cry kept up long after its meaning was forgotten. Such cries from their vagueness, their aptness for repetition, are peculiarly exciting to the religious emotions. How many people attach any precise significance to the thrice repeated, stately and moving words that form the proemium to our own Easter hymn? ‘Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.’ They are a homage beyond articulate speech (413). The hymn that Harrison references is one of the ancient hymns from Hymn 130 from Hymns Ancient and Modern; the translation is based upon that of John Mason Neale. The first verse is: Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! O sons and daughters, let us sing! The King of Heaven, the glorious King, O’er death to-day rose triumphing Alleluia! (Frost 210). Angels and Archangels. In a discussion of the Sybaris Tablet, Harrison explains that parts of several of its lines are illegible, as evidenced in the second line below: But so soon as the Spirit hath left the light of the sun, To the right………………………………………of Ennoia

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She then remarks, “The second line seems to be a fragment of a whole sentence or set of sentences put for the whole, as we might put ‘Therefore with Angels and Archangels,’ leaving those familiar with our ritual to supply the missing words” (583). The service for Holy Communion from the Prayer Book reads, “Therefore, with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious Name. . .” (Book of Common Prayer http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/communion/index.html). Harrison again melds Anglican and ancient ritual. Anglo-Catholic Manuals Various Anglo-Catholic manuals appeared in late the 19th and early 20th centuries, which followed much more closely along the lines of the Roman Catholic mass than the Anglican Prayer Book. Around 1902, Harrison starts to use phrases and allusions that indicate that she is quite familiar with this type of manual. 17 From her familiarity with the liturgy including the Divine Praises, the Bona Mora, and the phrase, “Peace be with you,” from the High Mass it hard to believe that she did not have intimate knowledge of these services. The most important thing to keep in mind here is that while these words and phrases are innocuous sounding to us, they were still, even in the early 20th century, words that could, in some cases, still cause riots, arrest, or ostracism. The Divine Praises. Harrison again illustrates her playful nature as well as her knowledge of Anglican ritual in the following excerpts. The first two examples seem to be parodies of the Divine Praises from The Casket and the People’s Mass Book: Blessed be God. Blessed be His Holy Name. Blessed be Jesus Christ, True God and True Man. Blessed be the Name of Jesus. Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. . . .( Contemporary Ritualism, Bowen 23). April 20, 1902/Blessed Be You. Harrison remarks upon one of Murray’s translations:

17

These 19th century manuals are very rare; therefore, I have relied upon excerpts from various manuals reproduced in Contemporary Ritualism by Bowen. There is no way to tell which of these manuals that Harrison used.

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Well, I realize to the full why Dr. Verrall now and again warns me as a father against poets and their licenses―but the torrent one is altogether lovely―blessed be you―and I don't think Euripides would mind (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/2). May 1902/Blessed Be Bertie 18 . In this excerpt, in addition to the Divine Praises, Harrison provides another allusion to the Mass. In the Liturgy of the Holy Communion, in the Direction of the Intention, the priest says, “For the remission of the sins of all Christians living or dead” (Contemporary Ritualism, Bowen 50). And alas! I see by yr second letter (they came together) that you know only too well that you have only to shed one little verse and there is always Remission of Sins. . . Remember I was promised the revised beginning of Eros--send it soon or I shall get the old one stuck in my head―Blessed be Bertie―never bang went a better six pence (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/3). Blessed. The following excerpts contain examples of how the word, blessed which is used over and over in the liturgy, becomes a part of Harrison’s everyday vocabulary and is often combined with other Anglo-Catholic images and words such as saints, eikon, casket, and tabernacle. Thrice blessed Ther It is beautiful and it must be right. To think that you should go and make me bow my reluctant knee to Apollo. I wish I had Orestes here so that I could see how much is Euripides and how much white magic (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/20). May 1904/Blessed Euripides/Peace be with you. Harrison has attended one of Murray’s plays: .. . I felt free from the actors and actresses & could let the beauty of it flow over me & at the end of the first act it just dissolves one's spirit–I don't know which one is to be thanked–blessed Euripides or you, for the life of

18

Bertrand Russell

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me, I don't–perhaps you both need to be. . . Peace be with you (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/9). Sept 1909/Blessed Sabbath. The term is used to date a letter to Murray The Blessed Sabbath (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/18). September 12, 1911/B. Sabbath. Harrison abbreviates the word blessed, as B, which is in keeping with Anglo-Catholicism. For example, the “Glorious Mysteries” read: 1.The Resurrection of our B. Lord. 2. the Ascension of our B. Lord. 3. The Descent of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles. 4. The Assumption of B.V.M. into Heaven. 5. The Coronation of B.V.M. in Heaven (Contemporary Ritualism, Bowen 24) But the train card—wch at least [perhaps reads at last] I have got—says I can't get this every afternoon & not at all on the B. Sabbath. . . Peace 19 Be with You. Harrison has also drawn from the liturgy by signing her letters with the phrase, “Peace be with you.” The manual entitled Catholic Prayers of Church of England People states, “High Mass the Deacon kisses the Altar at the same time as the celebrating Priest by whom he is saluted with the kiss of peace, with these words, Peace be with thee” (Contemporary Ritualism Bowen xx). May 7, 1904/Peace be with you. Harrison sends Gilbert Murray pictures of how Hippolytus's and Theseus's hair should look appear in his book to be historically accurate: . . .I hope you are resting peacefully & luxuriously in yr own manger θήρ ἐπί φἀτņ. . . . Peace be with you. (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/9).

Oct 1910/Peace be with you. How terrible is Cherion when he puts all four hoofs down…Peace be with you (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/21). 19

Although it is beyond the scope of this dissertation, the word peace is constantly used in Harrison’s letters. Whether it is a reference to the liturgy or just a longing for peace cannot be determined; however, the word seemed to hold great import for her. Here are three examples: August 28, 1904 Now I am back at work and in two days I shall have the cottage to myself--oh the peace of it! I know I am a hermit gone wrong (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/9). August 15, 1909 to Murray . . I am so glad you have found peace. This place too is peaceful you would like it-my sea mother is in sight but half a mile away & the sound of her voice in never heard & when I go down to her she laps around me wooingly (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/18). Monday March 15, 1908 A letter responding to L. Mary's first handwritten letter since given birth: “…If Sidmouth is at all like Marazion & it must be-this tea will be bland & healing yet so fresh & clean & you will have peace & get strength & the new baby will be as great a love to you as Basil has been & is. . .” Harrison letters to Mary Murray (1/2/5).

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1904 Bona Mors. Harrison also seems to be familiar with the Anglo-Catholic concept of a “happy death” or bona mors, the text of which is reproduced in Contemporary Ritualism. In a letter to Gilbert Murray she writes: 20 The thing I really like here is the baths. They are half underground & the light that comes in on the pale green water is quiet & beautiful & Betheseda like & sometimes at sunset, a ray comes slanting in on the water & it seems as if in a moment there must be a Holy Dove & from sheer exhaustion & excess of sulfate magnesium one feels so good & meek & new-born. But Madame la Baigneuse does not approve of me because if I go into the hot baths I have battements de Coeur, and if I go into the tepid one, I transpire less than the smallest political scandal. She speaks of making a ‘bonne transpiration’ as yr Mother Church speaks of making a good death (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/8). The “good death” to which Harrison refers is the “Bona Mors,” prayers for a Happy Death through the Passion of Jesus Christ, which appears in the very popular Anglo-Catholic manual, Catholic Prayers for Church of England People (Contemporary Ritualism Bowen 80-81). The third line reads, “By the prayers and intercessions of the blessed Mary Thy Mother, Lord have mercy on us.” It is important to provide some perspective on how “extreme” this ritual was in 1904. Intercessions to the Virgin Mary had been deemed illegal and two years after Harrison wrote this letter, a “Report of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline,” which was presented to both houses of Parliament contained a chapter entitled “Chapter IV. Present Breaches and Neglects of the Law” in which it was reported that on November 25, 1903 the service Bona Mors was held at, St. Martin’s, Kingsland road, in which a litany was said, containing the following suffrages: By the prayers and intercessions of Blessed Mary, Thy Mother. Lord, have mercy upon us. By the prayers and intercessions of Holy Abel, Abraham, and all the Patriarchs. By the prayers and intercessions of Thy Forerunner, St. John the Baptist. By the prayers and intercessions of the Holy Apostles and Evangelists. (http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:4MAFssE54EUJ:anglicanhistory.org/pwra/rced4/ 20

This letter is more fully discussed in Chapter 4.

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section7.html+by+the+prayers+and+intercessions+of+blessed&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&c d=3)

III. Direct References to Anglican Ritual

A Personal Ritual Throughout the years, Harrison referred to Anglican ritual, but those references have been obscured through a confusion with her work on ancient Greek ritual. From 1902 until two years before her death in 1928, Harrison alludes to a type of ritual that is of a very personal nature. January 1902. Harrison playfully writes to Gilbert Murray: PS II Yes―Yr pronouncement on Ritual is eagerly looked for―the Seamless Robe of the Church in Cambridge is just now rent in twain―Bertie who has been most offensive lately heads a gang of roughs, the "Protestant Atheists." I have formed a small but influential band of thinkers known as the "Infidel Protestants." We look forward to you to heal this division of the soul (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/2). Here, Harrison seems to be mocking the trials and tribulations of the ritualistic disputes, which were still going on in 1902. Interestingly, Bertrand Russell (Bertie) is referred to an “Protestant Atheist,” while Harrison refers to herself not an atheist but as “Infidel Protestant.” Feb 1902. Harrison has arranged for Murray to come to Cambridge to give a lecture; however, he developed a sore throat and much to Harrison’s dismay had to cancel. Her response, as usual, carried a religious connotation involving sacrifice and ritual. The last sentence underscores how closely she connected ancient ritual and Catholic ritual: I am going to be a real xian for the first and I sincerely hope for the final time…I came back to find the fallen bolt―yr telegram. . . If it really is some "sin of forgotten sacrifice" may I come and carry out a

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περισκυλακισμος?

21

It would be a great comfort to me and surely your Holy

Roman aunt would understand (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/2). October 14, 1902. Murray and his wife have been invited to meet royalty: When you come you must expound to me in full yr emotions toward Royalty. Being a ritualist I love kissing people's hands and standing on my head generally and yet I suppose because I am not to manor born the mere etiquette paralyses me humanly (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/5). The juxtaposition between this statement and one she made in 1906 provides an excellent example of how she “economizes.” In a published article entitled “The Pillar and the Maiden” she writes about the rites she witnessed at Chartres on the Virgin Mary’s birthday: When I first saw the kissing of the pillar I confess that my Anglican, nay my Protestant soul recoiled. I caught myself humming automatically, not audibly, hymns about “the heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone” (“The Pillar and the Maiden” 74). March 2, 1904. A letter to Gilbert Murray illustrates that ritual is of a personal nature: “PS Yes, I think I will go to George T's [Trevelayn’s] wedding tho' as High Anglican I shall suffer from the psuedo-ritual” (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/8). Psuedo-ritual for Harrison is quite plainly, a protestant service. Plumb, Trevelyan’s biographer described Trevelyan’s religious views: “This attitude was essentially protestant, infused as it was with a strong scepticism of all doctrinaire beliefs either in religion or politics” (12). In reviewing Trevelyan’s book, History of England, Plumb states that “it has–although one might almost say 'Thank God!'–a bias, it is frankly liberal and protestant” (24). 1915. This quotation represents Harrison’s most complete statement on her High Churchism and Anglican ritualism:

21

This was an ancient purification rite in which a puppy was sacrificed and since Murray referred to himself in conversation with his wife variously as Mr. Dog, Thomas Dog, Dog Tray, or Dog Harris (Wilson, Gilbert Murray OM 139), Harrison seems to be making a facetious ritual threat upon his life for missing the speech.

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I reacted into rather extreme High Churchism. I was always a ritualist at heart (that form of Churchmanship still holds me by sentiment), but there was too much Protestant blood in my veins for it to take full possession; 22 so I lapsed into Broad Churchism, and finally, as I thought, into complete Agnosticism. When I came to college, late in life—I was twenty-four—I was a complete Agnostic; but whenever I had the chance I went to hear Mass or the nearest High Church simulation of it. In the Cambridge of the seventies, the opportunities were not as ample as now (Alpha and Omega 184). 1924 Archpriest Avvakum. Harrison’s translation of the autobiography of a 17th Russian priest has received scant attention in the critical literature; however, I believe that this work brings Harrison’s personal ritual full circle—her early interest in the “little life” of Archbishop Laud as a young girl, her fascination with Orpheus in 1902, and Avvakum in 1924—all revolve around the same theme—persecution for ritualism. Archbishop Laud was beheaded for his popish “innovations”; Orpheus, whom Harrison tells us, was done in by a determined-looking Maenad who “put a stop to all this sun-watching and lyre-playing”; (Prolegomena 461) and finally, Avvakum was killed because he substituted the triple alleluia for the double alleluia and the three-fingered position for the two-fingered sign of the cross (Harrison, Avvakum 11). (Perhaps, this ritual involving the hands struck a chord with Harrison, who as a young girl incurred her stepmother’s wrath for receiving the Eucharist with palms crossed rather between finger and thumb?) Harrison gives herself away in the Preface, which supposedly was written by her friend Prince Mirsky. Harrison quite obviously had a hand in it herself as evidenced by these two sentences: “But his ritual innovations were confirmed and an anathema was pronounced against Avvakum” (13). “It [Avvakum’s autobiography] was not an all-round autobiography: it was written for purposes of edification and propaganda. It is in essence an Apologia pro vita mea, not a disinterested exposition of all the facts of his life’ (28). It was no accident that Harrison chose to translate this particular Russian book; it was a continuation of a very personal interest in ritual.

22

"Full possession" means merely that she did not convert to Roman Catholicism.

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IV. A Letter from Virginia Woolf to Jacques Raverat In 1923 Virginia Woolf wrote a letter to Jacques Raverat describing a visit to Harrison and Mirrlees in France. Read literally, it presents the traditional view of Harrison as a fierce opponent of religion. However, as was illustrated by a close reading of Reminiscences of a Student’s Life it is unwise to take Harrison’s words at face value. Reading Woolf’s description of Harrison within the paradoxical parameters, as well the Anglo-Catholic context that has been set forth in this dissertation, makes it possible to come to quite a different conclusion. As we have seen, Harrison, like Hurrell Froude, used irony and paradox to cover her religious obsession. For instance, upon seeing the pillar being kissed at Chartres she remarked, “I confess that my Anglican, nay my Protestant soul recoiled.” These words are in direct opposition to other remarks about Protestants such as the one below from the substratum of Prolegomena: Orpheus was a reformer, a protestant; there is always about him a touch of the reformer's priggishness; (461). Her interest in nuns, abbeys, the Virgin Mary, convents, taking the veil, shrines, and Anglo-Catholic imagery of all kinds has been discussed and it may just be that Woolf has quite innocently provided another bit of evidence that subtly illustrates Harrison’s continued interest in both Catholicism and paradoxical reserve. Woolf writes: On my way back from Spain I stayed a week in Paris and there I met Hope Mirrlees and Jane Harrison. This gallant old lady, very white, hoary, and sublime in a lace mantilla, took my fancy greatly; partly for her superb high thinking agnostic ways, partly for her appearance. “Alas,” she said “you and your sister and perhaps Lytton Strachey 23 are the only ones of the younger generation I can respect. You alone carry on the traditions of our day.” This referred to the miserable defection of Fredegond [Shove] (mass; confession; absolution, and the rest of it.) “There are thousands of Darwins” I said, to cheer her up. “Thousands of Darwins!” she shrieked, clasping her mittened hands, and raising her eyes to Heaven. “The Darwins are the blackest traitors of them all! With that name!” she 23

For two interesting letters to Strachey from Harrison, see Appendix D.

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cried, “that inheritance! That magnificent record in the past!” “Surely”, I cried, “our Gwen is secure?” “Our Gwen,” she replied, “goes to Church (if not mass, still Church) every Sunday of her life. Her marriage, of course, may have weakened her brain. Jacques is, unfortunately, French. A wave of Catholicism has invaded the young Frenchmen. Their children are baptized; their—” Here I stopped her. “Good God”, I said, “I will never speak to them again! Whats [sic] more, I’ve just written a flippant, frivolous, atheistic letter to that very household, which will arrive precisely as the Host is elevated; they’ll spit me from their lips, spurn me from their hearts—and, in short, religion has accomplished one more of her miracles, and destroyed a friendship which I’m sure began in our mother’s wombs!” All this eloquence left me dejected as a shovelful of cinders. Next week arrived your letter, which was the greatest relief in the world. Gwen is a militant atheist: the world renews itself: there is solid ground beneath my feet. I at once sent word to dear old Jane, who replied, a little inconsistently, “Thank God.” (59). On the surface, the intent of this letter seems quite clear, as were the vignettes in Reminiscences of a Student’s Life; however, setting the letter within an Anglo-Catholic ritualistic context opens up new avenues of interpretation. First of all, consider the topic of the conversation and the ritualistic language it entails: “religious revival,” baptism, “elevating the host,” and “mass; confession; absolution, and the rest of it.” Given Harrison’s religious history is there any doubt who initiated and steered this conversation? The words may have come from Woolf but the subject matter is a classic example of Jane Harrison’s religious obsession. Perhaps she did mean exactly what she said to Woolf, but perhaps she was “economizing” as it was defined by Newman’s successor, William George Ward, "Make yourself clear that you are justified in deception and then lie like a trooper" (qtd. in Walsh 16). Note carefully Harrison’s last words, “Thank God,” which were as Woolf herself noted, within this context, a little inconsistent; paradoxical might be a better description. And there is another phrase in Woolf’s description of Harrison that points to AngloCatholicism: “very white, hoary, and sublime in a lace mantilla.” A mantilla is actually a scarf or veil used either as a decoration or for warmth, but its traditional purpose was to cover a woman’s head during Mass. The mantilla could have been to provide warmth for

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the elder Harrison, even though it was July; Woolf did mention that Harrison’s hands were “mittened.” However, there seems something so personal in the following passage from Prolegomena: “The penitent is veiled because he dedicates himself as atonement for sin. . . . The old meaning of devotion to the gods survives now-a-days only in the beautiful ceremonial of the Roman Church, known in popular parlance as ‘taking the veil,’” . . . (Prolegomena 522). From this statement, veils seem

Figure 3: Harrison and Mirrlees

to carry a double meaning for

Harrison—meanings which as we have seen are carried throughout her work--penance and an interest in nuns and convents. The photograph 24 taken of Harrison and Mirrlees taken in the late 1920s suggests that perhaps she often wore a mantilla—this particular one appears to be much like the traditional black lace mantilla worn to mass. 25 Around the same time period she also penned the following lines in Reminiscences of a Student’s Life, “If I had been rich I should have founded a learned community for women, with vows of consecration and a beautiful rule and habit; as it is, I am content to have lived many years of my life in a college” (89). Habits, consecration, penance, black lace mantillas—does all this mean that she never completely gave up the yearning for the convent that she had as a young girl? We can never know for sure, but all this Catholic imagery forms a pattern that is woven into the fabric of her life. And there is one more nagging item: Sometime after Harrison’s death, Hope Mirrlees became a Roman Catholic, which would seem to be rather disloyal

24

This picture is reproduced from Reminiscences of a Student’s Life, facing page 90. For a black lace mantilla specifically for religious purposes see http://www.stellamarisbooks.com/store/listCategoriesAndProducts.asp?idCategory=132. 25

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to Harrison’s memory if the sentiments expressed in the conversation with Woolf were genuine. And no one has ever accused Mirrlees of disloyalty to Harrison.

V. Conclusion From as early as 1876, Harrison’s letters provide clues to her interest in ritual as it was practiced (and prohibited) during the late 19th century. These include references to shrines, incense, the Holy Mother, the High Altar, and numerous other rituals. Her knowledge of the Prayer Book on which the High Church liturgy is based is evidenced in her allusions to the canticles Nunc Dimittis and the Magnificat as well as other hymns. Around the turn of the century, phrases such as “Blessed Be You” and “Remission of Sins” begin to creep into her vocabulary—phrases which come from popular AngloCatholic manuals and replace the allusions to the Prayer Book. Examining Harrison’s everyday language in her letters, as well as subtle references in Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, leaves us to conclude that she was part of the Anglo-Catholic culture and a devotee of its ritual.

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CONCLUSION: AN ALTERNATE READING OF HARRISON’S LIFE AND WORK

In the Introduction I asked the reader to suppose that as a young woman Jane Harrison had discovered an exciting new religion wholly different from that of her stepmother—a religion closely akin to Roman Catholicism, heavily steeped in symbols and ritualism. If evidence could be produced to back up that supposition I asked if it would require us to change our view of Harrison and her work. I have argued that Harrison practiced a wild, emotional brand of High Churchism and that its traces linger in her letters and her autobiography and further that its ritual and ceremony provided the emotional spark for her life’s work as evidenced in Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Evidence for this viewpoint is ample. Starting at the age of 17 she became a devotee of the High Church and attended St. Martin’s on the Hill, a ritualistic church in Scarborough. At this time, she seems to have come very close to morphing into the “Papist” so hated by her father. After the discovery of a flirtation with a High Church curate named Mr. Houseman, and no doubt the additional discovery of her High Churchism, her stepmother sent young Harrison off to what she thought was a stanch center of Evangelical education: Cheltenham Ladies’ College. However, something was afoot at Cheltenham; the headmistress Dorothea Beale was very quietly and “reservedly” teaching High Church doctrine in her scripture lessons. Harrison developed a deep attachment to Beale in what Mirrlees described as a “grand passion” and Beale seems to have returned the affection. Harrison became the star pupil of the High Church Scripture lessons, which when combined with Beale’s sacramental teachings sent “Jane nearly crazy with excitement,” as Mirrlees put it. Many of the girls at Cheltenham attended church at Prestbury, the closest ritualistic church and it would be surprising to discover that Harrison did not worship with them. After returning to Yorkshire, she broke off the relationship with Miss Beale and replaced it with Janie Skene Bruce who had very High Church connections—her aunt, Felicia Skene, was a famous Tractarian writer who had ties with Pusey at Oxford and her

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cousin Alexander Forbes was the first Tractarian bishop in England. During this time, Harrison’s interest in the High Church was also evidenced by her poem “Three in One” and her familiarity with the writings of Bishop Butler. Next came Newnham and her love of the Pre-Raphaelites which was most likely closely connected to her Anglo-Catholicism since William Morris, Burne Jones, and Ford Maddox Brown all contributed to the artwork inside St. Martin’s in Scarborough. During this time, she admitted that she attended “mass or the nearest High Church simulation of it.” This church was in all likelihood All Saints, which was constructed in 1871 by George Bodley who had also designed St. Martin’s in Scarborough. While Harrison was at Newnham, design and decoration of the interior continued by Morris & Co. Pomegranates graced the walls of both churches as well as Harrison’s embroidery on her tennis dress. A letter from 1876 while she was still at Newnham alludes to a glasscovered shrine smoking with incense and playful images of shrines and incense frequently occur throughout the years. In addition, an extent picture reveals Harrison wearing a cross around her neck as a “badge” of her Anglo-Catholicism. During her time in London in the late 1880s she seems to have, at the very least occasionally, attended the early services at Christina Rossetti’s very High Church on Margaret Street, as Mirrlees states “to get a glimpse of Rossetti.” A letter written in 1881 to Elizabeth Malleson illustrates Harrison’s delight at finding an archaeologist/priest in full vestments conducting a mass in clouds of incense. Two letters to D. S. MacColl in 1888 contain veiled allusions to Baptism and the Eucharist. The July 1888 letter, which referenced “the clergy” and “sacraments” was written from Robin Hood’s Bay near Scarborough the same week that Henning Parr, the vicar at St. Martin’s on the Hill, died. After her return to Newnham, the High Church influence can be traced through allusions to the Anglican sacraments and rites in her letters to Gilbert and Mary Murray, Lytton Strachey, and Jessie Stewart and as they spill over into Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Here, Harrison references Archbishop Laud’s “beauty of holiness” and a well-ordered liturgy, couching them in terms of ancient Greek religion. Borrowing poetic symbols from John Keble, George Herbert, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Christina Rossetti, as well as the mysticism of the early church fathers discussed by Keble in Tract 89, she weaves into Prolegomena foreshadowings of Christ and the Eucharist.

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Reminiscences of a Student’s Life, published in 1925, contains myriad and sundry allusions to Anglo-Catholicism—the curate who “gave new impetus” to her study of Greek was actually a High Churchman “fresh from Oxford” and carried with him John Newman’s views. At Cheltenham she describes herself as a “passionate Royalist” a code word for High Churchism. Throughout the memoirs are references to ritual, which have been mistaken for references to ancient ritual and not for what they are—allusions to Anglo-Catholicism. For instance, the following sentence refers not to an ancient rite but to her own personal Anglo-Catholic religious experience, “A ritual dance, a ritual procession with vestments and lights and banners, move me as no sermon, no hymn, no picture, no poem has ever moved me; perhaps it is because a procession seems to me like life, like durée itself, caught and fixed before me” (Reminiscences of a Student’s Life 84). Around the same time as she was writing her memoirs, she and Mirrlees translated The Life of Archpriest Avvakum, who like Archbishop Laud and Orpheus was killed for introducing ritual practices. Although a translation from a 17th century Russian text, there are within this book great similarities between controversies in Laud’s 17th century England, Avvakum’s 17th century Russia, and Newman’s 19th century England. Harrison’s delight must have been palpable when she discovered the name of Avvakum’s church: St. Saviour’s, the same name as the first Tractarian church located in Yorkshire. The conclusions to be drawn from this evidence indicate that Harrison’s work, as well as her life has been misread and misunderstood. She was a mystical, even religious, woman, a trait which has been missed in the critical as well as the biographical literature. To quote Harrison, “I know myself by temperament to be deeply, perhaps almost insanely, religious. The unseen is always haunting me, surging up behind the visible” . . . . . (Alpha and Omega 206). By examining previously undetected clues from her young adulthood in Yorkshire, a new facet of her life emerged, which, as it turns out, had direct affect on her later work on Greek religion. The ritual and mystical sacraments ingrained at St. Martin’s in Scarborough and by Miss Beale at Cheltenham stayed in Harrison’s imagination and heart throughout her life, even though she seems to have waged a valiant fight to ward them off. Most importantly, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion does not deal solely with ancient Greek ritual. It is informed by and inexorably intertwined with

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Anglican religion and the issues of 19th century religious controversies. By examining Harrison’s use of symbols, language, as well as direct references to Anglican ritual, Prolegomena is found to be a very personal, almost biographical work, in which Harrison overlays familial as well as cultural and religious controversies. It seems fitting to end this study with Harrison’s obituary notice written by her friend Victoria Buxton: I am convinced that her approach was not solely a scientific one; that she did regard the religious sense, the sense of spiritual things, as of enormous significance in the life of Man. . . real religion in any form appealed to her: it corresponded for her with ultimate truth. . . I recall how she would suddenly drop from the ironical to the very serious and express things, perhaps only by a turn of phrase, a tone of voice, that revealed the spiritual sources of her own life, of the peace that comes from facing trial or suffering, standing up to it, letting it become a part of one’s life, the most sacred part, of sacrifice—that it was essential to spiritual attainment. We know from herself that it had come to her to climb the “Mount of Vision”. Maybe the horizon she saw was always a misty wavering one, that only flickering gleams and reflected colours lighted it up. But if was so, I think she felt sure they witnessed to truth. They allowed her to be “intellectually”, as her instinct had always inclined her, “the mystic she was by birth” (qtd. in Stewart 116).

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APPENDIX A: THE “CONVERSION” LETTERS

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THE “CONVERSION” LETTERS

This new reading of Harrison’s letter and her life points to a misunderstanding that has occurred in the critical literature. Because Harrison has been viewed as an agnostic with little attention paid to her own religious beliefs, certain letters and events have taken on more importance than is warranted. Two episodes in Harrison’s life, which Harrison describes in three letters, have been termed “conversions,” and interpreted as mystic and religious experiences, which greatly impacted her life. However, they have been misinterpreted because the High Church aspect of her life has been missing and because they have been taken out of the broader context of Harrison’s other letters. When set beside the symbols and images and the “mysticism” of the other letters as they have been interpreted in this dissertation, these three letters are not out the ordinary. In fact, the first two letters to MacColl seem almost devoid of any religious content at all and the second one to Gilbert Murray is in its imagery very similar to others by Harrison that have been discussed in this dissertation. Two Letters to D.S. MacColl Harrison writes these words to MacColl after she has received a letter from him, which is highly critical of her sensational style of lecturing, as well as her ideas on art: February 1887 I think I had better tell you the real reason that your presence was so unwelcome last night, as I do not want you to credit it with any form of personal rudeness. A month ago I should simply have been a good deal gratified by your coming but then you had not written that—to me—fatal letter. I daresay you have forgotten its—rather strongly worded—contents, which have been rankling in my mind

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ever since—I tore it up in the fury of first reading but unfortunately that only made me remember every word of it. I knew from the first that my rage against you was caused by the simple fact that you were right and I was wrong—but it was not till I began my work again that it was borne in upon me how wrong—how much more wrong than you could possibly divine. The worst is that all the success I have had has been based on wrongness, I could always hold an audience—any fanatic can—not by the proper & legitimate virtue of my subject or its treatment but by the harmful force of an intense personal conviction—I had grown into a sort of Salvationist for Greek art—probably a sort of educated decency withheld me from the constant obtrusion of my gospel of someone would before now have told me less politely—not more pointedly—that I was a fool— but none the less the faith in my gospel was the secret of my strength. The practical proof of this is that I feel now that all virtue is gone out of me; lecturing this term has been nothing but a dreary mechanical struggle & if my hearers have not found it out as they soon will it is only that something of the manner of conviction clings. Last night to this depression your coming added a hitherto unknown sensation, that of absolutely paralysing nervousness. I can only recall that I went on for an hour doggedly determined to make audible sounds—however, one failure more or less matters very little & the term’s work has to be got through— somehow. It will seem to you—with your sane mind—as absurd that the shattering of a theory should depress as that the building of one should inspire— & indeed it is not the shattering of any particular theory but the giving up of the habit of mind that demands a creed—I know by experience that one gets on much better in practice without a religious creed than with one, but it was none the less desolate to live without God in the world— art has to me taken & more than taken the place of religion & my work for it was I see only another form of an old & I thought long dead personal fanaticism—which is, it seems hydra-headed. I have added to this personal misery the depressing reflection that I have done a great deal of harm tho’—as you pleasantly point out—‘not as much harm

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as I might’—littera scripta manet is a bitter reflection to me just now & it has come only just in time to prevent its own repetition. At the present moment I feel that I shall never teach & certainly not preach any more after this term. I tried indeed a wild plunge from theory into practice but with no relief. I see I have written two sheets of unpardonable egotism—please forgive me. I really wanted to explain why it is that I fail— as I feel sure I do— in making up my manner to you into a good semblance of cordiality— a right minded person would be grateful to you & perhaps I should have been but that some of your arrows were dipped in a peculiarly irritating poison (qtd. in Robinson 88-89). Letter 2. This letter to D.S. MacColl is taken, not from the original letter, which I did not read in the archives, but from Mirrlees who copied it into her notebook: November 13, 1887 Don’t write me down a confirmed egoist if I tell you that good wishes did bring me good luck― I had a superstition that they might—that is why I asked for them. I was wretched and almost desperate about that Eton lecture & all the demons of last spring were camping about my bed but I was resolved, come what might to try your plan & trust the subject to its own value & rid myself of my hateful habit of trying to force it upon [illegible word] 1 effects & you were absolutely right—I felt directly I began to speak it all went ever so much better except the oxygen gas went out halfway utterly, I wonder why you so often say just the right thing to me—I acquit you of all intention you must be an instrument of the gods I certainly won’t call you anymore an “agent of Satan.” Happily I won’t mind the least being your debtor κοινà γàρ τà τŵν φíλŵν is spiritually at least my belief & I have begun lately and

only quite lately & perhaps too soon to think of you as friend, not foe—I think you must promise (as this candid friend) if you ever see me falling into this old or any new form of lunacy please write me a thoroughly unpleasant letter—that it won’t give you much trouble.

1

Robinson and Peacock write “meretricious”; I could not make out the word.

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Of course, I feel all the more keenly that a knave of a fool (I am not sure which) I was last year & and what dishonor I did to a particularly self sufficing subject—but no remorse can mar the holy calm that set in— a peace even better than that borne of whiskey & soda. Jane Harrison Do not answer this and do not laugh immoderately—you may laugh a little bit—but at yourself—cast as the double role of Paraclete as convincer of Sin and counselor in my miracle play. Is it that ministerial ancestry of yours that will out? (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 195). Jessie Stewart was the first to define this episode as a “conversion” episode; describing this time in Harrison’s life as a “time of deep depression, of remorse and failure followed by ‘a flood of light’ 2 and ‘a Holy Peace’ (115). Stewart remarks that it “led to a change in her way of life, to a more strenuous search for solid foundations” (115). Ackerman. Following Stewart’s lead, Ackerman made the episode into a religious experience when he wrote that around 1887 Harrison passed through a profound crisis, which “seems to have toppled’ her whole life as she went through a “kind of ‘mystical’ conversion.” To quote, “Such an experience so typical of the nineteenth century, has as its characteristic rhythm ‘depression, loneliness, a sense of disaster bringing a ‘conviction of sin,’ which leads without the conscious intervention of the will, to ‘exaltation, peace, and joy, a new focus, a sensation of oneness’” (79). He adds, “. . . it suffices to note it as the watershed after which everything is new and different” (79). Ackerman believes that this experience, this “new birth through which she went was in fact a rite de passage, death and rebirth, which she would come to understand in Themis as the paradigmatic Greek religious ritual” (80-81). What Ackerman is describing here is the emotional and spontaneous conversion required by Evangelicals, which as we can see throughout Prolegomena, Harrison

2

The letter that Stewart describes seems different from the one which Mirrlees reproduces, since there is no “flood of light’ in Mirrlees’ copy.

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adamantly rejected, choosing instead to emphasize the “uniformity of ritual” and a wellordered religious service (See Chapter 5, Section III.) Peacock. This episode, according to Peacock, changed Harrison’s direction and Peacock emphasizes that because of MacColl’s scathing criticism of her lecturing style, Harrison resolved to find a more excellent way to lecture that fell between dull and sensational (74). If she did change her style, it is hard to reconcile the change with Cornford’s description of her style when she returned to Newnham: At one of her Newnham lectures on Orphism she enlisted two friends to swing bull-roarers, the magic whirlers of the tundun, at the back of the room, that the audience might learn from the ‘awe-inspiring and truly religious sound what Aeschylus’ Edonians meant: Bull voice roar thereto from somewhere out of the unseen, fearful semblances, and from a drum, an image as it were of thunder underground is borne on the air, heavy with dread. Every lecture was a drama in which the spectators were to share the emotions of ‘recognition’ (qtd. in Stewart 20). Robinson. This episode, according to Robinson, provided the impetus, which led Harrison from art to religion and credits MacColl with this change in focus. Robinson cites two articles that Harrison wrote around this time “The Festival of the Aiora” and “On the Meaning of the Term Arrephoroi” and relates that in the first of these, “the influence of MacColl is not far to seek” since he was interested in the survival of ancient Greek ritual. However, as Chapter 3 illustrates, Harrison was already very much interested in religion of the High Church ritualistic brand long before these letters was written in 1887 and in fact she refers to this obsession, I believe, when she says ‘my work for it was I see only another form of an old & I thought long dead personal fanaticism—which is, it seems hydra-headed.” Her turn to ritual and religion was yet, I believe, another form of the hydra-headed monster; only this time the monster was relocated to ancient Greece. I believe that there is a solid reason as to why this letter has played such an important part in the scholarship. Stewart emphasized this letter in the first place simply because D.S. MacColl helped her with the research on Harrison’s life (Borland 309) and

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he showed her the letter, “D.S. MacColl showed me Jane’s answer to a strongly worded letter he had written her criticizing both the style and the matter of her lectures” (121). In addition, Robinson’s material about MacColl’s influence came from his own diary, so that his part in turning her toward her life’s work has perhaps taken on a large role than in reality was warranted. Beard’s exploration of the episode leads her to state, “There was no ‘watershed’ after which ‘everything was new’ but an exploration around different aspects of the same subject” (127) and I might add, around a subject with which she was already very much obsessed—ritual in religion. This letter, however, does bear some of the Anglo-Catholic language familiar from other letters such as “holy calm’ and the reference to the Paraclete; she did not pick up these words from her stepmother or her “Papist-hating” father.

Letter to Gilbert Murray Robinson relates that the following letter represents the “second great psychological turning point of her life.” . . .The ‘atavistic’ world of Greek religion began to lose its hold on her and, like Bertrand Russell in 1902, she became more interested in the “religion of to-day” (252-253). However, this dissertation has argued that religion of the 19th century has underlain most, if not all of her interest, in ancient religion and that her Anglo-Catholicism was expressed in a mystic manner through symbols and imagery. This letter to Gilbert Murray is very similar to some of the other letters that were discussed in Chapters 4 and passages from Prolegomena in Chapter 5. The big difference is that she here, perhaps due to the depression or loneliness that she has endured, the reserve has been dropped and instead of imagery such as tabernacles and bread and wine, she directly speaks of a “communion with God”: . . .And now I must tell you a strange thing, I was wondering if I should tell you or not when your letter came and now, though I am a little afraid, for you know so well the deceitfulness of the human heart and may dash my hopes. Do you think a blasphemous Ker could be converted? Do you remember contending with me on the cliffs and maintaining that there was more in religion than the collective conscience? I think I know now at first hand that there is. Last night I was awake

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all night with misery and utter loneliness such as often comes upon me now that I have to go about alone—only it was worse than anything I had ever felt—like a black despair, and I was full of hate against Frances, 3 unjustly of course, as the cause of my loneliness. I fell asleep at last and woke about six bathed in a most amazing bliss and feeling that all the world was new and in perfect peace. I can’t describe it—the New Birth is the best—it was what they all try to describe, and it is what they mean by communion with God. Only it seems senseless to me to try to give it a name and yet I do not wonder for it is so personal. Something physical has happened for when I went to Röthlisberger the moment he put his instrument to my pulse he said, “Why this is all better” and seemed astonished—but something not physical too for all the hate against Frances was gone clear. For the last year, I have scarcely seen her. He found out by my face, he said, that every time I saw her it brought back the pain in my heart, so he begged me not to see her and I didn’t. But I felt mean and wretched. Of course I cannot be sure until I do see her, but I have no fear. It seems to have all gone away clean. I can’t put it into psychology yet. What I feel most is that a wall of partitions is broken down and a whole crust of egotism is gone, melted away, and that I have got hold of something bigger than me that I am part of, But it was all done in my sleep—not by me at all. What is it? I will never call it God—that name is defaced, but if is wonderful and you were right as always (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/25). Imagery and mysticism from the other letters remains; the bath and light and new born remain the same as a letter to Murray in 1904: The thing I really like here is the baths. They are half underground & the light that in on the pale green water is quiet & beautiful & Betheseda like & sometimes at sunset, a ray comes slanting in on the water & it seems as if in a moment there must be a Holy Dove & from sheer exhaustion & excess of sulfate magnesium one feels so good & meek & new-born (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/8). And of course, there is the mention of Harrison’s sacraments with the word communion.

3

This letter refers to the pain that Harrison was still feeling from Francis Darwin’s marriage to Francis Cornford.

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Belief in God. The confession of a belief in a power higher than herself seems like a new and radical idea here; however, a belief in God is often alluded to in her letters. For all her bluster about being an agnostic or atheist, there are hints that she may have held on to some belief in a God. For instance, she write to Gilbert Murray: “God 4 is good whatever BR [Bertrand Russell] may say who made Ridgeway & Ernest Gardner & you & gave me eyes to see his human comedy” (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray May 5, 1905 1/1/9) “I suppose I believe in god worse luck still for I know there is something I can't forgive for hitting him” [Dr. Verrall] down & taking him away (Harrison letters to Murray December 12, 1912 1/1/26). Mystic dreams. Harrison was also prone to have religious dream experiences: November 1907. I woke up here as out of some sort of trance. I feel as if I had been asleep in some old sanctuary & a beautiful god or better still a kind old Carian snake has brought me a revelation in a dream & I am still rubbing my dazed eyes…I think I know the price of illness & exhaustion that you have to pay for doing all those things & goodness knows why that is―but I have a sort of religious feeling that you should & must 'count it all joy” (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/13). Feb 4, 1904: Talking of religion, I had such a beautiful dream, but so absurd that all the beauty will go in the telling. I was on a lonely promontory and suddenly I looked up and saw my rug unfurled like a banner and floating gladly up to heaven. I awoke in a sort of holy glow as of one who had seen a great accomplishment, the feeling of awe is still so strong upon me that I scarcely feel like strapping the good old saint up in my hold-all for fear it Should make difficulties in his assumption. It was all materially explained by the fact that I was sleeping with a bit of the rug tucked under my chin, but it did look beautiful mounting up to God and I can scarcely laugh over it now. I defy you to make a dream out of your jaeger boots (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/8).

4

The reserve does not seem to extend to the word God; she uses it freely. However, the words Almighty God are written as A.G.

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Mystic experiences. This experience is somewhat different because it involves a physical mystic experience; however, it is not a singular experience. For instance, Mirrlees reports that that in the eighties she gave up “going to Greece because she had a vision of herself ‘in the two penny tube lying dead in her grand new Redfern coat’” (Mirrlees Biographical Notes 4/3/3 “Chapter IX London in the Eighties”). Wilson reports that Harrison wrote to Murray in 1915 in which she describes a “very daimonion experience” which told her to stay out of Paris during a Zepplin raid; she also once told Francis Cornford that once she was about to get into a railway carriage and she saw herself sitting in the back. Wilson states that “She drew back and did not travel. That train had a smash” (Wilson xi). The other very interesting aspect of this letter is that, opposed to the other letters, Harrison turns toward more toward psychology rather than religion to try to explain her experience.

Conclusion

These letters have been singled out in the critical literature as being “conversion” episodes in Harrison’s life—religious experiences of a sort. The first letter to MacColl contains very little “mysticism,” although it does reflect Harrison’s Anglo-Catholicism with the word “holy calm” and “Paraclete.” The second letter, when set within the context of other letters and her life is not that unique—utilizing as it does the same imagery, as well as mystic experiences, as other letters. The one thing that does stand out from a religious viewpoint is that she drops her reserve and instead of utilizing her usual symbols, she directly writes to Murray concerning her experience.

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APPENDIX B: RITUAL ARRESTS

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RITUAL ARRESTS

There is another important aspect to the Victorian Ritualism story that must be discussed in order to understand the full extent of the controversy. As ritualism grew and spread throughout England, so did the fear of a return to “popery.” Tensions against the Ritualists grew until in 1874 Parliament passed a law called the Public Worship Regulations Act or the PWRA, which resulted in the arrests of five clergymen. In January 1877 Arthur Tooth went to jail for 28 days; in 1880 Thomas Dale and R.W. Enraght were jailed; Bell Cox was arrested in 1875; and 1878 saw perhaps the most celebrated arrest when S.F. Green was accused of illegal ritualism. Reverend Green stayed in jail for a year and a half. I. Two Cases This section will briefly cover the arrest of Reverend Edward Enraght and then move to a more in depth discussion of the life and arrest of Father Arthur Tooth. I have chosen to focus on Reverend Enraght’s case because the accusations that led to his arrest include some of the same rituals that Harrison alludes to in the vignettes that are explicated in Chapter 3 of this study. Father Arthur Tooth was chosen because these events took place while Harrison was a student at Newnham College hearing “Mass or the nearest High Church simulation of it” whenever she could (Alpha and Omega 184); Father Tooth was a graduate of Trinity College in Cambridge and it would not be at all surprising if the rather small High Church community at Cambridge kept abreast of the proceedings.

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Reverend Edward Enraght In 1879 Lord Penzance tried Reverend Edward Enraght, of Holy Trinity, Bordesley under the PWRA, accusing him of the following violations: 1. placing a metal cross on the ledge over the communion table 2. standing on the west side of the communion table so people could not see him consecrate the elements 3. kneeling 4. kissing the service book 5. causing “Agnus” to be sung 6. wearing a biretta 7. making a processional Reverend Enraght was imprisoned from November 27, 1880 until January 17, 1881 (http://anglicanhistory.org/england/enraght/prosecution.html). The Yorkshire Post/Leeds Intelligencer followed the case of Reverend Enraght very closely and published this small article upon his release from prison on January 18, 1881. The Liberation of Mr. Enraght Mr. Enraght, was liberated yesterday morning from Warwick Gaol, after being incarcerated for nearly eight weeks. He walked through the town to the railway station, three-quarters of a mile from the gaol, accompanied by his solicitor and half-a-dozen members of the Working Men’s Church Association. The latter greeted Mr. Enraght with cheers, but the public were stolidly indifferent. On the road, one man called out, “No Popery; I hope they will soon have you in again,” but Mr. Enraght merely remarked to his companions that he should not have liked that man to have been the governor of the gaol (7). This small article illustrates the bias against Anglo-Catholics as late as 1881 and provides yet another reason for Jane Ellen Harrison to have kept her religious opinions to herself. Father Tooth

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The Reverend Arthur Tooth 5 received his priest’s orders from the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1864. In 1868 he became the vicar of St. James, Hatcham, and “thus entered upon the most eventful decade of his career during which he was destined to become the central figure in one of the most remarkable episodes in the history of the Church of England” (Lee 6). St. James Parish was located in part of a new London suburb with population made up mostly of artisans. Ritualism. When Father Tooth started at Hatcham, he introduced some practices which “were held by many to savour of Popery. . . the wearing of Eucharistic vestments, adopting the Eastward position and so forth, were the causes of alarm and distress among sincere Evangelicals and the period of persecution began, notably that of Father Alexander Heriot Mackonochie at St. Albany, Holborn’s” (Lee 6). Organized opposition soon appeared at the church and caused disturbances in an effort to interrupt the worship services. Interestingly, one of the men when questioned by Father Tooth admitted that he had been paid 2s each time he protested at the church. Lee remarks that the PWRA gave the opposition an easy way of making trouble for Father Tooth. He was charged with “wearing of illegal (Eucharistic) vestments, mixed chalice, elevation of the host, and holding communion services at which the congregation did not communicate” (7). Father Tooth then wrote to Bishop Claughton and asked that the Bishop make the decision and not defer the matter to a court: I will not by the act of my own, free myself from the responsibilities of my parish and the many and varied interest which are dependent upon me; but if your lordship can solemnly, in the right of the church and its great Head, vindicating the cause of right and wrong, pronounce me to be a breaker of the church’s law and a heretic of the Faith for such grievance wrongs, I am willing, without a legal process to take the penalty of deprivation, provided your lordship will take the responsibility of pronouncing it (qtd. in Lee 7). Disturbances and Arrest. The bishop declined to take up Tooth’s offer and the case went to court. Father Tooth, in the true spirit of the original Tractarians, refused to appear because he did not recognize the “jurisdiction of an exclusively civil court deriving its powers from civil powers” (qtd. in Lee 7). He was admonished and suspended in 1876 5

The information about Father Tooth is taken a Biographical Memoir by Charles E. Lee.

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from his church for 3 months. A young clergyman was sent to Hatcham to take over the services and was refused admission while Father Tooth ignored the sentence and continued his rituals. According to Lee “three aggrieved” parishioners asked that he be declared in contempt. The following Sunday, January 14, 1877 he continued his services as usual and serious disturbances occurred. A force of 300 police were required to control the stone-throwing crowd. Father Tooth was arrested and held in Horsemonger Gaol on January 22; he was the first priest to be sent to prison for ritualism (Lee 7). A Plain Statement While Father Tooth was in jail the Reverend J.R. West wrote “A Plain Statement of the Principles for which the Reverend Arthur Tooth of Hatcham has been suffering imprisonment in Horsemonger Lane Gaol.” The preface below illustrates in the language of the day what was at stake in the ritualist battles; this was addressed to West’s parishioners; As many of the Clergy of the Church of England are now in an extremely trying position, and many of them are ready to be imprisoned for conscience’s sake, as one of them already is; and as the point now at issue concerns one of the most fundamental Articles of our Christian faith and the very existence of the Church of England, I most earnestly trust that you will endeavor to obtain a right understanding of the matter. For I know that you all are reading about it in the newspapers of the world, most of which give an unfair and entirely mistake representation of it. It is my duty therefore to assist you in so serious a difficulty. And it is absolutely necessary, for this purpose that you should consider the First Principles of our Constitution in Church and State, I have endeavored to write down these principles as clearly and briefly as I could, and thus lay them before you. For the present controversy is not concerning this or that point of Ritualism in our Public Worship; but it is, essentially, a controversy touching First Principles. It is a controversy relating to the Constitution of the Church, and relating to the Constitution Union of the Church with the State in this realm of England.

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For Mr. Tooth has been put into prison, not on account of any particular Ritual but because he conscientiously refuses to obey the orders of an unconstituitional court which has been lately made by Act of Parliament only, without authority or sanction of the Convocation of the Church for the regulation of the Public Worship of the Church. It becomes, therefore, the solemn duty of every intelligent and faithful Member of the Church of England to consider very carefully what these fundamental Principals are so that he may know how to act rightly under the present difficulty. I am, dear Parishioners, Your Faithful servant in Christ J.R. West Attached was this note from Tooth Horsemonger Lane Gaol 17 Feb. 1877 Dear Mr. West, You have stated the principles on which I am acting, and for which we must be ready to make any sacrifice, quite rightly. I only hope that every honest Englishman will give them impartial consideration. I am, faithfully yours, Arthur Tooth. Aftermath. After 28 days in prison, Father Tooth went to Italy to recuperate and regain his spirits. Upon his arrival back in Hatcham in May he found the church locked against him. Lee remarks that with the help of a small boy, an entrance “was effected through a window” (9) and Father Tooth carried on his services as had been his custom. Of course, this caused another round of legal proceedings and Father Tooth resigned his living in 1878 and worked at an orphanage and a sisterhood.

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APPENDIX C:

TWO VERSIONS OF A LETTER FROM DOROTHEA BEAL

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TWO VERSIONS OF A LETTER FROM MISS BEALE

A letter from Miss Beale reproduced in Raikes’ books is dated September 1873 and the recipient is identified only as “an old pupil who once wrote to her of Strauss’s book, The Old and the New “(190). Actually, this appears to be a draft 6 of a letter that was written to Jane Harrison 7 . A typescript copy of the actual letter that was sent is in the Newnham archives. In the draft Miss Beale writes: I feel sorry that you have read Strauss, but, of course, if you felt it your duty to do so, you were right. Still, I do not think one is bound to read everything, any more than one is to listen to all that can be said against all one’s friends. I mean a person might be ever so good, yet if we were constantly to listen to insinuations against them, if we were frequently with those who disbelieved in their goodness, and looked contemptuous when we trusted, a most well-founded confidence might result in doubt and distrust. I think we should act in religious matters as we ought in a case of friendship—refuse to hear insinuations, but ask for grounds, arguments—not let our minds be biased against our mind and judgement. I believe with many that doubts are “specters of the cave,” that if we have the courage to face them they will fade away. But then we must be very much in earnest, spend time and labour and much thought upon this, and pray for the spirit of truth. I have not read Strauss, I know the general line of his arguments, but as you say he gives none here, I need not get the book to meet them (Raikes 190). The actual letter that Harrison received is a bit different: 6

Raikes explains that Miss Beale kept drafts and copies of letters she felt were important (xx). The fact that Harrison’s letter was reproduced in Raikes’ book may also explain another vignette that Harrison relates in Reminiscences. Harrison tells the story of how Miss Beale confiscated and read a post card from her friend Peveril. “I was too furious that my letter had been read to think of anything else” (30). Raikes’ book contains much of the unpublished manuscript from Beale’s autobiography, which Mirrlees as part of Harrison’s book collection. If Mirrlees is referring to Raikes’ book, and it seems likely that she is, Harrison had probably read the letter, recognized it as her own, and wrote the story in Reminiscences 7

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I do not think that one is bound to read everything against Christianity, any more than one is to listen to all that is said against one's friends, though one should listen to facts. I mean this--a person might be ever so good yet if we were constantly to give ear to insinuations, to be frequently with those who disbelieved in his goodness, and accounted for good acts by bad motives, and looked contemptuous when we trusted, a most well-founded confidence might result in distrust. In religious matters I think we should act as we ought in a similar caserefuse to entertain insinuations, but ask for facts and arguments, not let our minds be biased against our judgment and will. I believe that with many these doubts are "specters of the cave 8 that if we have courage to turn and face them they will fade away. But then we must be very much in earnest, and not grudge time and labour and thought, and pray for, aspire after the truth. I have not read Strauss, but I know the general line of his argument. . . . 9 : (Letters to Jane Harrison, A-Z(1/5/5). The draft from Miss Beale that is reproduced in Raikes’ book provides three new pieces of information. First, it enables us to more accurately date the breakup with Miss Beale; around 1873; the letter in the archive from Miss Beale was not dated and Mirrlees’s material provided no date. Secondly, the book that Harrison read that supposedly put her on the agnostic path was not Strauss’ Life of Jesus but The Old and the New. Most interestingly, however, I believe this draft in Raikes’ book when combined with a piece of information from Mirrlees, may provide some insight into a story that Harrison told in Reminiscences of a Student’s Life. On the back page of Mirrlees” notebook is a list of what is assumed to be Harrison’s books, which contain the words “Dorothea Beale Autobiography” is on that list. Miss Beale’s autobiography, it seems, was never published; however, large portions of it appear in Raikes’ book, along the letter to Harrison. I suspect that Harrison read Raikes’ book and became very angry when she saw her letter reproduced for all the world to read. It would certainly help explain the following story about Miss Beale in Reminiscences. The background is that Harrison’s friend Peveril had sent her a postcard when she was at Cheltenham, which Miss Beale confiscated and read, reprimanding Harrison with these words: 8

This letter does not exist in handwritten form only in a typed version. Over the word, cave is written “or cause.” In Raikes’ letter the word is cave. 9 The whole text of both letters is reproduced in Appendix xx.

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You are too young, and I hope too innocent, to realize the gross vulgarity of such a letter or the terrible results to which it might lead.” I was indeed, and still am, for what do you think was the offence? After his signature “Peveril” had written, “Give my love to the examiners!” The story may stand to mark the abyss of fatuous prudery into which the girls’ schools of the middle Victorian period— even the very best—had fallen. I was too furious that my letter had been read to think of anything else. 10 At home a scrupulous code of honour prevailed as to letters. I remember being allowed to take a bundle of letters to the village post. I employed my time learning by heart the various names, titles, prefixes and addresses. These when I got back I repeated, expecting praise for my diligence and accuracy. Instead I was told I had done a most dishonorable thing. . . (30). It would not be surprising if the whole story was concocted in order for Harrison to reprimand Raikes (as well as Miss Beale posthumously) for publishing her private letter from Miss Beale.

10

My emphasis

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APPENDIX D: ADDITIONAL EXCERPTS FROM HARRISON’S LETTERS THAT ILLUSTRATE AN INTENSE INTEREST IN ANGLICAN RITUAL

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ADDITIONAL EXCERPTS FROM HARRISON’S LETTERS THAT ILLUSTRATE AN INTENSE INTEREST IN ANGLICAN RITUAL

Lent Lent Prolegomena also alludes to a Lenten hymn: “To get rid of these spirits was to undergo purification. In the month of February and Anthesterion the Roman or Greek might, mutatis mutandis, have chanted our Lenten hymn: Christian, does thou see them On the holy ground How the hosts of Midian Prowl and prowl around? Christian, up and smite them! (Prolegomena 53). This hymn was highly Anglo-Catholic, having been translated by John Mason Neale of the Camden Society at Cambridge and published in the very “papist” Hymns Ancient and Modern as hymn no. 91 (Frost 184). Note that both of these references from Prolegomena seem very personal as Harrison refers to “our own Good Friday holiday” and “our Lenten hymn.” March 6, 1920/Lenten. Harrison writes to Gilbert Murray from Spain: You will be glad to hear I am going to a course of Lenten sermons, much above our English average and can follow them easily now (qtd. in Stewart 180.) This implies that not only was Harrison studying Lenten sermons in Spain but that she was also well aware of the sermons in England. Shrine Sept. 9, 1906/Shrine. The interest in shrines and ritual continues in 1906, as does the Anglo-Catholic language. The following text is written on a post card to Gilbert Murray from Cathedrale de Charters: This is your H.M. the Vierge noire du pilier. Her shrine is an amazing site─to-day her birthday─tapers in hundreds burning all around her in the

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dark of the cathedral & throngs of “les fideles” kissing her pillar. Last night the dance opened with a pathetic prayer―for the increasing number of those who have lost their faith! She has a whole octave―a feast older than herself (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/12). In addition to the obvious references to “shrine” and “tapers,” other words also connect Harrison to the Anglo-Catholic ritualist movement. “H.M.” refers to “Holy Mother” and is one of the many instances which Harrison taunts Murray because he absolutely abhors Catholicism. Another specific word, octave gives away Harrison’s connections to the High Church. Reed reports that liturgical terms and knowing what they meant could be a “sign of party affiliation” (81). One man, who called himself a “benighted layperson” complained in 1867 of the problem of reading a periodical devoted to “High Church Matters,” “He will find himself in a most lamentable state of ignorance as to the “Vigils” and “Octaves” and festivals of saints whose names he has never heard of” (qtd. in Reed 81).

Holy Mother June 2, 1910/Holy Mother I see from the Times that they are not going to insult yr Holy Mother anymore. These are degenerate days (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/20). June 30, 1910/H.M. The following letter is indicative of the fact that Harrison’s ritualistic interest extended beyond the ancient world: Begley Wood Thurs June 30, 1910 Glory be to . . you & yr Holy Mother. Did you read the Times (29th) on the consecration of Westminster Cathedral? Oh why didn't you go and see it done instead of casting yr old Liberal pearls before those subject swine? Old Diels told us long ago (in Elementus &A.B. C. Denkmaler 11 ) that yr HM consecrated her churches with στοιχε̑ια 12 ⎯ 2 real alphabets set diagonally, but I never thought she really could now-a-days & she just did. She has a face on

11

A Bibliography of The Ancient Acrostic by Gregor Damschen lists these two works: Diels, H. (1890): Sibyllinische Blätter, Berlin and Dieterich, A. (1901): Abc-Denkmäler, Rheinisches Museum 56, 77-105 (http://www.telemachos.huberlin.de/esterni/akrostichon.html). 12 I have reproduced the Greek words just as Harrison wrote them in her letters.

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her. The silly old Times thinks it is the union of the Eastern & Western churches⎯ wch of course in a late & ontological way it may be⎯but of course it is just the best & whitest magic-collective-spatial-what not! Please write to the Times at once, all the stuff is in the Elementum wch I think you have (if my any happy chance you happen to come tomorrow do bring it) & the Times⎯ this well appointed country house has no Times φυ̑ε φυ̑ε.. I would write but it would come so much better from a Regius Professor & a Roman⎯you might sign it “a Strayed Sheep.” PS Yr bp made the στοιχε̑ια with his crook on little heaps of ashes⎯wasn't it adorable? (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/20). The word adorable seems an odd way to describe the bishop’s ritual and perhaps Harrison uses it as another reference to the Eucharist. Part of a “Litany of the Most Holy Sacrament” reads: Most high and adorable Sacrament Most holy of all Sacrifices True Propitiation for the quick and the dead (Contemporary Ritualism Bowen 57). December 19, 1904/Holy Mother. Murray had an aunt who converted to Roman Catholicism (as did his daughter Rosalind) whom Harrison suspects has sent him a Roman Catholic hymn: I took yr hymn to yr Holy Mother to him (AWV) [Arthur W Verrall], we had spent the evening before arguing as to whether yr HM was a bust-up show or not―he said not; I said no one could believe such mumbo jumbo (do you distinguish clearly between this and hocus pocus one is dogma the other one ritual) Did your best Aunt sent you that hymn? . . .(Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/9). April 16, 1912 Holy Mother Mt. Athos is extraordinarily beautiful the monasteries hang like birds' nests all round the rocks⎯have you been? I got some letter-paper from a monastery with a picture of the Holy Mountain & just near the peaks an apocalypse of yr Holy Mother (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/25).

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Burning Candles 1901/Burning Candles. Harrison writes to Lady Mary Murray before she [Harrison] departs for Rome: I shall burn a long candle for you at S. Peter’s & I think it is the little shrine of Thetis which I will never see (Harrison letters to Mary Murray 1/2/1). Dec 1901/Burning Candles. Harrison writes to Jessie Stewart upon learning that she is to be married: My Dear Jessie, I am so truly glad. Thank you for writing to tell me. I have thought so much about you—but not knowing the "Fact" felt so helpless tho' I deemed it to be the end in the beginning. Yes. I must see Mr. Stewart at the earliest possible moment-all you say convinces me that you have chosen rightly—you were always meant to be married which doesn't the least to my mind mean 'flabbiness"—only a certain human dependence which come of keen sympathies. 13 I shall burn all my bedroom candles for you both early & late…. (Harrison letters to Jessie Stewart 1/4/2). Nov. 21, 1910/Burning Candles. Here, Harrison writes to Gilbert Murray about one of his many political interests: My Dear Ther, I have been thinking about you & praying for you much these last few days for Walter Raleigh was in talking about it & reminded me the voting was on the 28th & now comes your screed—Oh I do hope it will all go right for you―I shall burn candles in my heart all Tuesday afternoon (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/21). 13

One may notice a distinct ambivalence about marriage in this letter, which is carried throughout Harrison’s life. Mirrlees speculates that Harrison decided not to marry because her heart was broken by an anonymous man at Newnham. However, Mirrlees makes a statement that may be very close to the truth, “But naturally the men with whom she was thrown in contact could not know that she was, as it was vowed to celibacy” (Mirrlees Biography Draft Notes: “Chapter IX London in the Eighties” 4/3/3). Given Harrison’s fondness of nuns and convents that was pointed out in Chapter 2, and the emphasis placed on celibacy by Hurrell Froude and John Newman, celibacy is certainly a possible answer for her attitude toward marriage.

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Jan 13, 1911/Burning Candles. Harrison writes to Gilbert Murray upon his return from America: Are you back safe? I think you should be. I hope you did not cross in that great storm. I burnt several candles (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/22). 1925/High Altar. In her autobiography, Harrison writes of seeing the “dance of the Seises before the High Altar in the Cathedral de Seville…But it is strangely moving in the fading light with the wondrous setting of the High Altar and the golden grille,”. . . (Reminiscences 84-85). Penance 1903 Prolegomena/Penance. Penance surfaces in a section on Orphic Eschatology: The Erinyes are from beginning to end of the old order, implacable, vindictive; they know nothing of Orphic penance and purgatory; as "angels of torment" they go to people a Christian Hell (232). 1903 Prolegomena/Penance. “The downward steps from purification to penance, from penance to vindictive punishment, were easy to take and swiftly taken” (592). Reminiscences of a Student’s Life/Penance, 1925. As late as 1925, Harrison still references penance. She has marked a boy’s name out of her address book, “but the same evening—in penance for my bad temper—I wrote to him . . .(24).

Blessed April 1902/Blessed Be That Dentist. Harrison plays upon the Divine Praises in honor of the dentist who has taken care of Murray’s toothache: Thrice blessed be that dentist―but it isn't really bad toothache, I hope. . . (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/2). 1908 Bless the holy name. Although this excerpt does not contain “Blessed Be,” the sentiment is the same:

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I haven't had such a nice letter for years. Bless the holy name of the θήρ (Harrison letter to Gilbert Murray 1/1/15). April 29, 1904/Blessed Saints. The context seems to be that Lady Murray has severely scolded two of Harrison’s friends: I have told my two guilty friends, Mr. Turnbull and Mr. Prothero that they may put their heads quietly on again, but the Blessed Saints say that for the future when they pass yr way they will carry them in their hands (Harrison letters to Mary Murray 1/2/4). December 24, 1902/Blessed Self. Here is more Anglo-Catholic imagery with the words Madonna, Holy Family, eikon, and blessed: Madonna Mary This is too much. You send me your Holy Family which is altogether lovely of you but no eikon of your Blessed Self (Harrison letters to Mary Murray 1/2/2). June 15, 1910/Blessed Ther/Bowing. Harrison responds to a translation that Murray has sent her to review. Note the word blessed in the salutation, as well as the allusion to bowing one’s knee:

Autumn 1911/Thrice Blessed I have just found that thrice blessed note & read the end. It does make me so happy―the sentence at the end―it is beautiful with the sort of beauty that only you can get―I should have known it anywhere for yours, & it comes suddenly at the end like a fountain unsealed from hard rock (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/23).

Peace Be with you Feb. 28, 1905/Peace be with you. In the next three excerpts, Harrison ends her letter with a slightly different form of this phrase: Peace & Faith be with you

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Yrs γαλήνη [spirit of serenest calm calm sea] (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/10). Nov 20, 1909/Peace be with you. Blessings & peace be with you ἀκάματος [tireless] as you are. I can't do a word of writing till I have seen you & you have blessed the plot of the book (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/18).

Personal Interest in Mysticism Fri Jan 8, 1909. In a letter to Gilbert Murray, Harrison describes her current reading material: What a rock of ages you are...I am reading F von Hugel's 2 huge vols on Mysticism in Religion--really very able & so interesting to me to see the point of view of a highly educated Holy Roman & a very learned thinking man—I think his book very valuable (Harrison letters to Gilbert Murray 1/1/17). Many of Catholic rituals discussed in this dissertation such as the Eucharist, fasting, and penance surface in Hugel’s book, the full title of which is The Mystical Element of Religion as Studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa and Her Friends. A glance at the Table of Contents illustrates a continuation of her obsession: Chapter 3 entitled “Catherine Fiesca Adorna’s Life, Up to Her Conversion” contains sections entitled •

“Proposed Study of the Mystical-Volitional Element in a Particular, Concrete Instance: St. Catherine of Genoa,”

•

“Her Conversion, with its Immediate Preliminaries and Consequences, March 1474,” “Catherine and the Holy Eucharist,”

•

“Catherine and Confession and Direction” and

•

“Pecularities concerning the Invocation of Saints and Intercessory Prayer (xxxvi).”

Chapter IV contains sections named •

“Catherine’s Great Fasts” and

•

“Beginning of her Third, Last Period: End of the Extraordinary Fasts” (xxxvii).

And it comes as no surprise to again see John Henry Newman referenced as Hugel writes, “But further back than all living writers and friends lies the stimulation and help of him

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who was later to become Cardinal Newman. It was he who first taught me to glory in my appurtenance to the Catholic and Roman Church, and to conceive this my inheritance in a large and historical. . . (xxxi). Whit Monday 1915. This letter to Francis Cornford illustrates Harrison’s interest in Catholic ritual as well as how closely she connects it to ancient ritual. I went on Sunday to the Russian Church—it was so marvelously beautiful—utterly like that vile Rome—the opening of the Golden Gates always moved me beyond words, but I had a little forgotten how fine it is. The way the priest forms [illegible word] its intervals is the most Dionysiac and ecstatic thing conceivable 14 (Mirrlees Notebook 4/3/1 163). 1926 Reminiscence of a Student’s Life. Near the end of her life, Harrison summarizes what ritual has meant to her: I have elsewhere tried to show that Art is not the handmaid of Religion, but that Art in some sense springs out of Religion, and that between them is a connecting link, a bridge, and that bridge is Ritual. On that bridge, emotionally, I halt. It satisfies something within me that is appeased by neither Religion nor Art. A ritual dance, a ritual procession with vestments and lights and banners, move me as no sermon, no hymn, no picture, no poem has ever moved me; perhaps it is because a procession seems to me like life, like durée itself, caught and fixed before me (Reminiscences of a Student’s Life 84).

Letters to Lytton Strachey Harrison’s obsession with religion and ritual seems to have also extended to other members of the Bloomsbury group as well as Virginia Woolf. On June 1, 1911 Harrison wrote these words to Lytton Strachey: Dear Mr. Lytton:

14

It is very interesting to compare Harrison’s words to those of Hurrell Froude describing the Greek service: . . .”The altar is behind a screen with three doors in it. . .When the Bread and Wine is consecrated, the doors are shut, and the priest behind the screen chants just loud enough for the people to respond to him. I was present at this service once: and in spite of the nasal twang, in which the chant was conducted and the unintelligibility of the pronunciation, it was altogether impressive (Remains Vol. I: 288).

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If ever I saw a lost soul* (I mean a damned ecclesiastic) in a surplice it was last night. But clearly that is what your maker meant you to be—you must take holy orders well—on Monday--could you come to tea once more as a lay man—or Sunday—can you? There will be nobody for we shall all be limp after Saturday’s (illegible word)—Pernel is going to appear on Saturday in a brand new linen ‘ephod’—Ephods are ‘well (illegible word) this year. She has talked of nothing else for weeks. . . *You looked exactly like “The Silence of Dean Maitland.” (British Library Strachey papers 60669, Ff 117) It is useless to try to puzzle out what Harrison was describing; perhaps it was a game or a play. However, whatever the circumstances her imagery points again to an intense interest in High Church matters—lost souls, surplices, holy orders, and perhaps most puzzling is the reference to Strachey’s sister wearing a linen ephod, which is a reference from the Old Testament. High priest and people in the service of God wore ephods, Exodus 28:4 And these are the garments which they shall make; a breastplate, and an ephod, and a robe, and a broidered coat, a mitre, and a girdle: and they shall make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, and his sons, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office.” Harrison’s allusion to Strachey looking like “Dean Maitland” is not very complimentary. Dean Maitland was a clergyman in a novel by Maxwell Gray, who killed his lover’s father and then blamed the murder on an innocent man. In a postscript to a letter to Strachey written May 18, 1910 Harrison writes, “Someday I really must ‘have it out’ with you about conforming; you are ruining your sister’s immortal soul for which I have long wrestled in prayer, but you shall turn epigrams in peace with Bertie on Sunday” (British Library Add 60669 Ff 105). In 1923 she writes a note to Strachey inviting him to eat with her and Mirrlees and signs it, “Your sisters in Christ, Ursula & Hope” (British Library Add. 60669 Ff 156). It is hard to know what to make of the references from 1910 and 1923; however, within the context of Harrison’s Anglo-Catholic heritage, it may be possible to read them literally.

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APPENDIX E: LETTER OF PERMISSION:

NEWNHAM COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE TO USE THE LETTERS OF JANE ELLEN HARRISON

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Margaret Armstrong has a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Liberal Studies from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida and a Master of Arts in Humanities with a special emphasis in Classical Studies from Florida State University. For the past ten years, Ms. Armstrong has worked as an Editor/Writer at Florida State.

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