The twofold impression which Margaret made is to be remarked in this matter of the conversations, as elsewhere. Without the fold of her admirers stood carping, unkind critics; within were enthusiastic and grateful friends.
The first meeting of Margaret's Conversation Class was held at Miss Peabody's rooms, in West Street, Boston, on the 6th of November, 1839.[106]Twenty-five ladies were present, who showed themselves to be of the elect by their own election of a noble aim. These were all ladies of superior position, gathered by a common interest from very various belongings of creed and persuasion. At this, their first coming together, Margaret prefaced her programme by some remarks on the deficiencies in the education given to women, defects which she thought that later study, aided by the stimulus of mutual endeavor and interchange of thought, might do much to remedy. Her opening remarks are as instructive to-day as they were when she uttered them:—
"Women are now taught, at school, all that men are. They run over, superficially, evenmorestudies, without being really taught anything. But with this difference: men are called on, from a very early period, to reproduce all that they learn. Their college exercises, their political duties, their professional studies, the first actions of life in any direction, call on them to put to use what they have learned. But women learn without any attempt to reproduce. Their only reproduction is for purposes of display. It is to supply this defect that these conversations have been planned."
Margaret had chosen the Greek Mythology for the subject of her first conversations. Her reasons for this selection are worth remembering:—[107]
"It is quite separated from all exciting local subjects. It is serious without being solemn, and without excluding any mode of intellectual action; it is playful as well as deep. It is sufficiently wide, for it is a complete expression of the cultivation of a nation. It is also generally known, and associated with all our ideas of the arts."
In considering this statement it is not difficult for us at this day to read, as people say, between the lines. The religious world of Margaret's youth was agitated by oppositions which rent asunder the heart of Christendom. Margaret wished to lead her pupils beyond all discord, into the high and happy unity. Her own nature was both fervent and religious, but she could not accept intolerance either in belief or in disbelief. To study with her friends the ethics of an ancient faith, too remote to become the occasion of personal excitement, seemed to her a step in the direction of freer thought and a more unbiassed criticism. The Greek mythology, instinct with the genius of a wonderful people, afforded her the desired theme. With its help she would introduce her pupils to a sphere of serenest contemplation, in which Religion and Beauty had become wedded through immortal types.
Margaret was not able to do this without[108]awakening some orthodox suspicion. This she knew how to allay; for when one of the class demurred at the supposition that a Christian nation could have anything to envy in the religion of a heathen one, Margaret said that she had no desire to go back, and believed we have the elements of a deeper civilization; yet the Christian was in its infancy, the Greek in its maturity, nor could she look on the expression of a great nation's intellect as insignificant. These fables of the gods were the result of the universal sentiments of religion, aspiration, intellectual action, of a people whose political and æsthetic life had become immortal.
Margaret's good hopes were justified by the success of her undertaking. The value of what she had to impart was felt by her class from the first. It was not received in a passive and compliant manner, but with the earnest questioning which she had wished to awaken, and which she was so well able both to promote and to satisfy.
In the first of her conversations ten of the twenty-five persons present took part, and this number continued to increase in later meetings. Some of these ladies had been bred in the ways of liberal thought, some held fast to the formal limits of the old theology. The extremes of bigotry and scepticism were probably not unrepresented[109]among them. From these differences and dissidences Margaret was able to combine the elements of a wider agreement. A common ground of interest was found in the range of topics presented by her, and in her manner of presenting them. The enlargement of a new sympathy was made to modify the intense and narrow interests in which women, as a class, are apt to abide.
Margaret's journal and letters to friends give some accounts of the first meetings. She finds her circle, from the start, devoutly thoughtful, and feels herself, not "a paid Corinne," but a teacher and a guide. The bright minds respond to her appeal, as half-kindled coals glow beneath a strong and sudden breath. The present, always arid if exclusively dwelt in, is enriched by the treasures of the past and animated by the great hopes of the future.
Reports from some of Margaret's hearers show us how she appeared to them:—
"All was said with the most captivating address and grace, and with beautiful modesty. The position in which she placed herself with respect to the rest was entirely lady-like and companionable."
Another writer finds in theséance"the charm of a Platonic dialogue," without pretension or pedantry. Margaret, in her chair of leadership,[110]appeared positively beautiful in her intelligent enthusiasm. Even her dress was glorified by this influence, and is spoken of as sumptuous, although it is known to have been characterized by no display or attempted effect.
In Margaret's plan the personages of the Greek Olympus were considered as types of various aspects of human character. Prometheus became the embodiment of pure reason. Jupiter stood for active, Juno for passive will, the one representing insistence, the other resistance. Minerva pictured the practical power of the intellect. Apollo became the symbol of genius, Bacchus that of geniality. Venus was instinctive womanhood, and also a type of the Beautiful, to the consideration of which four conversations were devoted. In a fifth, Margaret related the story of Cupid and Psyche in a manner which indelibly impressed itself upon the minds of her hearers. Other conversations presented Neptune as circumstance, Pluto as the abyss of the undeveloped, Pan as the glow and play of nature, etc. Thus in picturesque guise the great questions of life and of character were passed in review. A fresh and fearless analysis of human conditions showed, as a discovery, the grandeur and beauty of man's spiritual inheritance. All were cheered and uplifted by this new outlook, sharing for the time and perhaps[111]thenceforth what Mr. Emerson calls "the steady elevation of Margaret's aim."
These occasions, so highly prized and enjoyed, sometimes brought to Margaret their penalty in the shape of severe nervous headache. During one of these attacks a friend expressed anxiety lest she should continue to suffer in this way. Margaret replied: "I feel just now such a separation from pain and illness, such a consciousness of true life while suffering most, that pain has no effect but to steal some of my time."
In accordance with the urgent desire of the class the conversations were renewed at the beginning of the following winter, Margaret having in the mean time profited by a season of especial retirement which was not without influence upon her plan of thought and of life. From this interval of religious contemplation she returned to her labors with the feeling of a new power. In opening the first meeting of this second series, on November 22, 1840, Margaret spoke of great changes which had taken place in her way of thinking. These were of so deep and sacred a character that she could only give them a partial expression, which, however, sufficed to touch her hearers deeply. "They all, with glistening eyes, seemed melted into one love." Hearts were kindled by her utterance to[112]one enthusiasm of sympathy which set out of sight the possibility of future estrangement.
In the conversations of this winter (1840-41) the fine arts held a prominent place.
Margaret stated, at the beginning, that the poetry of life would be found in the advance "from objects to law, from the circumference of being, where we found ourselves at our birth, to the centre." This poetry was "the only path of the true soul," life's prose being the deviation from this ideal way. The fine arts she considered a compensation for this prose, which appeared to her inevitable. The beauties which life could not embody might be expressed in stone, upon canvas, or in music and verse. She did not permit the search for the beautiful to transcend the limits of our social and personal duties. The pursuit of æsthetic pleasure might lead us to fail in attaining the higher beauty. A poetic life was not the life of adilettante.
Of sculpture and music she had much to say, placing them above all other arts. Painting appeared to her inferior to sculpture, because it represented a greater variety of objects, and thus involved more prose. Several conversations were, nevertheless, devoted to Painting, and the conclusion was reached that color was consecrate to passion and sculpture to thought; while yet in some sculptures, like the Niobe,[113]for example, feeling was recognized, but on a grand, universal scale.
The question, "What is life?" occupied one meeting, and brought out many differences of view, which Margaret at last took up into a higher ground, beginning with God as the eternally loving and creating life, and recognizing in human nature a kindred power of love and of creation, through the exercise of which we also add constantly to the total sum of existence, and, leaving behind us ignorance and sin, become godlike in the ability to give, as well as to receive, happiness.
With the work of this winter was combined a series of evening meetings, five in number, to which gentlemen were admitted. Mr. Emerson was present at the second of these, and reports it as having been somewhat encumbered "by the headiness or incapacity of the men," who, as he observes, had not been trained in Margaret's method.
Another chronicler, for whose truth Mr. Emerson vouches, speaks of the plan of these five evenings as a very noble one. They were spoken of as Evenings of Mythology, and Margaret, in devising them, had relied upon the more thorough classical education of the gentlemen to supplement her own knowledge, acquired in a less systematic way. In this hope she was disappointed.[114]The new-comers did not bring with them an erudition equal to hers, nor yet any helpful suggestion of ideas. The friend whom we now quote is so much impressed by Margaret's power as to say: "I cannot conceive of any species of vanity living in her presence. She distances all who talk with her." Even Mr. Emerson served only to display her powers, his uncompromising idealism seeming narrow and hard when contrasted with her glowing realism. "She proceeds in her search after the unity of things, the divine harmony, not by exclusion, as Mr. Emerson does, but by comprehension, and so no poorest, saddest spirit but she will lead to hope and faith."
Margaret's classes continued through six winters. The number of those present varied from twenty-five to thirty. In 1841-42 the general subject was Ethics, under which head the Family, the School, the Church, Society, and Literature were all discussed, and with a special reference to "the influences on woman." In the winter next after this, we have notes of the following topics: Is the Ideal first or last, Divination or Experience? Persons who never awake to Life in this World; Mistakes; Faith; Creeds; Woman; Demonology; Influence; Roman Catholicism; The Ideal.
In the season of 1843-44, a number of themes[115]were considered under the general head of Education. Among these were Culture, Ignorance, Vanity, Prudence, and Patience.
These happy labors came to an end in April of the year 1844, when Margaret parted from her class with many tokens of their love and gratitude. After speaking of affectionate words, beautiful gifts, and rare flowers, she says:—
"How noble has been my experience of such relations now for six years, and with so many and so various minds! Life is worth living, is it not?"
Margaret had answered Mr. Mallock's question before it was asked.
Margaret's summer on the Lakes was the summer of 1843. Her first records of it date from Niagara, and give her impressions of the wonderful scene, in which the rapids impressed her more than the cataract itself, whether seen from the American or from the Canadian side.
"Slowly and thoughtfully I walked down to the bridge leading to Goat Island, and when I stood upon this frail support, and saw a quarter of a mile of tumbling, rushing rapids, and heard their everlasting roar, my emotions overpowered me. A choking sensation rose to my throat, a thrill rushed through my veins, my blood ran rippling to my fingers' ends. This was the climax[116]of the effect which the falls produced upon me."
At Buffalo she embarked for a voyage on Lake Erie. Making a brief stop at Cleveland, the steamer passed on to the St. Clair River. The sight of an encampment of Indians on its bank gave Margaret her first feeling of what was then "the West."
"The people in the boat were almost all New Englanders, seeking their fortunes. They had brought with them their cautious manners, their love of polemics. It grieved me to hear Trinity and Unity discussed in the poor, narrow, doctrinal way on these free waters. But that will soon cease. There is not time for this clash of opinions in the West, where the clash of material interests is so noisy. They will need the spirit of religion more than ever to guide them, but will find less time than before for its doctrine."
The following passage will show us the spirit which Margaret carried into these new scenes:—
"I came to the West prepared for the distaste I must experience at its mushroom growth. I know that where 'Go ahead!' is the motto, the village cannot grow into the gentle proportions that successive lives and the gradations of experience involuntarily give.... The march of peaceful, is scarcely less wanton than that of war[117]-like invention. The old landmarks are broken down, and the land, for a season, bears none, except of the rudeness of conquest and the needs of the day. I have come prepared to see all this, to dislike it, but not with stupid narrowness to distrust or defame. On the contrary, I trust by reverent faith to woo the mighty meaning of the scene, perhaps to foresee the law by which a new order, a new poetry, is to be evoked from this chaos."
Charles Dickens's "American Notes" may have been in Margaret's mind when she penned these lines, and this faith in her may have been quickened by the perusal of the pages in which he showed mostly hownotto see a new country.
Reaching Chicago, she had her first glimpse of the prairie, which at first only suggested to her "the very desolation of dulness."
"After sweeping over the vast monotony of the Lakes, to come to this monotony of land, with all around a limitless horizon—to walk and walk, but never climb! How the eye greeted the approach of a sail or the smoke of a steamboat; it seemed that anything so animated must come from a better land, where mountains give religion to the scene. But after I had ridden out and seen the flowers, and observed the sun set with that calmness seen only in the prairies, and the cattle winding slowly to their homes in the[118]'island groves,' most peaceful of sights, I began to love, because I began to know, the scene, and shrank no longer from the encircling vastness."
Here followed an excursion of three weeks in a strong wagon drawn by a stalwart pair of horses, and supplied with all that could be needed, as the journey was through Rock River valley, beyond the regions of trade and barter. Margaret speaks of "a guide equally admirable as marshal and companion." This was none other than a younger brother of James Freeman Clarke, William Hull Clarke by name, a man who then and thereafter made Chicago his home, and who lived and died an honored and respected citizen. This journey with Margaret, in which his own sister was of the party, always remained one of the poetic recollections of his early life. He had suffered much from untoward circumstances, and was beginning to lose the elasticity of youth under the burden of his discouragements. Margaret's sympathy divined the depth and delicacy of William Clarke's character, and her unconquerable spirit lifted him from the abyss of despondency into a cheerfulness and courage which nevermore forsook him.
Returning to Chicago, Margaret once more embarked for lake travel, and her next chapter describes Wisconsin, at that time "a Territory,[119]not yet a State; still nearer the acorn than we were."
Milwaukee was then a small town, promising, as she says, "to be, some time, a fine one." The yellow brick, of which she found it mostly built, pleased her, as it has pleased the world since. No railroads with mysterious initials served, in those days, the needs of that vast region. The steamer, arriving once in twenty-four hours, brought mails and travellers, and a little stir of novelty and excitement. Going a day's journey into the adjacent country, Margaret and her companions found such accommodation as is here mentioned:—
"The little log-cabin where we slept, with its flower-garden in front, disturbed the scene no more than a lock upon a fair cheek. The hospitality of that house I may well call princely; it was the boundless hospitality of the heart, which, if it has no Aladdin's lamp to create a palace for the guest, does him still greater service by the freedom of its bounty to the very last drop of its powers."
In the Western immigration Milwaukee was already a station of importance. "Here, on the pier, I see disembarking the Germans, the Norwegians, the Swedes, the Swiss. Who knows how much of old legendary lore, of modern wonder, they have already planted amid the Wisconsin[120]forests? Soon their tales of the origin of things, and the Providence that rules them, will be so mingled with those of the Indian that the very oak-tree will not know them apart, will not know whether itself be a Runic, a Druid, or a Winnebago oak."
Margaret reached the island of Mackinaw late in August, and found it occupied by a large representation from the Chippewa and Ottawa tribes, who came there to receive their yearly pension from the Government at Washington. Arriving at night, the steamer fired some rockets, and Margaret heard with a sinking heart the wild cries of the excited Indians, and the pants and snorts of the departing steamer. She walked "with a stranger to a strange hotel," her late companions having gone on with the boat. She found such rest as she could in the room which served at once as sitting and as dining room. The early morning revealed to her the beauties of the spot, and with these the features of her new neighbors.
"With the first rosy streak I was out among my Indian neighbors, whose lodges honeycombed the beautiful beach. They were already on the alert, the children creeping out from beneath the blanket door of the lodge, the women pounding corn in their rude mortars, the young men playing on their pipes. I had been much amused,[121]when the strain proper to the Winnebago courting flute was played to me on another instrument, at any one's fancying it a melody. But now, when I heard the notes in their true tone and time, I thought it not unworthy comparison with the sweetest bird-song; and this, like the bird-song, is only practised to allure a mate. The Indian, become a citizen and a husband, no more thinks of playing the flute than one of thesettled-downmembers of our society would of choosing the purple light of love as dyestuff for a surtout."
Of the island itself Margaret writes:—
"It was a scene of ideal loveliness, and these wild forms adorned it, as looking so at home in it."
The Indian encampment was constantly enlarged by new arrivals, which Margaret watched from the window of her boarding-house.
"I was never tired of seeing the canoes come in, and the new arrivals set up their temporary dwellings. The women ran to set up the tent-poles and spread the mats on the ground. The men brought the chests, kettles, and so on. The mats were then laid on the outside, the cedar boughs strewed on the ground, the blanket hung up for a door, and all was completed in less than twenty minutes. Then they began to prepare the night meal, and to learn of their neighbors the news of the day."[122]
In these days, in which a spasm of conscience touches the American heart with a sense of the wrongs done to the Indian, Margaret's impressions concerning our aborigines acquire a fresh interest and value. She found them in occupation of many places from which they have since been driven by what is called the march of civilization. We may rather call it a barbarism better armed and informed than their own. She also found among their white neighbors the instinctive dislike and repulsion which are familiar to us. Here, in Mackinaw, Margaret could not consort with them without drawing upon herself the censure of her white acquaintances.
"Indeed, I wonder why they did not give me up, as they certainly looked upon me with great distaste for it. 'Get you gone, you Indian dog!' was the felt, if not the breathed, expression towards the hapless owners of the soil; all their claims, all their sorrows, quite forgot in abhorrence of their dirt, their tawny skins, and the vices the whites have taught them."
Missionary zeal seems to have been at a standstill just at this time, and the hopelessness of converting those heathen to Christianity was held to excuse further effort to that end. Margaret says:—
"Whether the Indian could, by any efforts of love and intelligence, have been civilized and[123]made a valuable ingredient in the new State, I will not say; but this we are sure of, the French Catholics did not harm them, nor disturb their minds merely to corrupt them. The French they loved. But the stern Presbyterian, with his dogmas and his task-work, the city circle and the college, with their niggard conceptions and unfeeling stare, have never tried the experiment."
Margaret naturally felt an especial interest in observing the character and condition of the Indian women. She says, truly enough, "The observations of women upon the position of woman are always more valuable than those of men."
Unhappily, this is a theme in regard to which many women make no observation of their own, and only repeat what they have heard from men.
But of Margaret's impressions a few sentences will give us some idea:—
"With the women I held much communication by signs. They are almost invariably coarse and ugly, with the exception of their eyes, with a peculiarly awkward gait, and forms bent by burdens. This gait, so different from the steady and noble step of the men, marks the inferior position they occupy."
Margaret quotes from Mrs. Schoolcraft and from Mrs. Grant passages which assert that this[124]inferiority does not run through the whole life of an Indian woman, and that the drudgery and weary service imposed upon them by the men are compensated by the esteem and honor in which they are held. Still, she says:—
"Notwithstanding the homage paid to women, and the consequence allowed them in some cases, it is impossible to look upon the Indian women without feeling that they do occupy a lower place than women among the nations of European civilization.... Their decorum and delicacy are striking, and show that, where these are native to the mind, no habits of life make any difference. Their whole gesture is timid, yet self-possessed. They used to crowd round me to inspect little things I had to show them, but never press near; on the contrary, would reprove and keep off the children. Anything they took from my hand was held with care, then shut or folded, and returned with an air of lady-like precision."
And of the aspect of the Indian question in her day Margaret writes:—
"I have no hope of liberalizing the missionary, of humanizing the sharks of trade, of infusing the conscientious drop into the flinty bosom of policy, of saving the Indian from immediate degradation and speedy death.... Yet, let every man look to himself how far this blood shall be required[125]at his hands. Let the missionary, instead of preaching to the Indian, preach to the trader who ruins him, of the dreadful account which will be demanded of the followers of Cain. Let every legislator take the subject to heart, and, if he cannot undo the effects of past sin, try for that clear view and right sense that may save us from sinning still more deeply."
Margaret's days in Mackinaw were nine in number. She went thence by steamer to the Sault Ste. Marie. On the way thither, the steamer being detained by a fog, its captain took her in a small boat to visit the island of St. Joseph, and on it, the remains of an old English fort. Her comments upon this visit, in itself of little interest, are worth quoting:—
"The captain, though he had been on this trip hundreds of times, had never seen this spot, and never would but for this fog and his desire to entertain me. He presented a striking instance how men, for the sake of getting a living, forget to live. This is a common fault among the active men, the truly living, who could tell what life is. It should not be so. Literature should not be left to the mere literati, eloquence to the mere orator. Every Cæsar should be able to write his own Commentary. We want a more equal, more thorough, more harmonious development, and there is nothing to hinder the men[126]of this country from it, except their own supineness or sordid views."
At the Sault, Margaret found many natural beauties, and enjoyed, among other things, the descent of the rapids in a canoe. Returning to Mackinaw, she was joined by her friends, and has further chronicled only her safe return to Buffalo.
The book which preserves the record of this journey saw the light at the end of the next year's summer. Margaret ends it with a littleEnvoito the reader. But for us, the bestenvoiwill be her own description of the last days of its composition:—
"Every day I rose and attended to the many little calls which are always on me, and which have been more of late. Then, about eleven, I would sit down to write at my window, close to which is the apple-tree, lately full of blossoms, and now of yellow-birds.
"Opposite me was Del Sarto's Madonna; behind me, Silenus, holding in his arms the infant Pan. I felt very content with my pen, my daily bouquet, and my yellow-birds. About five I would go out and walk till dark; then would arrive my proofs, like crabbed old guardians, coming to tea every night. So passed each day. The 23d of May, my birthday, about one o'clock, I wrote the last line of my little book.[127]Then I went to Mount Auburn, and walked gently among the graves."
And here ends what we have to say about Margaret's New England life. From its close shelter and intense relations she was now to pass into scenes more varied and labors of a more general scope. She had become cruelly worn by her fatigues in teaching and in writing, and in the year 1844 was induced, by liberal offers, to accept a permanent position on the staff of the "New York Tribune," then in the hands of Messrs. Greeley and McElrath. This step involved the breaking of home ties, and the dispersion of the household which Margaret had done so much to sustain and to keep together. Margaret's brothers had now left college, and had betaken themselves to the pursuits chosen as their life work. Her younger sister was married, and it was decided that her mother should divide her time among these members of her family, leaving Margaret free to begin a new season of work under circumstances which promised her greater freedom from care and from the necessity of unremitting exertion.[128]
WhenMargaret stepped for the last time across the threshold of her mother's home, she must have had the rare comfort of knowing that she had done everything in her power to promote the highest welfare of those who, with her, had shared its shelter. The children of the household had grown up under her fostering care, nor had she, in any flight of her vivid imagination, forgotten the claims and needs of brothers, sister, or mother. So closely, indeed, had she felt herself bound by the necessity of doing what was best for each and all, that her literary work had not, in any degree, corresponded to her own desires. Her written and spoken word had indeed carried with it a quickening power for good; but she had not been able so much as to plan one of the greater works which she considered herself bound to produce, and which could neither have[129]been conceived nor carried out without ample command of time and necessary conditions. In a letter written to one of her brothers at this time, Margaret says:—
"If our family affairs could now be so arranged that I might be tolerably tranquil for the next six or eight years, I should go out of life better satisfied with the page I have turned in it than I shall if I must still toil on. A noble career is yet before me, if I can be unimpeded by cares. I have given almost all my young energies to personal relations; but at present I feel inclined to impel the general stream of thought. Let my nearest friends also wish that I should now take share in more public life."
The opening now found for Margaret in New York, though fortunate, was by no means fortuitous. She had herself prepared the way thereunto by her good work in the "Dial." In that cheerless editorial seat she may sometimes, like the Lady of Shalott, have sighed to see Sir Lancelot ride careless by, or with the spirit of an unrecognized prophet she may have exclaimed, "Who hath believed our report?" But her word had found one who could hear it to some purpose.
Mr. Greeley had been, from the first, a reader of this periodical, and had recognized the fresh[130]thought and new culture which gave it character. His attention was first drawn to Margaret by an essay of hers, published in the July number of 1843, and entitled "The Great Lawsuit,—ManversusMen, WomanversusWomen." This essay, which at a later date expanded into the volume known as "Woman in the Nineteenth Century," struck Mr. Greeley as "the production of an original, vigorous, and earnest mind." Margaret's "Summer on the Lakes" appeared also in the "Dial" somewhat later, and was considered by Mr. Greeley as "unequalled, especially in its pictures of the prairies and of the sunnier aspects of pioneer life." Convinced of the literary ability of the writer, he gave ear to a suggestion of Mrs. Greeley, and, in accordance with her wishes and with his own judgment, extended to her the invitation already spoken of as accepted.
This invitation, and the arrangement to which it led, admitted Margaret not only to the columns of the "Tribune," but also to the home of its editor, in which she continued to reside during the period of her connection with the paper. This home was in a spacious, old-fashioned house on the banks of the East River, completely secluded by the adjacent trees and garden, but within easy reach of New York by car and omnibus. Margaret came there in December, 1844, and[131]was at once struck with the beauty of the scene and charmed with the aspect of the antiquated dwelling, which had once, no doubt, been the villa of some magnate of old New York.
If the outside world of the time troubled itself at all about the Greeley household, it must have considered it in the light of a happy family of eccentrics. Upon the personal peculiarities of Mr. Greeley we need not here enlarge. They were of little account in comparison with the character of the man, who himself deserved the name which he gave to his paper, and was at heart a tribune of the people. Mrs. Greeley was herself a woman of curious theories, and it is probable that Margaret, in her new surroundings, found herself obliged in a certain degree to represent the conventional side of life, which her host and hostess were inclined to disregard.
By Mr. Greeley's own account there were differences between Margaret and himself regarding a great variety of subjects, including the use of tea and coffee, which he eschewed and to which she adhered, and the emancipation of women, to which Mr. Greeley proposed to attach, as a condition, the abrogation of such small courtesies as are shown the sex to-day, while Margaret demanded a greater deference as a concomitant of the larger liberty. Mr. Greeley at first determined to keep beyond the sphere of[132]Margaret's fascination, and to burn no incense at her shrine. She appeared to him somewhat spoiled by the "Oriental adoration" which she received from other women, themselves persons of character and of culture. Her foibles impressed him as much as did the admirable qualities which he was forced to recognize in her. Vain resolution! Living under the same roof with Margaret, he could not but come to know her, and, knowing her, he had no choice but to join the throng of her admirers. To him, as to others, the blemishes at first discerned "took on new and brighter aspects in the light of her radiant and lofty soul."
"I learned," says Mr. Greeley, "to know her as a most fearless and unselfish champion of truth and human good at all hazards, ready to be their standard-bearer through danger and obloquy, and, if need be, their martyr."
Mr. Greeley bears witness also to the fact that this ready spirit of self-sacrifice in Margaret did not spring either from any asceticism of temperament or from an undervaluation of material advantages. Margaret, he thinks, appreciated fully all that riches, rank, and luxury could give. She prized all of these in their place, but prized far above them all the opportunity to serve and help her fellow-creatures.
The imperative drill of press-work was new[133]and somewhat irksome to her. She was accustomed indeed to labor in season and out of season, and in so doing to struggle with bodily pain and weariness. But to take up the pen at the word of command, without the interior bidding of the divine afflatus, was a new necessity, and one to which she found it difficult to submit. Mr. Greeley prized her work highly, though with some drawbacks. He could not always command it at will, for the reason that she could not. He found her writing, however, terse, vigorous, and practical, and considered her contributions to the "Tribune" more solid in merit, though less ambitious in scope, than her essays written earlier for the "Dial." Margaret herself esteemed them but moderately, feeling that she had taken up this new work at a time when her tired faculties needed rest and recreation.
In a brief memorial of Margaret, Mr. Greeley gives us the titles of the most important of these papers. They are as follows: "Thomas Hood," "Edgar A. Poe," "Capital Punishment," "Cassius M. Clay," "New Year's Day," "Christmas," "Thanksgiving," "St. Valentine's," "Fourth of July," "The First of August"—which she commemorates as the anniversary of slave-emancipation in the British West Indies.
In looking over the volumes which contain these and many others of Margaret's collected[134]papers, we are carried back to a time in which issues now long settled were in the early stages of their agitation, and in which many of those whom we now most revere in memory were living actors on the stage of the century's life. Hawthorne and Longfellow were then young writers. The second series of Mr. Emerson's "Essays" is noticed as of recent publication. At the time of her writing, it would seem that Mr. Emerson had a larger circle of readers in England than in his own country. She accounts for this on the ground that "our people, heated by a partisan spirit, necessarily occupied in these first stages by bringing out the material resources of the land, not generally prepared by early training for the enjoyment of books that require attention and reflection, are still more injured by a large majority of writers and speakers who lend all their efforts to flatter corrupt tastes and mental indolence." She permits us, however, to "hail as an auspicious omen the influence Mr. Emerson has obtained" in New England, which she recognizes as deep-rooted, and, over the younger part of the community, far greater than that of any other person. She is glad to introduce Robert Browning as the author of "Bells and Pomegranates" to the American public. Mrs. Browning was then Miss Barrett, in regard of whom Margaret rejoices that her task is "mainly to[135]express a cordial admiration!" and says that she "cannot hesitate to rank her, in vigor and nobleness of conception, depth of spiritual experience, and command of classic allusion, above any female writer the world has yet known." In those poems of hers which emulate Milton and Dante "her success is far below what we find in the poems of feeling and experience; for she has the vision of a great poet, but little in proportion of his classic power."
Margaret has much to say concerning George Sand, and under various heads. In her work on Woman, she gives therationaleof her strange and anomalous appearance, and is at once very just and very tender in her judgments.
George Sand was then in the full bloom of her reputation. The light and the shade of her character, as known to the public, were at the height of their contrast. To the literary merit of her work was added the interest of a mysterious personality, which rebelled against the limits of sex, and, not content to be either man or woman, touched with a new and strange protest the imagination of the time.
The inexorable progress of events has changed this, with so much else. Youth, beauty, sex, all imperial in their day, are discrowned by the dusty hand of Time, and ranged in the gallery of the things that were. George Sand's volumes[136]still glow and sparkle on the bookshelf; but George Sand's personality and her passions are dim visions of the past, and touch us no longer. When Margaret wrote of her, the woman was at the zenith of her power, and the intoxication of her influence was so great that a calm judgment concerning it was difficult. Like a wild Bacchante, she led her chorus of bold spirits through the formal ways of French society, which in her view were bristling with pruriency and veiled with hypocrisy. Like Margaret's, her cry was, "Truth at all hazards!" But hers was not the ideal truth which Margaret followed so zealously. "So vile are men, so weak are women, so ruthless is passion," were the utterances of her sincerity. Mistress of the revels, she did indeed command a new unmasking at the banquet, thoughtless of the risk of profaning innocent imaginations with sad facts which they had no need to know, and which, shown by such a master of art and expression, might bear with them the danger fabled in the mingled beauty and horror of the Gorgon's head.
George Sand was saved by the sincerity of her intention. Her somnambulic utterances had told of her good faith, and of her belief in things truly human and divine. Her revolutionary indignation was against the really false and base, and her progress was to a position from which she was able[137]calmly to analyze and loftily to repudiate the disorders in which she was supposed to have lost for a time the sustaining power of reason and self-command.
To those of us who remember these things in the vividness of their living presence, it is most satisfactory to be assured of the excellence of Margaret's judgment. The great Frenchwoman, at the period of which we write, appeared to many the incarnation of all the evil which her sex could represent. To those of opposite mind she appeared the inspired prophetess of a new era of thought and of sentiment. To Margaret she was neither the one nor the other. Much as she loved genius, that of George Sand could not blind her to the faults and falsities that marred her work. Stern idealist as she was, the most objectionable part of Madame Sand's record could not move her to a moment's injustice or uncharity in her regard.
In "Woman in the Nineteenth Century" Margaret says:—
"George Sand smokes, wears male attire, wishes to be addressed asmon frère. Perhaps, if she found those who were as brothers indeed, she would not care whether she were brother or sister."
And concerning her writings:—
"This author, beginning like the many in assault[138]upon bad institutions and external ills, yet deepening the experience through comparative freedom, sees at last that the only efficient remedy must come from individual character.
"The mind of the age struggles confusedly with these problems, better discerning as yet the ill it can no longer bear than the good by which it may supersede it. But women like Sand will speak now, and cannot be silenced; their characters and their eloquence alike foretell an era when such as they shall easier learn to lead true lives. But though such forebode, not such shall be parents of it. Those who would reform the world must show that they do not speak in the heat of wild impulse; their lives must be unstained by passionate error. They must be religious students of the Divine purpose with regard to man, if they would not confound the fancies of a day with the requisitions of eternal good."
So much for the woman Sand, as known to Margaret through her works and by hearsay. Of the writer she first knew through her "Seven Strings of the Lyre," a rhapsodic sketch. Margaret prizes in this "the knowledge of the passions and of social institutions, with the celestial choice which was above them." In the romances "André" and "Jacques" she traces "the same high morality of one who had tried the liberty of circumstance only to learn to appreciate the[139]liberty of law.... Though the sophistry of passion in these books disgusted me, flowers of purest hue seemed to grow upon the dark and dirty ground. I thought she had cast aside the slough of her past life, and begun a new existence beneath the sun of a new ideal." The "Lettres d'un Voyageur" seem to Margaret shallow,—the work of "a frail woman mourning over her lot." But when "Consuelo" appears, she feels herself strengthened in her first interpretation of George Sand's true character, and takes her stand upon the "original nobleness and love of right" which even the wild impulses of her fiery blood were never able entirely to oversweep. Of the work itself she says:—
"To many women this picture will prove a trueconsuelo(consolation), and we think even very prejudiced men will not read it without being charmed with the expansion, sweetness, and genuine force of a female character such as they have not met, but must, when painted, recognize as possible, and may be led to review their opinions, and perhaps to elevate and enlarge their hopes, as to 'woman's sphere' and 'woman's mission.'"[140]
Wehave no very full record of Margaret's life beneath the roof of the Greeley mansion. The information that we can gather concerning it seems to indicate that it was, on the whole, a period of rest and of enlargement. True, her task-work continued without intermission, and her incitements to exertion were not fewer than in the past. But the change of scene and of occupation gives refreshment, if not repose, to minds of such activity, and Margaret, accustomed to the burden of constant care and anxiety, was now relieved from much of this. She relied much, and with reason, both upon Mr. Greeley's judgment and upon his friendship. The following extract from a letter to her[141]brother Eugene gives us an inkling as to her first impressions:—
"The place where we live is old and dilapidated, but in a situation of great natural loveliness. When there I am perfectly secluded, yet every one I wish to see comes to see me, and I can get to the centre of the city in half an hour. Here is all affection for me and desire to make me at home; and I do feel so, which could scarcely have been expected from such an arrangement. My room is delightful; how I wish you could sit at its window with me, and see the sails glide by!
"As to the public part, that is entirely satisfactory. I do just as I please, and as much and as little as I please, and the editors express themselves perfectly satisfied, and others say that my piecestellto a degree I could not expect. I think, too, I shall do better and better. I am truly interested in this great field which opens before me, and it is pleasant to be sure of a chance at half a hundred thousand readers."
The enlargement spoken of above was found by Margaret in her more varied field of literary action, and in the society of a city which had, even at that date, a cosmopolitan, semi-European character.
New York has always, with a little grumbling,[142]conceded to Boston the palm of literary precedence. In spite of this, there has always been a good degree of friendly intercourse among its busylittérateursand artists, who find, in the more vivid movement and wider market of the larger city, a compensation, if not an equivalent, for its distance from the recognized centres of intellectual influence.
In these circles Margaret was not only a welcome, but a desired guest. In thesalonsof the time she had the position of a celebrity. Here, as elsewhere, her twofold magnetism strongly attracted some and repelled others. Somewhat hypercritical and pedantic she was judged to be by those who observed her at a distance, or heard from her only a chance remark. Such an observer, admiring but not approaching, saw at times the look of the sibyl flash from beneath Margaret's heavy eyelids; and once, hearing her sigh deeply after a social evening, was moved to ask her why. "Alone, as usual!" was Margaret's answer, with one or two pathetic words, the remembrance of which brought tears to the eyes of the person to whom they were spoken.
In these days she wrote in her journal:—
"There comes a consciousness that I have no real hold on life,—no real, permanent connection with any soul. I seem a wandering Intelligence,[143]driven from spot to spot, that I may learn all secrets, and fulfil a circle of knowledge. This thought envelops me as a cold atmosphere."
From this chill isolation of feeling Margaret was sometimes relieved by the warm appreciation of those whom she had truly found, of whom one could say to her: "You come like one of the great powers of nature, harmonizing with all beauty of the soul or of the earth. You cannot be discordant with anything that is true or deep."
Other neighbors, and of a very different character, had Margaret in her new surroundings. The prisons at Blackwell's Island were on the opposite side of the river, at a distance easily reached by boat. Sing Sing prison was not far off; and Margaret accepted the invitation to pass a Sunday within its walls. She had consorted hitherto with theéliteof her sex, the women attracted to her having invariably been of a superior type. She now made acquaintance with the outcasts in whom the elements of womanhood are scarcely recognized. For both she had one gospel, that of high hope and divine love. She seems to have found herself as much at home in the office of encouraging the fallen, as she had been when it was her duty to arouse the best spirit in women sheltered[144]from the knowledge and experience of evil by every favoring circumstance.
This was in the days in which Judge Edmonds had taken great interest in the affairs of the prison. Mrs. Farnum, a woman of uncommon character and ability, had charge of the female prisoners, who already showed the results of her intelligent and kindly treatment. On the occasion of her first visit, Margaret spoke with only a few of the women, and says that "the interview was very pleasant. These women were all from the lowest haunts of vice, yet nothing could have been more decorous than their conduct, while it was also frank.All passed, indeed, much as in one of my Boston classes."
This last phrase may somewhat startle us; but it should only assure us that Margaret had found, in confronting two circles so widely dissimilar, the happy words which could bring high and low into harmony with the true divine.
Margaret's second visit to the prison was on the Christmas soon following. She was invited to address the women in their chapel, and has herself preserved some record of her discourse, which was extemporaneous. Seated at the desk, no longer with the critical air which repelled the timid, but deeply penetrated by the pathos of the occasion, she began with the words, "To me the pleasant office has been given of wishing[145]you a happy Christmas." And the sad assembly smiled, murmuring its thanks. What a Christ-like power was that which brought this sun-gleam of a smile into that dark tragedy of offence and punishment!
Some passages of this address must be given here, to show the attitude in which this truly noble woman confronted the most degraded of her sex. After alluding to the common opinion that "women once lost are far worse than abandoned men, and cannot be restored," she said:—
"It is not so. I know my sex better. It is because women have so much feeling, and such a rooted respect for purity, that they seem so shameless and insolent when they feel that they have erred, and that others think ill of them. When they meet man's look of scorn, the desperate passion that rises is a perverted pride, which might have been their guardian angel. Rather let me say, which may be; for the rapid improvement wrought here gives us warm hopes."
Margaret exhorts the prisoners not to be impatient for their release. She dwells upon their weakness, the temptations of the outer world, and the helpful character of the influences which are now brought to bear upon them.
"Oh, be sure that you are fitted to triumph[146]over evil before you again expose yourselves to it! Instead of wasting your time and strength in vain wishes, use this opportunity to prepare yourselves for a better course of life when you are set free."
The following sentences are also noteworthy:
"Let me warn you earnestly against acting insincerely. I know you must prize the good opinion of your friendly protectors, but do not buy it at the cost of truth. Try to be, not to seem.... Never despond,—never say, 'It is too late!' Fear not, even if you relapse again and again. If you fall, do not lie grovelling, but rise upon your feet once more, and struggle bravely on. And if aroused conscience makes you suffer keenly, have patience to bear it. God will not let you suffer more than you need to fit you for his grace.... Cultivate this spirit of prayer. I do not mean agitation and excitement, but a deep desire for truth, purity, and goodness."
Margaret visited also the prisons on Blackwell's Island, and, walking through the women's hospital, shed the balm of her presence upon the most hardened of its wretched inmates. She had always wished to have a better understanding of the feelings and needs of "those women who are trampled in the mud to gratify the brute appetites of men," in order to lend them a helping hand.[147]
The following extracts from letters, hitherto in great part unpublished, will give the reader some idea of Margaret's tender love and care for the dear ones from whom she was now separated. The letters are mostly addressed to her younger brother, Richard, and are dated in various epochs of the year 1845. One of these recalls her last impressions in leaving Boston:—
"The last face I saw in Boston was Anna Loring's, looking after me from Dr. Peabody's steps. Mrs. Peabody stood behind her, some way up, nodding adieux to the 'darling,' as she addressed me, somewhat to my emotion. They seemed like a frosty November afternoon and a soft summer twilight, when night's glorious star begins to shine.
"When you go to Mrs. Loring's, will you ask W. Story if he has any of Robert Browning's poems to lend me for a short time? They shall be returned safe. I only want them a few days, to make some extracts for the paper. They cannot be obtained here."
The following extracts refer to the first appearance of her book, "Woman in the Nineteenth Century." Her brother Eugene had found a notice of it in some remote spot. She writes:—
"It was pleasant you should see that little notice in that wild place. The book is out, and[148]the theme of all the newspapers and many of the journals. Abuse, public and private, is lavished upon its views, but respect is expressed for me personally. But the most speaking fact, and the one which satisfied me, is, that the whole edition was sold off in a week to the booksellers, and eighty-five dollars handed to me as my share. Not that my object was in any wise money, but I consider this the signet of success. If one can be heard, that is enough."
In August, 1845, she writes thus to Richard:
"I really loathe my pen at present; it is entirely unnatural to me to keep at it so in the summer. Looking at these dull blacks and whites so much, when nature is in her bright colors, is a source of great physical weariness and irritation. I cannot, therefore, write you good letters, but am always glad to get them.
"As to what you say of my writing books, that cannot be at present. I have not health and energy to do so many things, and find too much that I value in my present position to give it up rashly or suddenly. But doubt not, as I do not, that Heaven has good things enough for me to do, and that I shall find them best by not exhausting or overstraining myself."
To Richard she writes, some months later:—
"I have to-day the unexpected pleasure of[149]receiving from England a neat copy of 'Woman in the Nineteenth Century,' republished there in Clark's 'Cabinet Library.' I had never heard a word about it from England, and am very glad to find it will be read by women there. As to advantage to me, the republication will bring me no money, but will be of use to me here, as our dear country folks look anxiously for verdicts from the other side of the water.
"I shall get out a second edition before long, I hope; and wish you would translate for me, and send those other parts of the story of 'Panthea' you thought I might like."
The extract subjoined will show Margaret's anxious thought concerning her mother's comfort and welfare. It is addressed to the same brother, whom she thus admonishes:—
"She speaks of you most affectionately, but happened to mention that you took now no interest in a garden. I have known you would do what you thought of to be a good son, and not neglect your positive duties; but I have feared you would not show enough of sympathy with her tastes and pursuits. Care of the gardenisa way in which you could give her genuine comfort and pleasure, while regular exercise in it would be of great use to yourself. Do not neglect this nor any the most trifling attention she may wish; because it is not by attending to[150]our friends in our way, but intheirs, that we can really avail them. I think of you much with love and pride and hope for your public and private life."
Margaret's preface to "Woman in the Nineteenth Century" bears the date of November, 1844. The greater part of the work, as has already been said, had appeared in the "Dial," under a different title, for which she in this place expresses a preference, as better suited to the theme she proposes to treat of. "Man versus Men, Woman versus Women," means to her the leading idea and ideal of humanity, as wronged and hindered from development by the thoughtless and ignorant action of the race itself. The title finally given was adopted in accordance with the wishes of friends, who thought the other wanting in clearness. "By man, I mean both man and woman: these are the two halves of one thought. I lay no especial stress on the welfare of either. I believe that the development of the one cannot be effected without that of the other."
In the name of a common humanity, then, Margaret solicits from her readers "a sincere and patient attention," praying women particularly to study for themselves the freedom which the law should secure to them. It is this that[151]she seeks, not to be replaced by "the largest extension of partial privileges."
"And may truth, unpolluted by prejudice, vanity, or selfishness, be granted daily more and more, as the due inheritance and only valuable conquest for us all!"
The leading thought formulated by Margaret in the title of her preference is scarcely carried out in her work; at least, not with any systematic parallelism. Her study of the position and possibilities of woman is not the less one of unique value and interest. The work shows throughout the grasp and mastery of her mind. Her faith in principles, her reliance upon them in the interpretation of events, make her strong and bold. We do not find in this book one careless expression which would slur over the smallest detail of womanly duty, or absolve from the attainment of any or all of the feminine graces. Of these, Margaret deeply knows the value. But, in her view, these duties will never be noble, these graces sincere, until women stand as firmly as men do upon the ground of individual freedom and legal justice.
"If principles could be established, particulars would adjust themselves aright. Ascertain the true destiny of woman; give her legitimate hopes, and a standard within herself.... What woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule,[152]but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded."
She would have "every arbitrary barrier thrown down, every path laid open to woman as freely as to man." And she insists that this "inward and outward freedom shall be acknowledged as aright, not yielded as a concession."
The limits of our present undertaking do not allow us to give here an extended notice of this work, which has long belonged to general literature, and is, perhaps, the most widely known of Margaret's writings. We must, however, dwell sufficiently upon its merits to commend it to the men and women of to-day, as equally interesting to both, and as entirely appropriate to the standpoint of the present time.
Nothing that has been written or said, in later days, has made its teaching superfluous. It demands all that is asked to-day for women, and that on the broadest and most substantial ground. The usual arguments against the emancipation of women from a position of political and social inferiority are all carefully considered and carefully answered. Much study is shown of the prominent women of history, and of the condition of the sex at different periods. Much understanding also of the ideal womanhood, which has always had its place in the van of human progress, and of the actual womanhood, which[153]has mostly been bred and trained in an opposite direction.
We have, then, in the book, a thorough statement, both of the shortcomings of women themselves, and of the wrongs which they in turn suffer from society. The cause of the weak against the strong is advanced with sound and rational argument. We will not say that a thoughtful reader of to-day will indorse every word of this remarkable treatise. Its fervor here and there runs into vague enthusiasm, and much is asserted about souls and their future which thinkers of the present day do not so confidently assume to know.
The extent of Margaret's reading is shown in her command of historical and mythical illustration. Her beloved Greeks furnish her with some portraits of ideal men in relation with ideal women. As becomes a champion, she knows the friends and the enemies of the cause which she makes her own. Here, for example, is a fine discrimination:—
"The spiritual tendency is toward the elevation of woman, but the intellectual, by itself, is not so. Plato sometimes seems penetrated by that high idea of love which considers man and woman as the twofold expression of one thought. But then again Plato, the man of intellect, treats woman in the republic as property, and in the[154]"Timæus" says that man, if he misuse the privileges of one life, shall be degraded into the form of a woman."
Margaret mentions among the women whom she considered helpers and favorers of the new womanhood, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Jameson, and our own Miss Sedgwick. Among the writers of the other sex, whose theories point to the same end, she speaks of Swedenborg, Fourier, and Goethe. The first-named comes to this through his mystical appreciation of spiritual life; the second, by his systematic distribution of gifts and opportunities according to the principles of ideal justice. The world-wise Goethe everywhere recognizes the presence and significance of the feminine principle; and, after treating with tenderness and reverence its frailest as well as its finest impersonations, lays the seal of all attraction in the lap of the "eternal womanly."
Nearer at hand, and in the intimacy of personal intercourse, Margaret found a noble friend to her cause.
"The late Dr. Channing, whose enlarged and religious nature shared every onward impulse of his time, though his thoughts followed his wishes with a deliberative caution which belonged to his habits and temperament, was greatly interested in these expectations for women. He[155]regarded them as souls, each of which had a destiny of its own, incalculable to other minds, and whose leading it must follow, guided by the light of a private conscience."
She tells us that the Doctor's delicate and fastidious taste was not shocked by Angelina Grimké's appearance in public, and that he fully indorsed Mrs. Jameson's defence of her sex "in a way from which women usually shrink, because, if they express themselves on such subjects with sufficient force and clearness to do any good, they are exposed to assaults whose vulgarity makes them painful."
Margaret ends her treatise with a synopsis of her humanitarian creed, of which we can here give only enough to show its general scope and tenor. Here is the substance of it, mostly in her own words:—
Man is a being of twofold relations,—to nature beneath and intelligences above him. The earth is his school, God his object, life and thought his means of attaining it.
The growth of man is twofold,—masculine and feminine. These terms, for Margaret, represent other qualities, to wit, Energy and Harmony, Power and Beauty, Intellect and Love.
These faculties belong to both sexes, yet the two are distinguished by the preponderance of the opposing characteristics.[156]
Were these opposites in perfect harmony, they would respond to and complete each other.
Why does this harmony not prevail?
Because, as man came before woman, power before beauty, he kept his ascendency, and enslaved her.
Woman in turn rose by her moral power, which a growing civilization recognized.
Man became more just and kind, but failed to see that woman was half himself, and that, by the laws of their common being, he could never reach his true proportions while she remained shorn of hers. And so it has gone on to our day.
Pure love, poetic genius, and true religion have done much to vindicate and to restore the normal harmony.
The time has now come when a clearer vision and better action are possible,—when man and woman may stand as pillars of one temple, priests of one worship.
This hope should attain its amplest fruition in our own country, and will do so if the principles from which sprang our national life are adhered to.
Women should now be the best helpers of women. Of men, we need only ask the removal of arbitrary barriers.
The question naturally suggests itself, What use will woman make of her liberty after so many ages of restraint?[157]
Margaret says, in answer, that this freedom will not be immediately given. But, even if it were to come suddenly, she finds in her own sex "a reverence for decorums and limits inherited and enhanced from generation to generation, which years of other life could not efface." She believes, also, that woman as woman is characterized by a native love of proportion,—a Greek moderation,—which would immediately create a restraining party, and would gradually establish such rules as are needed to guard life without impeding it.
This opinion of Margaret's is in direct contradiction to one very generally held to-day, namely, that women tend more to extremes than men do, and are often seen to exaggerate to irrational frenzy the feelings which agitate the male portion of the community. The reason for this, if honestly sought, can easily be found. Women in whom the power of individual judgment has been either left without training or forcibly suppressed will naturally be led by impulse and enthusiasm, and will be almost certain to inflame still further the kindled passions of the men to whom they stand related. Margaret knew this well enough; but she had also known women of a very different type, who had trained and disciplined themselves by the help of that nice sense of measure which belongs to any[158]normal human intelligence, and which, in women, is easily reached and rendered active. It was upon this best and wisest womanhood that Margaret relied for the standard which should redeem the sex from violence and headlong excitement. Here, as elsewhere, she shows her faith in the good elements of human nature, and sees them, in her prophetic vision, as already crowned with an enduring victory.
"I stand in the sunny noon of life. Objects no longer glitter in the dews of morning, neither are yet softened by the shadows of evening. Every spot is seen, every chasm revealed. Climbing the dusty hill, some fair effigies that once stood for human destiny have been broken. Yet enough is left to point distinctly to the glories of that destiny."
Margaret gives us, as the end of the whole matter, this sentence:—
"Always the soul says to us all, Cherish your best hopes as a faith, and abide by them in action.... Such shall be the effectual fervent means to their fulfilment."
In this sunny noon of life things new and strange were awaiting Margaret. Her days among kindred and country-people were nearly ended. The last volume given by her to the American public was entitled "Papers on Art and Literature." Of these, a number had already[159]appeared in print. In her preface she mentions the essay on "American Literature" as one now published for the first time, and also as "a very imperfect sketch," which she hopes to complete by some later utterance. She commends it to us, however, as "written with sincere and earnest feelings, and from a mind that cares for nothing but what is permanent and essential." She thinks it should, therefore, have "some merit, if only in the power of suggestion." It has for us the great interest of making known Margaret's opinion of her compeers in literature, and with her appreciation of these, not always just or adequate, her views of the noble national life to which American literature, in its maturer growth, should give expression.
Margaret says, at the outset, that "some thinkers" may accuse her of writing about a thing that does not exist. "For," says she, "it does not follow, because many books are written by persons born in America, that there exists an American literature. Books which imitate or represent the thoughts and life of Europe do not constitute an American literature. Before such can exist, an original idea must animate this nation, and fresh currents of life must call into life fresh thoughts along its shores."
In reviewing these first sentences, we are led to say that they partly commend themselves to[160]our judgment, and partly do not. Here, as in much that Margaret has written, a solid truth is found side by side with an illusion. The statement that an American idea should lie at the foundation of our national life and its expression is a truth too often lost sight of by those to whom it most imports. On the other hand, the great body of the world's literature is like an ocean in whose waves and tides there is a continuity which sets at naught the imposition of definite limits. Literature is first of all human; and American books, which express human thought, feeling, and experience, are American literature, even if they show no distinctive national feature.
In what follows, Margaret confesses that her own studies have been largely of the classics of foreign countries. She has found, she says, a model "in the simple masculine minds of the great Latin authors." She has observed, too, the features of kindred between the character of the ancient Roman and that of the Briton of to-day.
She remarks upon the reaction which was felt in her time against the revolutionary opposition to the mother country. This reaction, she feels, may be carried too far.
"What suits Great Britain, with her insular position and consequent need to concentrate[161]and intensify her life, her limited monarchy and spirit of trade, does not suit a mixed race, continually enriched (?) with new blood from other stocks the most unlike that of our first descent, with ample field and verge enough to range in and leave every impulse free, and abundant opportunity to develop a genius wide and full as our rivers, luxuriant and impassioned as our vast prairies, rooted in strength as the rocks on which the Puritan fathers landed."
Margaret anticipates for this Western hemisphere the rise and development of such a genius, but says that this cannot come until the fusion of races shall be more advanced, nor "until this nation shall attain sufficient moral and intellectual dignity to prize moral and intellectual no less highly than political freedom."
She finds the earnest of this greater time in the movements already leading to social reforms, and in the "stern sincerity" of elect individuals, but thinks that the influences at work "must go deeper before we can have poets."
At the time of her writing (1844-45) she considers literature as in a "dim and struggling state," with "pecuniary results exceedingly pitiful. The state of things gets worse and worse, as less and less is offered for works demanding great devotion of time and labor, and the publisher, obliged to regard the transaction as a[162]matter of business, demands of the author only what will find an immediate market, for he cannot afford to take anything else."