“THE RELIGION OF BEATRIX POTTER”

A sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear

Sunday, March 9, 2008

All Souls Unitarian Church

Indianapolis, Indiana

Beatrix Potter. Writer and illustrator of young children’s books. The Tales of Peter Rabbit. We all know that part of it. Some of us may know she had a cameo appearance in the long history of Unitarianism. Is there more about Beatrix Potter?

I approach my work with certain premises. One premise is that everyone’s life is interesting. I’ve found that to be true of everyone I’ve met face to face, and everyone I’ve met in history books. A corollary premise is that every life teaches lessons. Again, true in life today, true for historical figures.

This is one reason I enjoy preparing biographical sermons. I’ve never been disappointed in learning from, as well as about, any person. Sometimes I pick a name with just a little bit of trepidation. What if there’s not much more of the story than, well, the story we know? What if there are no other lessons to unearth?

Though it has never happened, I confess I thought it might happen with Beatrix Potter. It turns out not only that I was far, far off in my fears, but that Beatrix Potter confirms my premise about people’s stories better than I could have imagined. Her reputation is strong, but only in the narrow field of children’s books. In fact, her life is a pillar of lessons to be learned.

Beatrix Potter was born in London in 1866, the daughter of Rupert and Helen Potter, both parents coming from wealthy families around London. As was the custom for families of that status and in that era, Beatrix was raised and educated at home through a series of nannies, and her younger brother would be sent off to boarding school. Still, Beatrix’s education was thorough, learning classical subjects and becoming adept at several languages. When she reached the age of young adulthood, she remained for some years living at home and managing the household, mostly because that was what her parents expected.

Aside from the family social status, one of the more unusual parts of her childhood was her attraction to the natural world, and especially to animals. From her early childhood, she always had pets around her. Her biographer describes her home environment this way:

“The third floor nursery menagerie included, at various times, rabbits (Benjamin, Bouncer, and Peter), a green frog called Punch, several lizards, including Judy who was a special favourite, water newts, a tortoise, a frog, salamanders, many and different varieties of mice, a ring snake, several bats, a canary and a green (budgie), a wild duck, a family of snails, several guinea pigs and later a hedgehog or two.” (Lear, p. 38)

It wasn’t just the animals that she loved; it was really all of nature. The family spent each summer in the countryside, for the first part of her childhood in Scotland, but later on the Northwest coast of England, known as the “Lake District.” It was there especially that she would spend countless hours as a girl and young adult exploring not just the hills and lakes, but in minute detail the various species of plants and animals that filled the countryside. It was also there, in the Lake District, on an established and working farm, that she would remain for almost all of her adult life.

Religion played an important part in shaping the character of Beatrix Potter. Her religious orientation was fairly simple – but there are also layers of complexity worthy of note. To begin with, it must be mentioned of course that she was born and raised an English Unitarian. That explains both the simplicity and the complexity of her views. I’ll begin with the simple part.

In a way, it’s easy to paraphrase the religion of Beatrix Potter. She put it in a few concise words in her personal journals at age 18. It can be captured in the last few words of a paragraph she wrote about religion: “behave yourself, and never mind the rest (about religion).” To be a little more precise, the full sentence should be cited: “(I) believe there is a great power silently working all things for good; behave yourself, and never mind the rest.” Or, if you want the whole context of these thoughts, they emerge from her fervent anti-creedalism inspired by her Unitarian background. Here is the entire paragraph from her journal:

“All outward forms of religion are almost useless, and are the cause of endless strife. What do Creeds matter, what possible difference does it make to anyone today whether the doctrine of the resurrection is correct or incorrect, or the miracles, they don’t happen nowadays, but very queer things do that concern us much more. (I) believe there is a great power silently working all things for good; behave yourself and never mind the rest.”

It might help to understand some things about English Unitarianism in those days. In a country where the Church of England (the Anglican Church) was woven into the national government, minority religions were “tolerated,” in the patronizing meaning of that word. They were allowed to exist, but that was about it. They were given neither equal status nor respect. Unitarian congregations met in “chapels,” because only Anglicans were allowed to call their places of worship “churches.” Weddings were recognized officially only if they were held in Anglican churches. And of course taxes were collected to support the official church, and other religious groups were on their own.

There was a wide range of what was called “Dissenting” religions, including Calvinist and Presbyterian, Quakers, and Baptists. Unitarians were one of the smaller dissenting groups. Since these groups wouldn’t submit to the established authority of society, they often represented the lower social status. Unitarians were an exception. In general, Unitarians were highly educated – they had their own college in Manchester – and as businessmen they were highly successful. Charles Darwin, for example, married into an English Unitarian family named Wedgwood, as in “Wedgwood china,” still a name of quality and success in that business.

Beatrix Potter was raised within this environment. She was at least a third-generation Unitarian on both sides of her family, and she was aware of how that defined her status in the world. Both paternal and maternal grandfathers were wealthy entrepreneurs. Her mother’s father, John Leech, was in the international mercantile business, and long active in Unitarian causes. Her father’s father, Edmund Potter, built a successful textile mill, but later went into politics. He became a popular member of Parliament among the more liberal and radical political factions. He would also serve as president of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association.

Though her maternal grandfather died before she could know him, Beatrix was close to the remaining grandparents and spent much time at their homes.

On the surface, Beatrix’s parents seemed much like her grandparents – affluent and actively involved in the Unitarian community. Her father Rupert was a lawyer, though their wealth came more from inheritance than from work. Yet she always felt her parents to be somewhat aloof, and her mother especially to be overly conscious of social status. In some sense, the Unitarian affiliation seemed a handicap for her mother, since it kept them from blending completely into some of the fashionable circles of London society. And though her father Rupert as a young man shared his family’s more radical political views of the Liberal party, he moved through his lifetime closer to the establishment views of the Tory party.

In many ways Beatrix’s life more closely resembled the path of her grandparents than her own parents. She cared little for social status, and felt her parents cared too much about such matters. In a similar way, she was critical of the Unitarianism she experienced in London, and felt the congregations there were too formal, and trying to appear acceptable in the eyes of the established (Anglican) church. Her spirit, like that of her grandparents, was more radical, and she thought the Unitarians shouldn’t be so afraid to be different. As she traveled, she felt comfortable in Quaker services as well.

While her identity with Unitarianism remained important, she was not uncritical. At about age 30, she wrote this in her journal:

“I shall always call myself a Unitarian because of my father and grandmother, but for the Unitarians as a Dissenting body, as I have known them in London, I have no respect. Their creed is apt to be a timid, illogical compromise, and their forms of Service, a badly performed imitation of the Church.”

Despite her critique, it is easy to see the influence of the Unitarian spirit in her approach to life. Her biographer describes it this way:

“The Dissenting tradition of Unitarianism did, however, have certain advantages. From it Beatrix acquired an inner self-reliance, a distinctly pragmatic approach to life, and a tendency towards rebelliousness. From childhood on she exhibited a reticence toward dogma and an aversion to creeds of any sort. The culture of Unitarianism contributed to her compatibility with the ‘application of reason’ as a method of intellectual inquiry. The Unitarian emphasis on the sanctity of the individual conscience, the importance of rational discussion and the application of science as a legitimate means of social improvement indelibly influenced her.” (Lear, p. 41)

The comment concerning respect for science is illustrated by a particularly telling episode in her life. Beatrix Potter was a naturalist, in the sense of being a student of nature and wanting to explore it, understand it. She was hungry for knowledge. She pursued an amateur interest in archeology, astronomy, entomology, and natural history.

Her most serious efforts, though, were in the field of mytology – the study of fungus and lichens. She collected hundreds of samples and studied them under a microscope. Based on her microscopic observations, she made drawings of different species of fungi – like the hundreds of other nature drawings she had done of animals and plants. Eventually she made over two hundred drawings. At the time, there were was no way of photographing such tiny objects, and drawings were all people had. She read everything she could find on the topic, and persuaded her scientist uncle to get her a pass to do research in the Royal Botanic Gardens, the heart of English botanical science. There she traded ideas with George Massee, a leading expert on mytology.

In the course of her study, Beatrix came up with a somewhat original and even controversial hypothesis about lichens. She suggested that lichens were the product of a symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae.

Symbiosis is the biological phenomenon that two (or more) organisms depend on each other for their own survival. Lichens, she suggested, were two separate organisms living together as one. She came to learn that one other scientist, a Swiss botanist by the name of Simon Schwendener, had previously advanced this theory about lichens, but his ideas were widely rejected throughout the scientific establishment, and his name in that narrow field of study, was treated with derision. Beatrix believed that her research was original enough to finally establish the theory, and she devoted herself to preparing a scientific paper to prove it. In 1897, the paper was complete. It’s title: “On the Germination of the Spores of Agarincieae.” Her renowned uncle, Sir Henry Roscoe, was deeply impressed, and used his influence for the paper to be read at a distinguished scientific gathering, the Linnean Society of London. This was the body before which Charles Darwin first publicly expressed his ideas on evolution.

The main obstacle was that the Linnean Society did not admit women, nor even allow women to attend or address their meetings. There were no exceptions. Therefore, Beatrix’s Uncle Henry agreed to have it read to the Society by one of its members, George Massee.

It was not well accepted. For one thing it was too close to the theory already rejected from the Swiss botanist. For another thing, it was proposed by a woman, an amateur scientist, and not a fellow of the Society. Her Uncle Henry was highly offended, but Beatrix took the rejection with some dignity, and her forays into the scientific establishment came to an end. She would continue to go about her own studies for her own edification, but not for a place in scientific history.

Scientific history, by the way, eventually came around to her point of view. In due course, her theory of the symbiosis of lichen became universally adopted. A century later, in 1997, the Linnean Society issued a formal apology for its actions against her, not just for their excluding her as a woman, but for not considering with seriousness her scientific paper. Her biographer offers this summary:

“Time has been far kinder to Beatrix’s scientific efforts than her contemporaries were. When she tied up her portfolios of fungi paintings with ribbons many years later, she could not have known that her conclusions about the symbiotic nature of lichens and the hybridization of fungi would later be proved and accepted. Nor could she imagine that her watercolours are considered so accurate that modern mycologists refer to them still to identify fungi. Her ephemeral hope that her drawings might some day illustrate a book by an expert mycologist was realized in 1967 when W.P.K. Findlay, a past president of the British Mycological Society, used fifty-nine of them in his volume for the ‘Wayside and Woodland; series of natural history. No doubt it would have pleased her, but it was, as she feared it might be, a dull book to all but experts.” (Lear, p. 127)

One observation about this entire process should not be lost in the context of Beatrix Potter and religion. Symbiosis may in fact be a technical biological theory, but it can also be used as a profound metaphor of religious insight. In the list of Principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Seventh Principle speaks to our “respect for the interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part.” Symbiosis takes the metaphor of life’s interdependence into a real world example. Symbiosis is, in fact, the actual interdependence of nature.

It is my belief that this insight of interdependence is perhaps the greatest intellectual and ethical step of progress for humanity since the idea of democracy. It is the foundation for our efforts to protect the environment. It is the foundation for our efforts to establish world community and cooperation among cultures. It is the foundation of our best vision for the future of this planet. I am not suggesting that Beatrix Potter used symbiosis as a model for religious metaphor, she did not. But I am saying that her idea provided some grounding for that metaphor, something which we could not see or understand until this generation.

Soon after this, Beatrix Potter became, well, “Beatrix Potter,” the children’s book author and illustrator. Writing and drawing were her passions. By this time she had developed the practice of what she called “picture letters.” She would write a letter to someone and draw pictures within the text illustrating what she was describing. Her first and most popular book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, was not written as a book, but as a picture letter she wrote for a child, Noel Moore, the son of a friend of hers. Upon learning that young Noel was sick and staying at home, Beatrix wrote the boy a letter, and began with this sentence:

“I don’t know what to write to you, so I shall tell you a story about four little rabbits whose names were – Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter.”

At some point, it was suggested that she turn those “picture letter” stories into books for children. This part of the story of Beatrix Potter is more familiar, and I’ll not give much detail, other than the fact that she was successful far beyond anyone’s expectations, became independently wealthy of her own means, and was able to separate herself from her family and begin living the life of her own wishes. Also in this story is the romantic drama of falling in love with her publisher, Norman Warne, becoming engaged, having her mother disapprove because of Mr. Warne’s status as a mere book publisher, the battle between Beatrix and her parents over this issue, and Mr. Warne’s unfortunate and untimely death before they could marry. After living on her own for some years on her farm, she met and married William Heelis, a local lawyer, and the marriage and the rest of her personal life was happy.

I call it a romantic drama not only because it is, but because it became the subject of a popular movie in 2006 called “Miss Potter,” starring Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor.

With her newfound wealth, and following the death of her fiancé, Beatrix Potter returned to the Lake District that she loved so much during her childhood summers, and bought a farm. And bought another farm. And bought up more and more farmlands. Her intent was to keep the land she loved so much pure and protected from would-be developers.

But she also loved farming. This was the calling of life she answered with her deepest passion. She especially enjoyed raising sheep, and focused on a rare breed of sheep known as Herdwick. She became a fixture in the community, humble, and hidden away from celebrity.

Her biographer gave this description of Beatrix Potter, the farmer and countrywoman:

“Beatrix was a difficult woman for some traditionally raised women to relate to. She was socially indifferent, even eccentric. She cared little for fashion or society. She was also very wealthy, a woman of substantial property . . . . and a writer and artist who was earnestly making herself into a countrywoman. She dressed as a farmer and could be found walking to and from the ferry, dressed in a practical, workmanlike way, happier caring for her farm animals, working in the garden, reviewing livestock at the local agricultural shows, than offering tea. As village gossip had it, sometime before her engagement to William Heelis, (the wife of William’s business partner) once met Beatrix on the Kendal road ‘with patterns on her feet a shawl over her head carrying a butter basket with flowers in it, looking just like a simple woman from the village. She was astonished to learn that she had just met ‘Miss Beatrix Potter.’”

In a 1916 letter to a woman inquiring about her life on the farm, Beatrix gave this description:

“I have farmed my own land for 10 years as a business . . . . I have poultry, orchard, flower garden, vegetables. . . . I don’t go out much, haven’t time; & the little town seems nothing but gossip and cards. I’m afraid our own special sin is not attending church regularly; not loving the nearest parson; & I was brought up a dissenter.”

A brief comment on that last remark. When, as a child, Beatrix Potter spent summers in this Lake District, there were no Unitarian or other dissenting churches in the region. However, the family made friends with the local Anglican vicar, a liberal thinking priest by the properly British name of Hardwicke Rawnsley, whose church was across the street. Rawnsley was familiar with Unitarians, having worked for a while in the slums of London with a Unitarian social activist named Octavia Hill.

The Potters in general, and Beatrix in particular, became quite close to Rev. Rawnsley. During his tenure in the Lake District, Rawnsley worked intensely for the preservation and protection of lands. In 1883, he founded the Lake District Defense Society, and later (in 1895) was instrumental in founding a larger conservation group called the “National Trust for Places of Historic Interest and National Beauty.” This organization was devoted, like our “Nature Conservancy,” to the protection of natural lands against developments. Beginning from her youth, Beatrix looked to Rawnsely as her mentor in devotion to the protection of nature.

When Beatrix Potter died in 1943, at the age of 77, her estate willed over 4000 acres of land to the National Trust. This gift was dramatic evidence of her life-long commitment to conservation and love of nature.

Beatrix Potter spent most of her adult life as a farmer, tending the land and especially raising Herwick sheep. Not long before she died, Beatrix Potter was elected president of the Lake District Herwick Sheep Breeders Association, the first woman to serve in that role. Something tells me that looking back on her life, Beatrix Potter viewed that honor as infinitely more distinguished than if she had been accepted in 1897 as a fellow of London’s Linnean Society of scientists.

The name Beatrix Potter will always be associated with her authorship of almost two dozen children’s books with illustrations, the best known of which is The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Her contribution to our world, however, extends far beyond that. In her life she made a contribution to science, particularly in a field of biology known as mycology, but her worked wasn’t acknowledged until long after her death. She made a contribution to the cause of environmentalism and conservation, leaving a vast gift of unspoiled countryside to her country’s registry of national land trusts. And in her work with nature, she also left a gift to the Unitarian tradition as well – a legacy that, like her gift to science, is too often overlooked.

She showed us in real life that the “interdependent web of nature” is more than just a metaphor.

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READING FROM:

“Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature” by Linda Lear © 2007

“What made Beatrix Potter Heelis so good at farming and property management seems less a matter of genes than of character. Certainly her shrewdness and flexibility in business dealings and her determination to resolve problems were qualities inherited from her Potter grandparents, but her character had been toughened by battle and honed by first-hand experience in nature. She had the necessary qualifications for doing exactly what she found herself doing at the age of 64. She had a pragmatic understanding of the seasonal variability of climate and a deep appreciation of the fragile fell farm environment, but she also retained a romantic’s love of both inclement weather and the rugged landscape. She had a quiet acceptance that things will quite often go wrong, yet she had a remarkable patience and optimism. Loving the natural world as she did, Beatrix had long ago accepted that nature was wild, cruel, and endlessly beautiful.” (p. 366)