As I have occasion to remark in my new book Moral Fire, moral passion is a phenomenon little glimpsed in public life nowadays, unless you happen to be a devotee of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Typically, moral passion as purveyed by politicians and the \u201cmedia\u201d is opportunistic and shallow, if not wholly counterfeit.<\/p>\n
My book celebrates practitioners of moral passion in late 19th century America, when it was more mattered than today. More specifically, I explore four individuals for whom the notion that culture \u2013 that is, music, literature, the visual arts \u2013 is morally uplifting was more than a Victorian canard.<\/p>\n
My first chapter remembers Henry Higginson, who invented, owned, and operated the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Higginson\u2019s belief that Beethoven made people more humane was profound and true \u2013 at least for Higginson himself. His concept of \u201cuseful citizenry\u201d was to amass a fortune so he could give it away for the betterment of the city of Boston. Though often misportrayed as a Brahmin snob, Higginson was not born to wealth. A cultural democrat, he set aside tickets for 25 cents \u2013 even in 1881 a modest sum \u2013 for all Boston Symphony concerts and public rehearsals. His friend Bliss Perry testified that \u201cto his true comrades,\u201d Higginson \u201cwas like a lover.\u201d This capacity for affection, for honest intimacy, pervades many a startling Higginson letter. His singular range of close acquaintances \u2013 from J. P. Morgan to Henry James, whom he called \u201cHarry\u201d \u2013 anchored the man and his heroic scope of achievement.<\/p>\n
Thanks of Boston\u2019s WGBH, I recently enjoyed an opportunity to talk about Higginson on the air for more than 20 minutes \u2013 an unhurried exchange with time enough for thought. Brian Bell, who is himself writing a history of the Boston Symphony, asked the big questions, including: Where in the arts are there individuals of such colossal personal vision today? And if we can\u2019t find any, what happened to them? <\/p>\n