Reading Woolman part one: the Public Life of a Private Man
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I’ve finally done it. I’ve read John Woolman’s Journal. Here I’ve been an activist among Quakers for almost two decades and I’ve read one of our Big Books.
I have tried before. Many’s the time over the years where I cracked open Moulton’s edition to settle myself down. Chapter one read, chapter two read. Then to chapter three, opening with:
About this time, believing it good for me to settle, and thinking seriously about a companion, my heart was turned to the Lord with desires that He would give me wisdom to proceed therein agreeably to His will, and He was pleased to give me a well-inclined damsel, Sarah Ellis, to whom I was married the 18th of Eighth Month, 1749.
And that’s it. One run-on sentence about courting and marrying his wife. I always put the book down here. I tuck a bookmark in with all good intentions of continuing after dinner. But the book sits on the coffee table till a week or so goes by, whereupon it’s moved to the library area for a month or so until it’s finally reshelved. The bookmarks stays put until a year or two passes and I re-start the Journal with renewed determination.
I know why the sentence stops me. Throughout my twenties and early thirties a lot of my emotional energy was drained in the (mostly Quaker) dating scene. In theory I thought it a good time “for me to settle” and would have been quite content with a well-inclined damsel. But the chaos of my personal family history combined with the casual dating culture I was part of combined to keep me distracted with the largely-manufactured drama of relationship roller-coasters. For better or worse, if and when I ever write a journal I will have to find a way to talk about the ways this dating era both fed and stunted my spiritual growth.
One of the lesson I learned back in the early 90s when I was editor at New Society Publishers was that I should pay attention when I put a manuscript or book down. The temptation is to chalk it up to tiredness or a busy life but I found there was usually something going on in the text itself that caused me to drop it. When I picked the manuscript back up and re-read the passages on either side of my abandoned bookmark, I found some sort of shift of tone that weakened the book.
I appreciate that Quaker journals are not racy memoirs; they have a specific religious education purpose. But I think it’s natural to look to them for clues about how to live our lives. Samuel Bownas talks a bit about his engagement and David Ferris turns meeting his future wife into quite a humorous story. Perhaps Woolman was such a saintly aesthete that Sarah was simply presented to him with no futher questions. But still, there’s a level of privacy in Woolman’s writings that separates him from us; I’ll return to this is part three.
Before I go: so how did I get through the journal this time? Two things are different now: first, my five year wedding anniversary is only a few weeks away; and second: Woolman’s Journal is now always with me inside my Palm Pilot (courtesy the Christian Classics Etherial Library). A few weeks ago I found myself on the train without reading material and started reading!
Next: The Last Safe Quaker
Reading John Woolman:
- Part One: “The Public Life of a Private Man” (this page)
- Part Two: The Last Safe Quaker
- Part Three: The Isolated Saint
- Part Four (forthcoming)
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I often have the same problem reading the Bible, because it pays so little attention to what goes on inside people's heads: if the subject comes up it's generally put very simply, like, "He was angry," "He wanted her," or something like that. I know it was the narrative style of the time, but it does make it feel distant. It's a relief to get to the epistles and actually see thought happening.
ok, so stereotypically husbands don't remember how long they're married, and that's ok, but i do feel that i should remind you that although it seems like only 5 WEEKS since we've been married, it's actually been 5 YEARS. hard to believe yes, but it's true. your blushing bride...
This makes me think of arranged marriages. In some ways, I can't help thinking how much simplified it makes things. I too spent a lot of time (and angst) in my twenties trying to do the dating thing. I think some people find it easier than others.
Courting and marriage seems simpler in Woolman's time. But I wonder if this is written in shorthand. Quaker marriages were known for their compatability and loving nature, and many Quaker women didn't marry until their thirties. In the late 1700s in Philadelphia, 1/3 of the Quaker women in their thirties were unmarried. So they must have been "holding out" for something more than the first chap who came along.
And then there's Penn writing "Never marry but for love; but see that thou lovest what is lovely." That poem suggests he didn't settle for the first girl that came along either.
Ah, but wouldn't it have been better if it had all been simpler!
*Hi Camassia:* interesting. Certainly some of the Quaker epistles have a different feel. The back of the new edition of David Ferris' journal has some letters he wrote and they feel much more honest and open; he's less of a saint and more ordinarily frustrated by what he sees around him.
*Julie:* Doh!, I thought I had fixed that before you saw it. Actually it feels like we've been married five thousand years, I can scarce remember a time before that. Come to think of it, did I even ever date someone before you? It's hard to imagine such a thing. Love, your adoring husband.
*Yes, Nancy:* part of the trouble reading Woolman (and others of the time) is that so much detail gets smoothed over. Our technologies, especially those around reproduction, have certainly changed since Woolman's youth, but I think it safe to say that human nature is what it's always been. Maybe it was simpler but maybe Woolman just didn't want to talk about it.