Threading My Way: Twenty-Seven Years of Autobiography

PAPER I.
MY ANCESTORS.
A chance meeting.—David Dale.—The Campbell family.—The first Earl of Breadalbane.—A love match.—My grandmother Campbell.—industrial inventions since 1760.—David Dale and Richard Arkwright partners.— Their quarrel and its consequences.—Vast results from a simple con¬trivance.—Human automata.—New Lanark under David Dale.—His generosity.—His character and religion.—His idea of an “honest man.”— His funeral.—Rosebank and its strange glamour.—Early love in the “Beach Walk.”—Robert Owen.—Maintained himself from the age of ten. —His early life.—Manager of a large factory at twenty.—Connection with Robert Fulton.—His courtship and marriage, .	.	. 1-34
PAPER II.
BOY-LIFE IN A SCOTTISH COUNTRY-SEAT.
The infant culprit’s first lesson.—James Dunn’s self-immolation, rascally Sandy’s sins and Miss Wilson’s fate.—Repentance.—Narrow escape from death.—Effect of a wineglassful of praise.—Seeing with a neighbour’s eyes.—Early reading.—Wallace’s cave.—The shield of Ajax.—Unsuccessful endeavour to convert my father.—Efficacy of prayer.—Novel reading on Sunday.—Effect of over-zealous teachings.—A confession.—The old enigma.—Become a Universalist, .....	35-65
PAPER III.
ROBERT OWEN AT NEW LANARK.
His ruling passion and earnest convictions.—An over-hospitable host.— Intemperance weeded out at New Lanark.—Other reforms.—Two tres¬passers caught.—Practical Christianity.—Lancaster’s school system.— Essays on Formation of Character.—New partnerships.—The martyr to leisure.—Robert Owen’s three propositions.—They are too sweeping.— His success in business.—New Lanark at auction.—Public demonstrations when Owen bought it in.—Quaker ideas of falsehood.—A Scotch dancing master.—Owen the founder of Infant Schools, .	66-91
PAPER IV.
AT BRAXFIELD AND IN LONDON.
Early literary pretensions.—Aunt Mary’s suitor.—Young Edgeworth.— Reading during boyhood.—Fox hunting.—Clerical profanity.—A “ deevil of a tumble.”—Severe nervous illness.—The toujours perdrix plan a failure. —Collecting statistics touching factory labour.—Bill to restrict hours of child labour in factories.—The factory girl’s last day.—A night with Thomas Clarkson.—His interview with William Pitt.—The power of authentic facts.—What I owe to Clarkson.—Narrow escape from a young lion.—Music and dancing at New Lanark.—Visit of Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia to Robert Owen.—His early tendencies.—My mother grudges her nice forks and spoons.—William Sheddon, .	.92-120
PAPER V.
EMANUEL VON FELLENBERG AND HIS SELF-GOVERNING COLLEGE.
Domestic education.—Charles Pictet.—Sent to Hofwyl, a Swiss College.— Carl Bressler and the dog.—A marvellous life in a little Republic.—A triumph in self-government.—Two modes of ruling youth.—Constitution and laws at Hofwyl: how they worked.—No electioneering.—Moral government.—Court of Justice.—Two princely culprits take to flight.— Emanuel von Fellenberg.—The Nelson of Holland his ancestor.—His industrial school.—Ranks and titles ignored at Hofwyl. — Complete religious toleration.—No duels or boxing.—A lesson to Prince Alexander of Würtemberg.—Austrian students recalled by their Emperor.—Course of study.—A numerous faculty. —Hippolite de Saussure.—Our fencing-master and his visitor.—Our annual Excursions on foot throughout Swit¬zerland and into Italy.—The Simplon.—Lakes Maggiore, Lugano, Como.— Carlo Borromeo: ascension into the head of his colossal statue. —Charm of these excursions.—Met our quondam Master of the Goats in Naples.— I owe to my life at Hofwyl an abiding faith in human virtue and social progress, ........ 121-149
PAPER VI.
A GERMAN BARON AND ENGLISH REFORMERS.
Departure from Hofwyl and a pleasant reminiscence from my College life.— Down the Rhine.—Dannecker’s studio and colossal statue of Christ.— Luxury of lazily floating past scenery which, with its romantic accessories, is hardly equalled in the world.—Desolation caused by French rule.— Spires, Mannheim, Coblentz.—Visit to Baron von Münchhausen.—His charming daughters.—A family banquet “unter den Linden.”—The Baron’s patriarchal kindness to dependants.—Hamburg.—A Scotchman mistaken for a Hanoverian.—Dangers of a tempestuous voyage.—Robert Owen’s waning popularity.—His early successes and later mistakes.— Meetings at the City of London Tavern.—Sweeping denunciation of all religions.—Loses caste with the upper classes, but retains his influence over the people.—My first book.—It procures me an introduction to Jeremy Bentham.—Invitation to his symposium.—A utilitarian philosopher at seventy-eight.—John Neal and Henry Brougham.—William Godwin at seventy.—Portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft.—Left manager at New Lanark,	150-181
PAPER VII.
EDUCATING A WIFE.
Society at Braxfield.—Two dashing Milesians.—Lord Edward Fitzgerald and his daughters —Sir Guy Campbell falls in love.—Jessie.—Her beauty and grace.—What made me a regular church-goer.—Anne Owen.—Her letter to my father favourably answered.—Jessie’s progress at Braxfield.—I narrowly escape detection.—To love or to be loved, which is best ?—Sequel to my experiment.—A mother’s counsel followed, and with what result.— A marriage and a meeting in after years.—Parting.—Two Irish love stories. —Mr. Becher and Miss O’Neill.—Love no respecter of ages,	. 182-208
PAPER VIII.
THE SOCIAL EXPERIMENT AT NEW HARMONY.
George Rapp and associates.—Their pecuniary success.—Robert Owen pur¬chases from them New Harmony.—The village as he found it.—The Labyrinth.—Social cost, to Rapp’s disciples, of their wealth.—Economical condition of England half a century ago.—Her labour-saving machinery equal to twice the manual labour-power of the World.—What result from this?—English labourer paid but half as much now as he received five hundred years ago.—The Great Problem looms up.—My father’s solution of it: partly just; partly now on trial in England; partly impracticable at present.—Progress of co-operation in Great Britain.—Thomas Hughes.— Fifth annual co-operative Congress.—Successful results.—A thousand co¬operative stores, doing an annual business of more than fifty millions.— Co-operative manufactories.—Preliminary society at New Harmony.—My father’s reception in the United States.—I emigrate to America.—Garcia, the great singer; his son and daughters.—Our captain ruler in his own ship: peace restored.—The green Page of Nature.—Captain M’Donald gets a shock.—Distinguished emigrants to New Harmony.—Rice a hunter of the leather-stocking school, . 209-238
PAPER IX.
MY EXPERIENCE OF COMMUNITY LIFE.
I come to a hasty conclusion.—The element of Time in human progress.— Would leisure, for three-fourths of each day, be a blessing to the Labourer? —Thomas Hughes’ opinion that Co-operation will create a New Type of Working-men.—Cost of bad materials and poor workmanship.—The B. yarn.—Great charm in community life under reputable circumstances.— Hard and dusty work.—Sundry mishaps and a success.—How Ben was managed.—A relic of barbarism in a London school.—A happy life, free from doubts.—An Old Man inviting death by Lightning.—A wrong-headed Genius, and a genial old Soldier.—Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. —Forma¬tion of community premature.—A lifting of the curtain.—Various changes and unfavourable symptoms.—Failure.—Causes which led to it.—Invest¬ments and Loses at Harmony.—A grave Mistake as to money, yet better than the opposite extreme. — Frances Wright: her character. — The Nashoba enterprise, ...... 239-267
PAPER X.
FRANCES WRIGHT, GENERAL LAFAYETTE AND MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
SHELLEY.
Deed of trust of Nashoba.—I become one of the trustees.—The outlook unpromising.—Frances Wright’s illness.—Cross the Atlantic.—Paris in 1827.—Contempt for the King.—The Camelopard.—Pasquinades and caricatures.—General Lafayette: I accompany him to Lagrange: a week there.—He relates an anecdote of Washington.—His opinion of Solitary Confinement as a punishment, and of the causes of failure of the French Revolution. — Its excesses fomented by British government. — Louis Philippe fails to keep faith.—Nathalie de Lafayette and Ary Scheffer.— Singular phase of French life.—Mating of Purses, not of Hearts.—What can one expect for a hundred francs?—Hair-dressing “in the Colonies.”— An applewoman’s politeness.—Mary Shelley: her character and person: not an ultra Reformer.—Her husband’s later views of Christianity.—Her influence, for good, over him, ..... 268-296
PAPER XI.
INTERESTING PEOPLE WHOM I MET IN LONDON.
Growth of a new-born hypothesis.—Dr. Spurzheim: his candour and modesty.—I become a partial convert to his theory.—Chart of my cranial developments, as given by Spurzheim, compared with that furnished by De Ville.—Were they right as to Causality and Marvellousness?—The Rev. Edward Irving: the most popular Preacher of his day.—His personal appearance, strange gestures and weird aspect.—His eloquent Sermon before the World of Fashion, contrasting the true marriage of the soul with mercenary espousals.—Forfeits his popularity.—Spiritual manifesta¬tion and unknown tongues: according to Baden Powell, a genuine, but not a miraculous, phenomenon.—The Hills, of Birmingham.—Sir Rowland, originator of penny postage.—Unlike many other inventions, an unmixed good to poor as well as rich.—Robert Owen’s native town, where “rural mirth and manners are no more.”—Gainers or losers?—Miss Landon: a riddle to her friends.—How she appeared to me. —Her wedding breakfast, and her death.—George and Abram Combe, Pickersgill, James Mill.— My estimate of the English character.—Its noble elements and its short¬comings.—What “breeds hard English men.”—The nobility: Lord Bal- carres and Arnold.—A tale of four Oxford students, .	. 297-323
PAPER XII.
I become a permanent resident of the United States, where I must needs intermeddle, in the way of Reform.—But here ends the First Portion of my life; its tentative Years, in which I was threading my way.—Much important moral and spiritual Knowledge, underlying human Civilization, then a sealed book to me.—My future life destined to be a public one, active and stirring, ....... 324, 325