The North's Wake-Up Call

Michele Sharik
English 48A
Journal for Stowe
September 30, 2009

"You ought to be ashamed, John! Poor, homeless, houseless creatures! It's a shameful, wicked, abominable law, and I'll break it, for one, the first time I get a chance; and I hope I shall have a chance, I do!"

-- Mary Bird, to her husband Senator John Bird, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe

Arkansas, Florida and Texas have been added to the number of Slave States; and California made about half and half; and the Douglas-Nebraska plot threatens to be successful; the Fugitive Slave Law and its horrible execution, being a part of the National, and the new constitution of Indiana, and the Free Negro enslaving law of Illinois, parts of State Legislative history. Indeed, the American States grew worse, instead of better, daily, hourly, constantly.

-- Samuel Ward. Editorial Correspondence. Provincial Freeman. Toronto. 10 June 1854.


The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was a wake-up call to white Northerners. No longer could they pretend that slavery was strictly a Southern institution, safely occurring in some far-away place that had no impact or importance in their lives. For years, runaway slaves had settled in Northern states and made a living at whatever work they could find. Under the Fugitive Slave Law, these runaways could be legally returned to their former owners in the South -- in fact, the Law made it compulsory that they should be returned, and that white Northerners, their own neighbors, actively work to return them to a life of slavery.


It was in this political climate that Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. To our modern eyes, it seems a bit overly-dramatic, with its far-fetched action scenes (Eliza leaping from one ice floe to another to cross the Ohio River [1]) and its blatant appeals that tug on the reader's heart-strings. And yet, for many this novel was the first glimpse into the horrible reality of American Slavery. Those who were blissfully unaware of the cruelties, who supposed that slaves enjoyed being slaves were, via Stowe's melodramatic prose, forced to face the fact that there was really no such thing as a "good slave-owner" or a "happy slave," no matter how kindly the owner may treat his slaves.


With such a wide readership -- Uncle Tom's Cabin sold more than three hundred thousand copies in its first year of publication (Norton 1700) -- it's no wonder that Abraham Lincoln is said to have greeted Harriet Beecher Stowe with the words, "So this is the little lady that started the big war!"


[1] Having grown up near Cincinnati, however, I can attest that there are places in which the River is narrow enough that this might be possible, given the right conditions and the right motivation

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The Difference between Poor and Rich

Michele Sharik
English 48A
Journal for Davis
September 30, 2009

"Man cannot live by work alone." -- Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the Iron-Mills

"Life in the Iron Mills was not written out of compassion or condescending pity. The thirty-year-old Rebecca Harding who wrote it, wrote in absolute identification with "thwarted, wasted lives... Mighty hungers... unawakened power"; despised love; circumstances that denied use of capacities; imperfect, self-tutored art that could have only odd moments for its doing -- as if these were her own. And they were...." -- Tillie Olsen, A Biographical Interpretation (afterward to 1972 edition of Life in the Iron Mills)


A New York Times Book Review says of Life in the Iron-Mills, "You must read this book and let your heart be broken." My heart was indeed broken while reading this story. While I grew up in the 1970s, with the benefit of almost a century's worth of Labor Regulation, the setting reminds me a bit of the town where I grew up. My town was not a mill town and the conditions not as desperately grim as in Iron-Mills, but there was a great deal of poverty in the once-thriving railroad town (that rapidly ceased thriving when the railroad itself ceased operation).

I can also identify with Davis' circumstances as outlined by Tillie Olsen, with her description of "imperfect, self-tutored art that could have only odd moments for its doing," for my family was too poor to allow me to take the music lessons I so desperately wanted. Without those lessons, and in an age before YouTube and Google allowed for instant access to the goings-on of a world of art and music, my own artistic inclinations seemed to be fated to be merely unfulfilled yearnings.

I did have the opportunity to attend Conservatory, but without training in my younger years, I was woefully unprepared for the level of preparedness shown by my competitors - for "competitors" they were, not compatriots. (Such is life in a Conservatory.)

But I was not the only one affected by growing up in a rural ghost town. I saw many other people, young and old, who once had dreams, who had a glimmer (or sometimes a shedload) of talent that would never be recognized by the outside world, that would never be expressed due to the crushing weight of the responsibilities of everyday life. Perhaps they, like Hugh Wolfe, made bad decisions or perhaps it was only a lack of opportunity, financial or otherwise (or simply not recognizing that opportunity when it presented itself), but it seems to me that so much talent is wasted in the struggle of humanity to just get by.

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Lincoln and Moral Relativity

Michele Sharik
English 48A
Journal for Lincoln
September 29, 2009

"Both [sides in the Civil War] read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other.... The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully."

- Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address (Norton 1636)

We leave to some Emil Ludwig [a well-known biographer of the first half of the 20th century] or his ilk the drawing of Abraham Lincoln's portrait with rosy little wings. Lincoln's significance lies in his not hesitating before the most severe means once they were found to be necessary in achieving a great historic aim posed by the development of a young nation. The question lies not even in which of the warring camps caused or itself suffered the greatest number of victims. History has different yardsticks for the cruelty of the Northerners and the cruelty of the Southerners in the Civil War.

- Leon Trotsky, "Their Morals and Ours" 1939


The Trotsky quote above is part of an essay on moral relativity written while he was exiled from the Soviet Union. In his treatise, Trotsky claims that a society's morals change with the circumstances of the times (Hume), and declares "whether something is morally supportable should depend on whether it passes that test ['the ends justify the means'] in the specific circumstances of the day, rather than according to some timeless commandments" (Hume).

In his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln specifically points out the dissonance inherent in two factions each claiming God's favor for their diametrically opposed viewpoints. Lincoln seems to argue that neither side has a right to even ask for that favor and comes across as almost fatalistic, downplaying the concept of Free Will. He uses phrases such as "The Almighty has His own purposes" (Norton 1636), "through His appointed time" (1636), and "if God wills that it ['this mighty scourge of war'] continue" (1636). Lincoln even claims that the War itself is punishment from God "to both North and South... as the woe due to those by whom the offence [American slavery] came" (1636).

War is seen by many today to be of questionable morality, justified only in cases of self-defense or the necessary defense of another. Despite his belief that the War was God's punishment, Lincoln ultimately did not shy away from engaging in war, justifying it as the way to preserve the Union (self-defense) and end slavery (the necessary defense of another) (1636). This "great historic aim" (Trotsky) was ultimately considered by most to be worth the lives of the thousands of Americans who were killed.

The United States is engaged in military war on at least two fronts today. Many among us are bold to claim God's blessing on those efforts and invoke His aid against our opponents, just as both the North and the South did in the 19th century. The question of whether or not this war will ultimately prove to be God's punishment on us, or if we have our own "great historic aim" remains to be seen.

Addendum: The photo above is one of four photos of Lincoln's Second Inauguration discovered last year in the Library of Congress. The glass plates, which had been previously misidentified, were found by Carol Johnson, a curator of photography.

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Bartleby, the Scrivener; Bartleby, the Mirror

Michele Sharik
English 48A
Journal for Melville
September 27, 2009

"I prefer not to dine to-day," said Bartleby, turning away.... So saying he slowly moved to the other side of the inclosure, and took up a position fronting the dead-wall.

- Bartleby, the Scrivener

Melville, as he always does, began to reason of Providence and futurity, and of everything that lies beyond human ken, and informed me that he had "pretty much made up his mind to be annihilated"; but still he does not seem to rest in that anticipation; and, I think, will never rest until he gets hold of a definite belief.

-Nathaniel Hawthorne, Notebook Entry, November 20 1856



Herman Melville had cause to be depressed. Today, he is considered one of America's finest writers, but during his life, his work was largely unappreciated (despite some early successes and some international acclaim). In a letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne, Melville complained, "What I feel most moved to write, that is banned, -- it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot." (Norton 2305) The character of Bartleby seems to be an exploration of Melville's feelings of despair and despondency, an examination of the question, "What would happen if I stopped participating in life?"

This feeling of underappreciation seems to be fairly common in the arts. I have spent many years in the world of classical music - I even attended Conservatory many years ago. I have known many composers who complain that their work does not receive popular acclaim, while the work of others (viewed to be trite and formulaic) is lauded far and wide.

Just as Bartleby was employed in a relatively mindless job -- in that no creativity was allowed; in fact, one could see that creativity would have been detrimental to the position--, Melville was likewise stuck in a dull and dead-end job (as a deputy customs inspector in New York City (Norton 2307)). As the workdays dragged on and on with no end in sight, it's easy to imagine Melville feeling as if there was no point to life, as if it made no difference to the world whether he was alive or dead. Bartleby may very well have been a mirror into Melville's psyche, a window into his soul.

By letting Bartleby "prefer not to" participate in life, perhaps Melville was able to continue participating in his own.

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Fall Quarter 2009

After a whirlwind summer, Fall Quarter 2009 has started. I'm in the College Chorale at Foothill College again, and have begun a 2-year sequence of Ear Training classes at DeAnza College (the class is entitled "Musicianship" so I may refer to it that way from time to time), plus I'm taking 2 classes needed to complete an AA in Music at the end of this quarter. It won't be the end of my time at Community College - I have a few more classes to finish my California GE requirements - but it's an important landmark on my journey toward a Masters degree.

One of the classes is a 3-hour class on Monday evening, "Health Education". It doesn't seem to be all that hard; it's just going to be a matter of attending the classes & keeping up with the reading.

The other class is "Early American Literature (1492-1864)". We started with Lincoln and are working backward in time - I had to read Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" today.

That class meets every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, with readings due on each day. On Tuesdays & Thursdays, we are quizzed on the reading, and on Fridays we have an essay test tying the weekly readings all together. Also on Tuesdays & Thursday, we have to write a journal on the readings due that day. The professor (Dr. Lankford) prefers that they be done as blog entries, so that's what I'll be doing.

When you see those posts here, you may think, "What does this have to do with music or handbells?" and the answer is "It's a requirement for my degree." :-)

In addition to my classes, I'm also going to PT for my shoulder 2 or 3 times a week. Back on March 31, I had a SLAP repair, a Sub-Acromial Decompression, and a Capsulorraphy for a luggage injury I sustained last summer (I had to suddenly change directions with a heavy suitcase & tore my labrum cartilage). My arm was in a sling for 2 weeks. Even after a lot of physical therapy, I ended up with Adhesive Capsulitis (AKA Frozen Shoulder) and so had more surgery last week: an Arthroscopic Capsular Release with Lysis of Adhesions and a Manipulation Under Anaesthesia.

Sonos is going to Japan this December, for the sixth time. We just started rehearsals this weekend; I think we've got a really great group this year & am excited to go. I'll be doing the paperwork for our visas again, which is no fun, but has to be done.

And lastly, to top it all off, Brian got a new job - in San Diego. He starts on Thurs, Oct 1, and moves down there tomorrow (to an Extended Stay America apartment). I will follow in late December or early January - date still TBD. The ringers at my 2 churches took the news relatively well. I have a lot to do to transition to a new director at each place - inventory, library, etc.

Well, I have to write a journal entry about Herman Melville, so that's it for right now.

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RIP David Davidson

from his family:

At 6:37 am this morning our Dad took his last earthly breath and is no longer suffering. He is most likely already rehearsing a choir of Angels in Heaven. We will post more details as they are decided. Thank you all for your prayers. Jena & Chris

-Michèle (from my mobile phone)