A reader has objected to my description last week of Henry James Sr. (1811-82) as a “noted crackpot.” I intended no disparagement. Some crackpots are perfectly harmless and even charming, and by all accounts the elder James was a benign father, husband and aspiring philosopher. He literally meant no harm.
The father of Henry Jr., William and three other children was a follower of Emanuel
Swedenborg, the noted Swedish crackpot who spawned an enormous worldwide
following in the nineteenth century. The OED
defines crackpot as “a crack-brain, a
crazy creature, a crank.” The earliest recorded usage is 1883, so you’ll find only crack-brained in Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary: “crazy; without right
reason.” That seems too strong. I understand crackpot to be a close synonym of eccentric. A crackpot is an obsessive when it comes to his pet
ideas but is unlikely to be a fanatic eager to impose those ideas on others.
Hitler may have started out as just another crackpot but evolved into something
else. Gail White in “Crackpots” (Easy Marks,
2008) neatly illustrates the type:
“I have a
friend who wants to restore the Czar.
Seriously.
As if this burst of love
would turn
the empty streets of Petersburg
into a set
for Boris Godunov.
“He thinks a
royalist Russia would delight
in
festivals, would never drop the bomb.
And you can
find him on the internet
at getaczar
dot com.
“How to
protect my friend, who might have been
a national
treasure once, almost a saint?
I only wish
there were an NEA
with grants
for the incorrigibly quaint,
“or Shelters
for the Harmlessly Obsessed
(unworldly,
therefore not completely sane).
Without its
nest, the Great or Common Crackpot
may never
breed again.”
You find Swedenborg under a lot of rocks in 19th century American literary culture. He seems an obvious crank to us, and his religious tenets, including his self-deification, would seem to exclude him from serious consideration by intelligent people. But he had many gifted followers. Warren Austin's biography "The Elder Henry James" shows how, despite the Swedenborgian "vastation", Henry James, Sr., was a complex and endearing figure - and when we consider the children he produced, you have to wonder if there was some special quality, peculiar to the Swedenborg cult, that evades our 21st Century eye.
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