MARGARET FULLER (OSSOLI).1810-1850.MARGARET FULLER (OSSOLI).
MARGARET FULLER (OSSOLI).1810-1850.
Sarah Margaret Fuller was born at Cambridgeport, Mass., May 23, 1810. She was the eldest child of Timothy Fuller, “a lawyer and a politician,” and Margaret Crane his wife. Her education was begun at home by her father, a somewhat severe teacher. In an autobiographical fragment she relates the influence upon her young mind of the study of the Latin language and of Roman history, and of her readings in Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Molière. Another formative influence was her romantic attachment to a beautiful and accomplished English lady who spent a few months in the neighborhood, and whose companionship lifted her, she says, “into just that atmosphere of European life to which I had before been tending.” When about thirteen years old, Margaret was sent to the boarding-school of the Misses Preston, in Groton, Mass., where she remained until 1825. It is stated that she was at one time a pupil in Dr. Park’s Boston school. That she was an indefatigable student, is shown by the record of her reading during the subsequent years passed at home. Her studies in German were especially deep.
In the spring of 1833, the family removed from Cambridge to Groton. Margaret was at this time much occupied in the tuition of the younger children. In 1835, she made the acquaintance of Miss Martineau,then travelling in America. Margaret had in this year a severe illness, from which it was feared that she could not recover. In October, her father died of cholera. “This death,” says Mrs. Howe, “besides the sorrow and perplexity which followed it, brought to Margaret a disappointment which seemed to her to bar the fulfilment of her highest hopes.” It had been planned that she should visit Europe, making the voyage in the company of Miss Martineau and the Farrars. It now seemed to her a duty to remain with her mother, and “not to encroach upon the fund necessary for the education of her brothers and sisters.” Her undeniable egotism only throws this act of self-sacrifice into higher relief.
In the autumn of 1836, she left Groton, to take a position in Mr. Alcott’s school, in Boston, at the same time teaching private classes. She worked hard this winter, giving instruction in German, Italian, Latin, and French, and reading with her pupils such books as ‘Faust’ and the ‘Divina Commedia.’ In the spring of 1837, she went to teach in the Greene Street school, Providence, a salary of $1,000 per annum being offered her. She remained there two years, doing valuable work, which added to her reputation; but Mr. Greeley, in his autobiography, states that she was not remunerated for her services.
In 1839, the Fuller family left Groton for Jamaica Plain, and in November of the same year returned to Cambridge. In this year was published Margaret’s translation of Eckerman’s ‘Conversations with Goethe.’ In 1840, she became the editor of The Dial, which she managed for two years, receiving $200 the first year, after which her salary was discontinued on account ofthe lack of funds. She contributed to this periodical, besides various critical papers, the article onThe Great Lawsuit: Man versus Men, Woman versus Women, which was afterwards expanded into herWoman in the Nineteenth Century.
It was in the autumn of 1839 that Margaret began her famous Boston conversations, with a class of twenty-five. These classes were renewed in November of each year until 1844.
In 1841, she translated the ‘Letters of Gunderode and Bettine,’ but their publication does not appear to have been completed. In 1843, a trip to Lake Superior furnished her with material for herSummer on the Lakes, originally published in The Dial. A general impression exists that Miss Fuller connected herself with the Brook Farm experiment. It is an error; she was a visitor, not a resident, at Brook Farm.
In 1844, Margaret went to New York, to live with the Greeleys at Turtle Bay, becoming a constant contributor to the New York Tribune. In this year she publishedWoman in the Nineteenth Century, and the next, collected herPapers on Art and Literaturein a volume.
On the 1st of August, 1846, Margaret Fuller sailed for Europe, in the company of her friends Mr. and Mrs. Marcus Spring, of Eagleswood, New Jersey. She went first to England, visited the Lake country, meeting Wordsworth and renewing her acquaintance with Harriet Martineau, travelled in Scotland, making the ascent of Ben Lomond with but one companion, and without a guide, an imprudence which cost her a night of dangerous exposure; returned to London, where she metJoanna Baillie, the Carlyles, and Mazzini; and went thence to Paris. There she saw George Sand, Chopin, and Rachel. She proceeded to Lyons, to Avignon, “where she waded through the snow to visit the tomb of Laura,” and to Marseilles, whence she sailed for Genoa, going next to Naples and to Rome. It was during this first stay in Rome, in the spring of 1847, that she became acquainted with the Marquis Ossoli, an officer of the Civic Guard. She continued her travels, visiting Florence, Ravenna, Venice, Milan, the Italian Lakes, and Switzerland. She returned to Rome in October, 1847. In December she was married to Ossoli; but for reasons involving the security of his paternal inheritance, it was agreed that the marriage should be a secret. In the following May, Margaret left Rome for the summer, passing a month at Aquila, and the rest of the time, until November, at Rieti, where it was possible for her husband to visit her occasionally. In September, 1848, their son, “Angiolino,” was born. In November, Margaret found it necessary to go to Rome, “to be near her husband, and also in order to be able to carry on the literary work upon which depended not only her own support, but also that of her child.” The little Angelo was left in the care of his Italian nurse. His mother at first anticipated an absence of a month only. She indeed returned to Rieti for a week in December, but “circumstances were too strong for her, and she was forced to remain three months in Rome without seeing him,” lying awake at night, studying to end this cruel separation. She was again in Rieti in March, and in April returned to Rome. And now began the siege of Rome by the French, and themother, shut up in the city, saw her child no more until the summer.
Margaret took charge of one of the hospitals during the siege. To the writer, this period appears the noblest of her life. The formation of the strongest human ties had immeasurably deepened and softened her nature. She moved among the wounded and dying soldiers like the “Court Lady” of Mrs. Browning’s poem. She learned all the horror of wounds and death. She insisted on going with Ossoli to his post on the night when an attack was expected in that quarter; and meeting at the Angelus, they passed together to the supposed danger as to a religious service. During the days of suspense, Margaret made her secret known to her friends in Rome. As soon as the siege was ended, the father and mother hastened to Rieti, to find their child neglected and almost dying. They nursed him back to life and health, and the three passed together one happy winter in Florence, clouded only by pecuniary anxieties—for Ossoli had, by his patriotism, lost all. Margaret’s literary work at this time was aHistory of the Revolution in Italy, which perished with her.
Margaret, Ossoli, and the little Angelo sailed for America on May 17, 1850, in the barque Elizabeth, Captain Hasty. On the voyage the captain died of small-pox; Angelo took the disease, but recovered. On the morning of July 19th, the Elizabeth was wrecked in a sudden storm, striking on Fire Island beach. The sea never gave back Margaret and Ossoli. The baby Angelo was washed ashore, and lies buried at Mt. Auburn.
Margaret’s works, collected after her death, are infour volumes:Woman in the Nineteenth Century;Art, Literature, and the Drama;Abroad and at Home, andLife Without and Life Within.
A remarkable estimate of Margaret, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, published, among other extracts from his papers, by his son, has lately attracted much attention. The testimony of Hawthorne as to Margaret’s Italian life, of which he had no personal knowledge, has little value. But the conclusions of so keen a mind as to her character cannot be so easily dismissed; and this passage has been included among our extracts, that both sides of the shield may be seen. Certain of Hawthorne’s expressions go far to confirm the popular belief that Margaret’s character, as he saw it, furnished him with the hint or starting-point for his creation of Zenobia in ‘The Blithedale Romance.’
Lowell, in his stinging lines on Miranda, in ‘A Fable for Critics,’ speaks of her, “I-turn-the-crank-of-the-universe air,” and pronounces that “the whole of her being’s a capital I.” She is too often remembered thus, and only thus. Let us also picture her ministering in that “house of misery” where,—to quote lines written of another famous woman,—
“Slow, as in a dream of bliss,The speechless sufferer turns to kissHer shadow, as it fallsUpon the darkening walls.”
Her early training.
Premature development.
Spectral illusions.
Somnambulism.
My father instructed me himself. The effect of this was so far good that, not passing through the hands of many ignorant and weak persons, as so many do at preparatory schools, I was put at once under discipline of considerable severity,and, at the same time, had a more than ordinarily high standard presented to me. My father was a man of business, even in literature; he had been a high scholar at college, and was warmly attached to all he had learned there, both from the pleasure he had derived in the exercise of his faculties and the associated memories of success and good repute. He was, beside, well read in French literature, and in English, a Queen Anne’s man. He hoped to make me the heir of all he knew, and of as much more as the income of his profession enabled him to give me means of acquiring. At the very beginning, he made one great mistake, more common, it is to be hoped, in the last generation, than the warning of physiologists will permit it to be with the next. He thought to gain time by bringing forward the intellect as early as possible. Thus, I had tasks given me, as many and various as the hours would allow, and on subjects beyond my age; with the additional disadvantage of reciting to him in the evening, after he returned from his office. As he was subject to many interruptions, I was often kept up till very late; and as he was a severe teacher, both from his habits of mind and his ambition for me, my feelings were kept on the stretch till the recitations were over. Thus, frequently I was sent to bed several hours too late, with nerves unnaturally stimulated. The consequence was a premature development of the brain, that made me a “youthful prodigy” by day, and by night a victim of spectral illusions, nightmare, and somnambulism, which, at the time, prevented the harmonious development of my bodily powers and checked my growth, while, later, they induced continual headache,weakness, and nervous affections of all kinds. As these again reacted on the brain, giving undue force to every thought and every feeling, there was finally produced a state of being both too active and too intense, which wasted my constitution.... No one understood this subject of health then. No one knew why this child, already kept up so late, was still unwilling to retire. My aunts cried out upon the “spoiled child, the most unreasonable child that ever was—if brother could but open his eyes to see it—who was never willing to go to bed.” They did not know that, so soon as the light was taken away, she seemed to see colossal faces advancing slowly towards her, the eyes dilating, and each feature swelling loathsomely as they come, till at last, when they were about to close upon her, she started up with a shriek which drove them away, but only to return when she lay down again.... No wonder the child arose and walked in her sleep, moaning all over the house, till once, when they heard her, and came and waked her, and she told what she had dreamed, her father sharply bid her “leave off thinking of such nonsense, or she would be crazy,” never knowing that he was himself the cause of all these horrors of the night.
Latin at six.
I was taught Latin and English grammar at the same time, and began to read Latin at six years old, after which, for some years, I read it daily.
Influence of her father’s character.
[My father] demanded accuracy and clearness in everything.... Trained to great dexterity in artificial methods, accurate, ready, with entire command of his resources, he had no belief in minds that listen,wait, and receive. He had no conception of the subtle and indirect motions of imagination and feeling. His influence on me was great, and opposed to the natural unfolding of my character, which was fervent, of strong grasp, and disposed to infatuation and self-forgetfulness.
Her first taste of Shakespeare.
Ever memorable is the day on which I first took a volume of Shakespeare in my hand to read. It was on a Sunday. This day was particularly set apart in our house.... This Sunday—I was only eight years old—I took from the book-shelf a volume lettered Shakespeare. It was not the first time I had looked at it, but before I had been deterred from attempting to read, by the broken appearance along the page, and preferred smooth narrative. But this time I held in my hand ‘Romeo and Juliet’ long enough to get my eye fastened to the page. It was a cold winter afternoon. I took the book to the parlor fire, and had there been seated an hour or two, when my father looked up and asked what I was reading so intently. “Shakespeare,” replied the child, merely raising her eye from the page. “‘Shakespeare’! That won’t do; that’s no book for Sunday; go put it away and take another.” I went as I was bid, but took no other. Returning to my seat, the unfinished story, the personages to whom I was but just introduced, thronged and burnt my brain. I could not bear it long; such a lure it was impossible to resist. I went and brought the book again. There were several guests present, and I had got half through the play before I again attracted attention. “What is that child about that she doesn’t hear aword that’s said to her?” quoth my aunt. “What are you reading?” said my father. “Shakespeare,” was again the reply, in a clear though somewhat impatient tone. “How?” said my father angrily; then, restraining himself before his guests, “Give me the book and go directly to bed.”
Home of the Fullers.
Margaret in the garden.
Our house, though comfortable, was very ugly, and in a neighborhood which I detested, every dwelling and its appurtenances having amesquinand huddled look. I liked nothing about us except the tall graceful elms before the house, and the dear little garden behind. Our back-door opened on a high flight of steps, by which I went down to a green plot, much injured in my ambitious eyes by the presence of the pump and tool-house. This opened into a little garden, full of choice flowers and fruit trees, which was my mother’s delight and was carefully kept. Here I felt at home. A gate opened thence into the fields, a wooden gate made of boards, in a high unpainted board wall, and embowered in the clematis creeper. This gate I used to open to see the sunset heaven; beyond this black frame I did not step, for I liked to look at the deep gold behind it. How exquisitely happy I was in its beauty, and how I loved the silvery wreaths of my protecting vine! I never would pluck one of its flowers at that time, I was so jealous of its beauty, but often since I carry off wreaths of it from the wild wood, and it stands in nature to my mind as the emblem of domestic love.
Margaret Fuller:Autobiographical Romancepublished in ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli,’ by R. W. Emerson, W. H. Channing and J. F. Clarke. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1874.
Margaret at thirteen.
My acquaintance with Margaret commenced in the year 1823, at Cambridge.... Margaret was then about thirteen,—a child in years, but so precocious in her mental and physical development, that she passed for eighteen or twenty. Agreeably to this estimate she had her place in society as a lady full-grown.
Personal appearance.
A characteristic trait.
When I recall her personal appearance, as it was then and for ten or twelve years subsequent to this, I have the idea of a blooming girl of a florid complexion and vigorous health, with a tendency to robustness, of which she was painfully conscious, and which, with little regard to hygienic principles, she endeavored to suppress or conceal, thereby preparing for herself much future suffering. With no pretensions to beauty then, or at any time, her face was one that attracted, that awakened a lively interest, that made one desirous of a nearer acquaintance. It was a face that fascinated, without satisfying. Never seen in repose, never allowing a steady perusal of its features, it baffled every attempt to judge the character by physiognomical induction. I said she had no pretentions to beauty. Yet she was not plain. She escaped the reproach of positive plainness, by her blonde and abundant hair, by her excellent teeth, by her sparkling, dancing, busy eyes, though usually half closed from near-sightedness, shot piercing glances at those with whom she conversed, and, most of all, by the very peculiar and graceful carriage of her head and neck, which all who knew her will remember as the most characteristic trait in her personal appearance.
Conversation.
In conversation she had already, at that early age, begun to distinguish herself, and made much the same impression in society that she did in after years, with the exception that as she advanced in life, she learned to control that tendency to sarcasm,—that disposition to “quiz,”—which was then somewhat excessive. It frightened shy young people from her presence, and made her, for a while, notoriously unpopular with the ladies of her circle.
Rev. F. H. Hedge:Communicationin ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’
Margaret at the Groton school.
At first her unlikeness to her companions was uncomfortable both to her and to them. Her exuberant fancy demanded outlets which the restraints of boarding-school life would not allow. The unwonted excitement produced by contact with other young people vented itself in fantastic acts and freaks amusing but tormenting. The art of living with one’s kind had not formed a part of Margaret’s home education. Her nervous system had already, no doubt, been seriously disturbed by overwork.
Some plays were devised for the amusement of the pupils, and in these Margaret found herself entirely at home. In each of these the principal part was naturally assigned her, and the superiority in which she delighted was thus recognized. These very triumphs, however, in the end led to her first severe mortification, and in this wise:—
The use of rouge had been permitted to the girls on the occasion of the plays; but Margaret was not disposed, when these were over, to relinquish the privilege,and continued daily to tinge her cheeks with artificial red. This freak suggested to her fellow-pupils an intended pleasantry, which awakened her powers of resentment to the utmost. Margaret came to the dinner-table, one day, to find on the cheeks of pupils and preceptress the crimson spot with which she had persisted in adorning her own. Suppressed laughter, in which even the servants joined, made her aware of the intended caricature. Deeply wounded, and viewing the somewhat personal joke in the light of an inflicted disgrace, Margaret’s pride did not forsake her. She summoned to her aid the fortitude which some of her Romans [Margaret’s love of Roman history is here alluded to] had shown in trying moments, and ate her dinner quietly without comment. When the meal was over she hastened to her own room, locked the door, and fell on the floor in convulsions. Here teachers and schoolfellows sorrowfully found her, and did their utmost to soothe her wounded feelings, and to efface by affectionate caresses the painful impression made by their inconsiderate fun.
Margaret recovered from this excitement, and took her place among her companions, but with an altered countenance and embittered heart. She had given up her gay freaks and amusing inventions, and devoted herself assiduously to her studies. But the offence which she had received rankled in her breast. As not one of her fellow-pupils had stood by her in her hour of need, she regarded them as all alike perfidious and ungrateful.... This morbid condition of mind led to a result still more unhappy. Masking her real resentment beneath a calm exterior, Margaret received the confidences ofher schoolfellows and used their unguarded speech to promote discord among them.... This state of things probably became unbearable. Its cause was inquired into and soon found. A tribunal was held, and before the whole school assembled, Margaret was accused of calumny and falsehood, and, alas! convicted of the same. “At first she defended herself with self-possession and eloquence, but when she found that she could no more resist the truth, she suddenly threw herself down, dashing her head with all her force against the iron hearth, ... and was taken up senseless.”[7]
All present were, of course, greatly alarmed at this crisis, which was followed, on the part of Margaret, by days of hopeless and apathetic melancholy.... In the pain which she now felt, her former resentment against her schoolmates disappeared. She saw only her own offence, and saw it without hope of being able to pass beyond it.... A single friend was able to reach the seat of Margaret’s distemper, and to turn the currents of her life once more into a healthful channel. This lady, a teacher in the school, ... with the tact of true affection, drew the young girl from the contemplation of her own failure.
Julia Ward Howe: ‘Margaret Fuller.’ (Famous Women Series.) Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1883.
An “intolerable girl” at nineteen.
She told me what danger she had been in from the training her father had given her, and the encouragementto pedantry and rudeness which she derived from the circumstances of her youth. She told me that she was at nineteen the most intolerable girl that ever took a seat in a drawing-room. Her admirable candor, the philosophical way in which she took herself in hand, her genuine heart, her practical insight, and, no doubt, the natural influence of her attachment to myself, endeared her to me, while her powers, and her confidence in the use of them, led me to expect great things from her.
Harriet Martineau: ‘Autobiography.’ Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1877.
Her home at this time.
Margaret’s home at this time was in the mansion house formerly belonging to Judge Dana, a large, old-fashioned building, since taken down, standing about a quarter of a mile from the Cambridge Colleges, on the main road to Boston. The house stood back from the road, on rising ground which overlooked an extensive landscape. It was always a pleasure to Margaret to look at the outlines of the distant hills beyond the river, and to have before her this extent of horizon and sky. In the last year of her residence in Cambridge, her father moved to the old Brattle place, a still more ancient edifice, with large, old-fashioned garden and stately rows of linden trees. Here Margaret enjoyed the garden walks, which took the place of the extensive view.
Rev. James Freeman Clarke: ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’
Mr. Channing’s first impression.
Margaret too intense.
Imperiousness.
Sentimentality.
I call to mind seeing, at the “Commencements”and “Exhibitions” of Harvard University, a girl, plain in appearance, but of dashing air, who was invariably the centre of a listening group, and kept their merry interest alive by sparkles of wit and incessant small talk.... About 1830 ... we often met in the social circles about Cambridge, and I began to observe her more nearly. At first her vivacity, decisive tone, downrightness and contempt of conventional standards, continued to repel. She appeared toointensein expression, action, emphasis, to be pleasing, and wanting in thatretenuewhich we associate with delicate dignity. Occasionally, also, words flashed from her of such scathing satire, that prudence counselled the keeping at safe distance from a body so surcharged with electricity. Then again, there was an imperial—shall it be said imperious?—air, exacting deference to her judgments and loyalty to her behests, that prompted pride to retaliatory measures. She paid slight heed, moreover, to the trim palings of etiquette, but swept through the garden-beds and into the door-way of one’s confidence so cavalierly that a reserved person felt inclined to lock himself up in his sanctum. Finally, to the coolly-scanning eye, her friendship wore such a look of romantic exaggeration, that she seemed to walk enveloped in a shining fog of sentimentalism....
But soon I was charmed, unaware, with the sagacity of her sallies, the profound thoughts carelessly dropped by her on transient topics, the breadth and richness of culture manifested in her allusions or quotations, her easy comprehension of new views, her just discrimination,and, above all, hertruthfulness. “Truth at all cost,” was plainly her ruling maxim. This it was that made her criticism so trenchant, her contempt of pretence so quick and stern, her speech so naked in frankness, her gaze so searching, her whole attitude so alert.
William Henry Channing: ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’
Emerson’s first impression.
I still remember the first half hour of Margaret’s conversation. She was then twenty-six years old. She had a face and frame that would indicate fullness and tenacity of life. She was rather under the middle height; her complexion was fair, with strong, fair hair. She was then, as always, carefully and becomingly dressed, and of lady-like self-possession. For the rest, her appearance had nothing prepossessing. Her extreme plainness—a trick of incessantly opening and shutting her eyelids—the nasal tone of her voice—all repelled; and I said to myself, we shall never get far. It is to be said that Margaret made a disagreeable first impression on most persons, including those who became afterwards her best friends, to such an extreme that they did not wish to be in the same room with her. This was partly the effect of her manners, which expressed an overweening sense of power, and slight esteem of others, and partly the prejudice of her fame. She had a dangerous reputation for satire, in addition to her great scholarship.... I believe I fancied her too much interested in personal history; and her talk was a comedy in which dramatic justice was done to everybody’s foibles. I remember thatshe made me laugh more than I liked.... She had an incredible variety of anecdotes, and the readiest wit to give an absurd turn to whatever passed; and the eyes, which were so plain at first, soon swam with fun and drolleries, and the very tides of joy and superabundant life.
This rumor was much spread abroad, that she was sneering, scoffing, critical, disdainful of humble people, and of all but the intellectual. It was a superficial judgment. Her satire was only the pastime and necessity of her talent, the play of superabundant animal spirits.... Her mind presently disclosed many moods and powers, in successive platforms or terraces, each above each, that quite effaced this first impression, in the opulence of the following pictures.
Ralph Waldo Emerson: ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’
Her circle of friends.
She was the centre of a group very different from each other, and whose only affinity consisted in their all being polarized by the strong attraction of her mind—all drawn toward herself. Some of her friends were young, gay, and beautiful; some old, sick, or studious. Some were children of the world, others pale scholars. Some were witty, others slightly dull. But all, in order to be Margaret’s friends, must be capable of seeking something—capable of some aspiration for the better. And how did she glorify life to all! All that was tame and common vanishing away in the picturesque light thrown over the most familiar things by her rapid fancy, her brilliant wit, her sharp insight, her creative imagination, by the inexhaustible resources of herknowledge, and the copious rhetoric which found words and images always apt and always ready. Even then she displayed almost the same marvellous gift of conversation, which afterwards dazzled all who knew her—with more, perhaps, of freedom, since she floated on the flood of our warm sympathies. Those who know Margaret only by her published writings, know her least; her notes and letters contain more of her mind; but it was only in conversation that she was perfectly free and at home.
Conversation.
Rev. James Freeman Clarke: ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’
Her friends.
Passionate friendships.
She wore this circle of friends, when I first knew her, as a necklace of diamonds about her neck. They were so much to each other that Margaret seemed to represent them all and to know her, was to acquire a place with them. The confidences given her were their best, and she held them to them. She was an active, inspiring companion and correspondent, and all the art, the thought, and the nobleness in New England, seemed at that moment related to her, and she to it.... I am to add, that she gave herself to her friendships with an entireness not possible to any but a woman, with a depth possible to few women. Her friendships, as a girl with girls, as a woman with women, were not unmingled with passion, and had passages of romantic sacrifice and of ecstatic fusion, which I have heard with the ear, but could not trust my profane pen to report. There were also the ebbs and recoils from the other party—the mortal unequal to converse with an immortal—ingratitude, which was more truly incapacity,the collapse of overstrained affections and powers. At all events, it is clear that Margaret, later, grew more strict, and values herself with her friends on having the tie now “redeemed from all search after Eros.”
R. W. Emerson: ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’
Personal appearance.
Two prominent traits.
Her temperament was predominantly what the physiologists would call nervous-sanguine; and the gray eye, rich brown hair, and light complexion, with the muscular and well-developed frame, bespoke delicacy balanced by vigor. Here was a sensitive, yet powerful being, fit at once for rapture or sustained effort, intensely active, prompt for adventure, firm for trial. She certainly had not beauty; yet the high arched dome of the head, the changeful expressiveness of every feature, and her whole air of mingled dignity and impulse, gave her a commanding charm. Especially characteristic were two physical traits. The first was a contraction of the eyelids almost to a point—a trick caught from near-sightedness—and then a sudden dilatation, till the iris seemed to emit flashes—an effect, no doubt, dependent on her highly-magnetized condition. The second was a singular pliancy of the vertebræ and muscles of the neck, enabling her by a mere movement to denote each varying emotion; in moments of tenderness, or pensive feeling, its curves were swan-like in grace, but when she was scornful or indignant, it contracted, and made swift turns like that of a bird of prey. Finally, in the animation yetabandonof Margaret’s attitude and look, were rarelyblended the fiery force of northern, and the soft languor of southern races.
William Henry Channing: ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’
Her liberality.
With a limited income and liberal wants, she was yet generous beyond the bounds of reason. Had the gold of California been all her own, she would have disbursed nine-tenths of it in eager and well-directed efforts to stay, or at least diminish, the flood of human misery. And it is but fair to state that the liberality she evinced was fully paralleled by the liberality she experienced at the hands of others. Had she needed thousands, and made her wants known, she had friends who would have cheerfully supplied her. I think few persons, in their pecuniary dealings, have experienced and evinced more of the better qualities of human nature than Margaret Fuller. She seemed to inspire those who approached her with that generosity which was a part of her nature.
Horace Greeley:Communicationin ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’
Self-esteem.
Margaret at first astonished and repelled us by a complacency that seemed the most assured since the days of Scaliger. She spoke, in the quietest manner, of the girls she had formed, the young men who owed everything to her, the fine companions she had long ago exhausted. In the coolest way she said to her friends, “I now know all the people worth knowing in America, and I find no intellect comparable to my own.”... I have heardthat from the beginning of her life, she idealized herself as a sovereign. She told —— she early saw herself to be intellectually superior to those around her, and that for years she dwelt upon the idea, until she believed that she was not her parents’ child, but an European princess confided to their care. She remembered that when a little girl, she was walking one day under the apple trees with such an air and step that her father pointed her out to her sister, saying, “Incedit regina.”
A “mountainous me.”
It is certain that Margaret occasionally let slip, with all the innocence imaginable, some phrase betraying the presence of a rather mountainousME, in a way to surprise those who knew her good sense. She could say, as if she were stating a scientific fact, in enumerating the merits of somebody, “He appreciatesme.” There was something of hereditary organization in this, and something of unfavorable circumstance in the fact, that she had in early life no companion, and few afterwards, in her finer studies; but there was also an ebullient sense of power, which she felt to be in her, which as yet had found no right channels.
R. W. Emerson: ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’
Humor.
Those who think of this accomplished woman as a merebas bleu, a pedant, a solemn Minerva, should have heard the peals of laughter which her profuse and racy humor drew from old and young. The Easy Chair remembers stepping into Noah Gerrish’s West Roxbury omnibus one afternoon in Cornhill, in Boston, to drive out the nine miles toBrook Farm. The only other passenger was Miss Fuller, then freshly returned from her “summer on the lakes,” and never was a long, jolting journey more lightened and shortened than by her witty and vivid sketches of life and character. Her quick and shrewd observation is shown in the book, but the book has none of the comedy of thecroquisof persons which her sparkling humor threw off, and which she too enjoyed with the utmost hilarity, joining heartily in the laughter, which was only increased by her sympathy with the amusement of her auditor.
Geo. Wm. Curtis, ‘Easy Chair,’Harper’s Magazine, March, 1882.
Ill health.
Alleged second sight.
She was all her life-time the victim of disease and pain. She read and wrote in bed, and believed that she could understand anything better when she was ill. Pain acted like a girdle to give tension to her powers. A lady who was with her one day during a terrible attack of nervous headache, which made Margaret totally helpless, assured me that Margaret was yet in the finest vein of humor, and kept those who were assisting her in a strange, painful excitement, between laughing and crying, by perpetual brilliant sallies. There were other peculiarities of habit and power. When she turned her head on one side she alleged she had second sight, like St. Francis. These traits or predispositions made her a willing listener to all the uncertain science of mesmerism and its goblin brood, which have been rife in recent years.
It was soon evident that there was somewhat a little pagan about her; that she had some faith more orless distinct in a fate, and in a guardian genius; that her fancy or her pride, had played with her religion. She had a taste for gems, ciphers, talismans, omens, coincidences, and birth-days. She had a special love for the planet Jupiter, and a belief that the month of September was inauspicious to her. She never forgot that her name, Margarita, signified a pearl.... She chose carbuncle for her own stone, and when a dear friend was to give her a gem, this was the one selected.... She was wont to put on her carbuncle, a bracelet or some selected gem, to write letters to certain friends. One of her friends she coupled with the onyx, another in a decided way with the amethyst.... Coincidences, good and bad,contretemps, seals, ciphers, mottoes, omens, anniversaries, names, dreams, are all of a certain importance to her.... She soon surrounded herself with a little mythology of her own.
She had a series of anniversaries, which she kept. Her seal-ring of the flying Mercury had its legend.
R. W. Emerson: ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’
Her love of children.
Her love of children was one of her most prominent characteristics. The pleasure she enjoyed in their society was fully counterpoised by that she imparted. To them she was never lofty, nor reserved, nor mystical; for no one had ever a more perfect faculty for entering into their sports, their feelings, their enjoyments. She could narrate almost any story in language level to their capacities, and in a manner calculated to bring out their hearty, and often boisterously-expressed delight. She possessed marvellous powers of observation andimitation, or mimicry; and had she been attracted to the stage, would have been the first actress America has produced, whether in tragedy or comedy. Her faculty of mimicking was not needed to commend her to the hearts of children, but it had its effects in increasing the fascinations of her genial nature and heart-felt joy in their society. To amuse and instruct was an achievement for which she would readily forego any personal object; and her intuitive perception of the toys, games, stories, rhymes, etc., best adapted to arrest and enchain their attention was unsurpassed.
Horace Greeley:Communication in‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’
A welcome guest.
She was everywhere a welcome guest. The houses of her friends in town and country were open to her, and every hospitable attention eagerly offered. Her arrival was a holiday, and so was her abode. She stayed a few days, often a week, more seldom a month, and all tasks that could be suspended were put aside to catch the favorable hour, in walking, riding, or boating, to talk with this joyful guest, who brought wit, anecdotes, love-stories, tragedies, oracles with her, and with her broad web of relations to so many fine friends, seemed like the queen of some parliament of love, who carried the key to all confidences, and to whom every question had been finally referred.
The day was never long enough to exhaust her opulent memory, and I, who knew her intimately from July, 1836, till August, 1846, when she sailed for Europe, never saw her without surprise at her new powers.
R. W. Emerson: ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’
Margaret’s account of her Boston Conversation Class.
My class is prosperous. I was so fortunate as to rouse, at once, the tone of simple earnestness, which can scarcely, when once awakened, cease to vibrate. All seem in a glow, and quite as receptive as I wish.... There are about twenty-five members, and every one, I believe, full of interest.... The first day’s topic was, the genealogy of heaven and earth; then the Will (Jupiter); the Understanding, (Mercury); the second day’s, the celestial inspiration of genius, perception and transmission of divine law (Apollo); the terrene of inspiration, the impassioned abandonment of genius (Bacchus).
Of the thunderbolt, the caduceus, the ray, and the grape, having disposed as well as might be, we came to the wave, and the sea-shell it moulds to Beauty, and Love her parent and her child.
I assure you, there is more Greek than Bostonian spoken at the meetings; and we may have pure honey of Hymettus to give you yet.
Margaret Fuller:Letter to R. W. Emerson, November, 1839, in ‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’
A pupil’s account.
Margaret used to come to the conversations very well dressed, and, altogether, looked sumptuously. She began them with an exordium, in which she gave her leading views; and those exordiums were excellent, from the elevation of the tone, the ease and flow of discourse, and from the tact with which they were kept aloof from any excess; and from the gracefulness with which they were brought down, at last, to a possible level forothers to follow. She made a pause, and invited the others to come in. Of course, it was not easy for every one to venture her remark, after an eloquent discourse, and in the presence of twenty superior women, who were all inspired. But whatever was said, Margaret knew how to seize the good meaning of it with hospitality, and to make the speaker feel glad, and not sorry, that she had spoken.
—— ——:Communication quoted in‘Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli.’