 CHAPTER XIV of Margaret Fuller, Marqueso Ossolli, by Julia Ward Howe. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Margaret's Marriage. Character of the Marqueso Ossolli. Margaret's first meeting with him. Reasons for not divulging the marriage. Aquila. Rietti. Birth of Angelo Eugene Ossolli. Margaret's return to Rome. Her anxiety about her child. Flight of Pope Pius. The Constitutional Assembly. The Roman Republic. Attitude of France. The Siege of Rome. Mazzini. Princess Belgeosso. Margaret's care of the hospitals. The story of this summer in the mountains, Margaret never told, and her letters of the previous winter gave no account of matters most personal to herself. In continuing the narrative of her life, we are therefore obliged to break through the reserves of the moment, and to speak of events which, though occurring at this time, were not made known to her most intimate friends until a much later period. Margaret had been privately married for some months when she left Rome for Aquila. Her husband was a young Italian nobleman, Ossolli by name, whose exterior is thus described by one of her most valued friends. He appeared to be ever reserved in gentle nature, with quiet, gentleman-like manners, and there was something melancholy in the expression of his face which made one desire to know more of him. In figure he was tall and of slender frame, with dark hair and eyes. He judged that he was about thirty years of age, possibly younger. Margaret had made the acquaintance of this gentleman during her first visit to Rome in the spring of the year 1847, and under the following circumstances. She had gone with some friends to attend the Vesper service at St. Peter's, and wandering from one point of interest to another in the vast church had lost sight of her party. All efforts to rejoin them proved useless, and Margaret was in some perplexity, when a young man of gentlemanly address accosted her and asked leave to assist in finding her friends. These had already left the church, and by the time that this became evident to Margaret and her unknown companion the hour was late, and the carriages, which can usually be found in front of the church after service, had all disappeared. Margaret was therefore obliged to walk from the Vatican to her lodgings on the Corso, accompanied by her new friend, with whom she was able, at the time, to exchange very little conversation. Familiar as she was with Italian literature, the sound of the language was new to her, and its use difficult. The result of this chance meeting seems to have been love at first sight on the part of the Marquesio Soli, before Margaret left Rome he had offered her his hand, and had been refused. Margaret returned to Rome, as we have seen, in the autumn of the same year. Her acquaintance with the Marquesio was now renewed, and with the advantage that she had become sufficiently familiar with the Italian language to conversen it with comparative ease. Her intense interest in the affairs of Italy suggested to him also ideas of liberty and better government. This education, much neglected, as she thought, had been in the traditions of the narrowest conservatism, but Margaret's influence led, or enabled him, to free himself from the tramples of old-time prejudice, and to espouse with his whole heart the cause of Roman liberty. According to the best authority extant, the marriage of Margaret and the Marquesio took place in the December following her return to Rome. The father of the Marquesio had died but a short time before this, and his estate, left in the hands of two other sons, was not yet settled. These gentlemen were both attached to the papal household, and we judged to the reactionary party. The fear, lest the Marquesio's marriage with a Protestant should deprive him wholly, or in part, of his paternal inheritance, induced the newly married couple to keep to themselves the secret of their relation to each other. At the moment ecclesiastical influence would have been very likely, under the circumstances, to affect the legal action to be taken in the division of the property. Better things were hoped for in view of a probable change of government. So the winter passed, and Margaret went to her retreat among the mountains, with her secret unguessed and probably unsuspected. Her husband was a member, perhaps already a captain, of the civic guard, and was detained in Rome by military duties. Margaret was therefore much alone in the midst of a theatre of glorious snow-crowned mountains whose pedestals are garlanded with the olive and mulberry, and along whose sides run bridal paths, fringed with almond groves and vineyards. The scene was to her one of intoxicating beauty, but the distance from her husband soon became more than she could bear. After a month passed in this place she found a nearer retreat at Rietti, also a mountain town, but within the confines of the papal states. Here a soul could sometimes pass the Sunday with her, by travelling in the night. In one of her letters Margaret writes, Do not fail to come. I shall have your coffee warm. You will arrive early, and I can see the diligence past the bridge from my window. In the month of August the civic guard were ordered to prepare for a march to Bologna, and Ossoli, writing to Margaret on the seventeenth, strongly expresses his unwillingness to be so far removed from her in a time in which she might have urgent need of his presence at any moment. For these were to her days of great hope and expectation. Her confinement was near at hand, and she was alone, poor, and friendless, among people whose only aim was to plunder her. But Margaret could not, even in these trying circumstances, belie the heroic principles which had always guided her life. She writes to her doubting, almost despairing husband, If honour requires it go, I will try to sustain myself. This dreaded trial was averted. The march to Bologna was countermanded. Margaret's boy saw the light on the fifth of September, and the joyful presence of her husband soothed for her the pangs of a first maternity. He was indeed obliged to leave her the next day for Rome. Margaret was ill cared for, and lost, through a severe fever, the ability to nurse her child. She was forced to dismiss her only attendant, and to struggle in her helpless condition with the dishonesty and meanness of the people around her. A balia for the child was soon found, but Margaret felt the need of much courage in guarding the first days of her infant's life. In her eyes he grew more beautiful every hour. The people in the house called him Angelino, anticipating the name afterwards given him in baptism, Angelo Eugene. She was soon to find a new trial in leaving him. Her husband still wished to keep his marriage a profound secret, and to this end desired that the baby should be left at Rietti in charge of a good nurse who should treat him like a mother. Margaret was most anxious to return to Rome, to be near her husband, and also in order to be able to carry on the literary labor upon which depended not only her own support, but also that of her child. According to a soli, she says, I cannot stay long without seeing the boy. He is so dear, and life seems so uncertain. It is necessary that I should be in Rome a month at least, to Rietti and to be near you, but I must be free to return here if I feel too anxious and suffering for him. Early in November Margaret returned to Rome. In a letter to her mother, bearing the date of November 16, she says, I am again in Rome, situated for the first time entirely to my mind. I have the sun all day and an excellent chimney. It, her lodging, is very high, and has pure air and the most beautiful view all around imaginable. The house looks out on the Piazza Barberini, and I see both that palace and the troops, the Quirinal. The assassination of the minister Rossi had taken place on the previous day. Margaret describes it almost as if she had seen it. The poor, weak pope has fallen more and more under the dominion of the Cardinals. He had suffered the minister Rossi to go on, tightening the reins, and because the people preserved a silent silence, he thought they would bear it. Rossi, after two or three most unpopular measures, had the imprudence to call the troops of the line to defend him instead of the National Guard. Yesterday, as he descended from his carriage to enter the chamber of deputies, the crowd howled and hissed, then pushed him, and as he turned his head in consequence a sure hand stabbed him in the back. On the morrow the troops and the people united in calling upon the pope, then at the Quirinal, for a change of measures. They found no audience but only the hated Swiss mercenaries who defeated an attempt to enter the palace by firing on the crowd. The drum beat to call out the National Guard. The carriage of Prince Barberini has returned, with its frightened inmates and liveried retinue, and they have suddenly barred up the courtyard gate. It felt no apprehension for herself in all this turmoil. The side which had for the moment the upper hand was her own, and these very days were such as she had longed for. Not we may be sure for their accompaniments of bloodshed and violence, but for the outlook which was to her and her friends one of absolute promise. The good time coming did then seem to have come for Italy. The various populations had risen against their respective tyrants, and had shown a disposition to forget past divisions in the joy of a country reconciled and united. In the principal churches of Rome masses were performed in commemoration of the patriotic men who fell at this time in various struggles with existing governments. This were honoured the victims of Milan, of Naples, of Venice, of Vienna. Not long after the assassination of Rossi, the Pope, imploring the protection of the King of Naples, fled to Gaeta. No more of him, writes Margaret, his day is over. He has been made, it seems, unconsciously, an instrument of good which his regrets cannot destroy. The political consequences of this act were scarcely foreseen by the Romans, who, according to Margaret's account, remained quite cool and composed, saying only, The Pope, the Cardinals, the Princes are gone, and Rome is perfectly tranquil. One does not miss anything, except that there are not so many rich carriages and liveries. In February Margaret chronicles the opening of the Constitutional Assembly, which was heralded by a fine procession with much display of banners. In this, Prince Canino, a nephew of Napoleon, walked side by side with Garibaldi, having both been chosen deputies. Margaret saw this from a balcony in the Piazza di Venezia, whose stern old palace seemed to frown as the bands each in passing struck up the Marseilles. On February 9 the bells were rung in honour of the formation of a Roman Republic. The next day Margaret went forth early to observe the face of Rome. She saw the procession of deputies mount the Campidolio, capital, with the Guardia Civica for their escort. Here was promulgated the decree, announcing the formation of the Republic, and guaranteeing to the Pope the undisturbed exercise of his spiritual power. The Grand Duke of Tuscany now fled, smiling ascent to liberal principles as he entered his carriage to depart. The King of Sardinia was naturally filled with alarm. It makes no difference, says Margaret. He and his minister Gioberti must go, unless foreign intervention should impede the liberal movement. In this case the question is, what will France do? Will she basely forfeit every pledge in every duty to say nothing of her true interest? Alas! France was already sold to the counterfeit greatness of a name, and was pledged to a course irrational and vulgar beyond any that she had yet followed. The Roman Republic, born of high hope and courage, had but few days to live, and those days were full of woe. Margaret had so made the life of Rome her own at this period that we have found it impossible to describe the one without recounting something of the other. Her intense interest in public affairs could not, however, wean her thoughts from the little babe left at Rietti. Going dither in December she passed a week with her darling, but was forced after this to remain three months in Rome without seeing him. Here she lay awake whole nights, contriving how she might end this painful separation, but circumstances were too strong for her, and the object so dearly wished for could not be compassed. In March she visited him again, and found him in health, and plump though small. The baby leaned his head pathetically against her breast, seeming, she thought, to say, How could you leave me? He is described as a sensitive and precocious little creature, affected, Margaret thought, by sympathy with her. For, she says, I worked very hard before his birth, at her book on Italy, with the hope that all my spirit might be incarnated in him. She returned to Rome about the middle of April. The French were already in Italy. Their web of falsehood was drawing closer and closer round the devoted city. Margaret was not able to visit her boy again, until the siege, soon begun, ended in the downfall of the Roman Republic. The government of Rome at this time was in the hands of a triumvirate, whose names, Armelini, Mazzini, and Safi, are appended to the official communications made an answer to the letters of the French envoy, Monsieur de Lécep, and of the Commander-in-Chief, General Odinot. The French side of this correspondence presented but a series of tergiversations, the truth being simply that the opportunity of reinstating the Roman pontiff in his temporal domain was too valuable to be allowed to pass by the adventurer who then, under the name of President, already ruled France by military despotism. In the great game of hazard which he played, the prospective adhesion of the Pope's spiritual subjects was the highest card he could hold. The people who had been ignorant enough to elect Louis Napoleon were easily led to justify his outrageous expedition to Rome. In Margaret's manifold disappointments, Mazzini always remained her ideal of a patriot, and, as she says, of a prince. To her he stands alone in Italy, on a sunny height, far above the stature of other men. He came to her lodgings in Rome, and was in appearance more divine than ever after all his new strange sufferings. He had then just been made a Roman citizen, and would in all probability have been made President had the Republic continued to exist. He talked long with Margaret, and, she says, was not sanguine as to the outcome of the difficulties of the moment. The city once invested, military hospitals became a necessity. The Princess Beljoyoso, a Milanese by birth, and in her day a social and political notability, undertook to organize these establishments, and obtained by personal solicitation the funds necessary to begin her work. On the thirtieth of April, eighteen forty-nine, she wrote the following letter to Margaret. Dear Miss Fuller, you are named superintendent of the Hospital of the Fate Bene Fratelli. Go there at twelve, if the alarm bell has not rung before. When you arrive there, you will receive all the women coming for the wounded, and give them your directions, so that you are sure to have a number of them night and day. May God help us. Christine Trivulse of Beljoyoso. End of Chapter 14. CHAPTER XV of Margaret Fuller, Marqueso Ossolli, by Julia Ward Howe. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Siege of Rome. Margaret's care of the sick and wounded. Anxiety about her husband and child. Battle between the French and Italian troops. The surrender. Garibaldi's departure. Margaret joins her husband at his post. Angelo's illness. Letters from friends in America. Perugia. Winter in Florence. Margaret's domestic life. Aspect of her future. Her courage in industry. Ossolli's affection for her. William Henry Hurlbut's reminiscences of them both. Stays in Florence. Farewell visit to the Duomo. Margaret's evenings at home. Horace Sumner. Margaret as a friend of the people. Margaret writes to Mr. Emerson in June. Since the thirtieth of April I go almost daily to the hospitals, and though I have suffered, for I had no idea before how terrible gunshot wounds and wound fever are, yet I have taken great pleasure in being with the men. There is scarcely one who is not moved by a noble spirit. Night and day, writes the friend cited above, Margaret was occupied, and, with the princess, so ordered and disposed the hospitals that their conduct was admirable. Of money they had very little, and they were obliged to give their time and thoughts in its place. I have walked through the wards with Margaret, and have seen how comforting was her presence to the poor, suffering men. For each one's peculiar tastes she had a care. To one she carried books, to another she told the news of the day, and listened to another's oft-repeated tale of wrongs as the best sympathy she could give. They raised themselves on their elbows to get the last glimpse of her as she went her way. Osoli, meanwhile, was stationed with his command on the walls of the Vatican, a post of considerable danger. This he refused to leave, even for necessary food and rest. The provisions sent him from time to time were shared with his needy comrades. As these men were brought, wounded and dying, to the hospitals, Margaret looked eagerly to see whether her husband was among them. She was able sometimes to visit him at his post, and to talk with him about the beloved child, now completely beyond their reach, as the city was invested on all sides and no sure means of communication open to them. They remained for many days without any news of the little one, and their first intelligence concerning him was to the effect that the nurse with whom he had been left would at once abandon him unless a certain sum of money should be sent in prepayment of her services. This it seemed at first impossible to do, but after a while the money was sent, and the evil day adjourned for a time. Margaret's letters of the 10th of June speak of a terrible battle recently fought between the French troops and the defenders of Rome. The Italians, she says, fought like lions, making a stand for honour and conscience sake, with scarcely any prospect of success. The attack of the enemy was directed with a skill and order which Margaret was compelled to admire. The loss on both sides was heavy, and the assailants for the moment gained no inch of ground. But this was only the beginning of the dread trial. By the 20th of June the bombardment had become heavy. On the night of the 21st a practicable breach was made, and the French were within the city. The defence, however, was valiantly continued until the 30th, when Garibaldi informed the assembly that further resistance would be useless. Conditions of surrender were then asked for and refused. Garibaldi himself was denied a safe conduct, and departed with his troops augmented by a number of soldiers from other regiments. This was on July 2nd, after it became known that the French army would take possession on the morrow. Margaret followed the departing troops as far as the place of St. John Lateran. Never had she seen a sight so beautiful, so romantic, and so sad. The grand piazza had once been the scene of Rienzi's triumph. The sun was setting, the crescent moon rising, the flower of the Italian youth were marshalling in that solemn place. They had all put on the beautiful dress of the Garibaldi Legion, the tunic of bright red cloth, the Greek cap or round hat with Puritan plume. Their long hair was blown back from resolute faces. I saw the wounded, all that could go, laden upon their baggage-cars. I saw many youths born to rich inheritance carrying in a handkerchief all their worldly goods. The wife of Garibaldi followed him on horseback. He himself was distinguished by the white tunic. His look was entirely that of a hero of the Middle Ages, his face still young. He went upon the parapet and looked upon the road with a spy-glass, and, no obstruction being in sight, he turned his face for a moment back upon Rome, then led the way through the gate. Thus ended the heroic defence of Rome. The French occupation began on the next day with martial law and the end of all liberties. Alas that it was not given to Margaret to see Garibaldi come again with the laurels of an abiding victory. Alas that she saw not the end of the Napoleon game and the punishment of France for her act of insensate folly. It was during these days of fearful trial and anxiety that Margaret confided to Mrs. Story the secret of her marriage. This was done not for the relief of her own over-tasked feelings, but in the interest of her child, libel at this time to be left friendless by the death of his parents. Margaret, in her extreme anxiety concerning her husband's safety, became so ill and feeble that the duration of her own life appeared to her very uncertain. In a moment of great depression she called Mrs. Story to her bedside, related to her all the antecedents of the birth of the child, and showed her, among other papers, the certificate of her marriage and of her son's legal right to inherit the title and estate of his father. These papers she entrusted to Mrs. Story's care, requesting her, in case of her own death, to seek her boy, Rietti, and to convey him to her friends in America. To Louis Cass, at that time American envoy to the papal court, the same secret was confided and under circumstances still more trying. Shortly before the conclusion of the siege Margaret learned that an attack would probably be made upon the very part of the city in which Ossolly was stationed with his men. She accordingly sent to request that Mr. Cass would call upon her at once, which he did. He found her, lying on a sofa, pale and trembling, evidently much exhausted. After informing him of her marriage, and of the birth and whereabouts of her child, she confided to his care certain important documents, to be sent in the event of her death to her family in America. Her husband was, at that very moment, in command of a battery directly exposed to the fire of the French artillery. The night before had been one of great danger to him, and Margaret, in view of his almost certain death, had determined to pass the coming night at his post with him, and to share his fate whatever it might be. He had promised to come for her at the Ave Maria, and Mr. Cass, departing, met him at the Porter's Lodge, and shortly afterward beheld them walking in the direction of his command. It turned out that the threatened danger did not visit them. The cannonating from this point was not renewed, and on the morrow military operations were at an end. Among our few pictures of Margaret and her husband, how characteristic is this one? Of the pair, walking side by side into the very jaws of death, with the glory of faith and courage bright about them. The gates once open, Margaret's first thought was of Rietti, and her boy there. Thither she sped without delay, arriving just in time to save the life of the neglected and forsaken child, whose wicked nurse, uncertain of further payment, had indeed abandoned him. His mother found him, worn to a skeleton, too weak to smile or lift his little waist in hand. Four weeks of incessant care and nursing brought, still in one feebleness, his first returning smile. All that Margaret had already endured seemed to her light in comparison with this. In the papal states woman had clearly fallen behind even the standard of the she-wolf. After these painful excitements came a season of blessed quietness for Margaret and her dear ones. Angelo regained his infant graces, and became full of life and of baby glee. Margaret's marriage was suitably acknowledged, and the pain and trouble of such a concealment were at end. The disclosure of the relation naturally excited much comment in Italy and in America. In both countries there were some, no doubt, who chose to interpret this unexpected action on the part of Margaret in a manner utterly at variance with the whole tenor and spirit of her life. The general feeling was, however, quite otherwise, and it is gratifying to find that while no one would have considered Margaret's marriage an act of worldly wisdom, it was very generally accepted by her friends as only another instance of the romantic disinterestedness which had always been a leading trait in her character. Writing to an intimate friend in America, she remarks, What you say of the meddling curiosity of people repels me. It is so different here. When I made my appearance with a husband and a child of a year old nobody did the least act to annoy me. People were most cordial. None asked or implied questions. She had already written to Madame Artcanati, asking whether the fact of her concealed marriage in motherhood would make any difference in their relations. Her friend, a lady of the highest position and character, replied, What difference can it make, except that I shall love you more now that we can sympathize as mothers? In other letters Margaret speaks of the loving sympathy expressed for her by relatives in America. The attitude of her brothers was such as she had rightly expected it to be. Her mother received the communication in the highest spirit, feeling assured that a leading motive in Margaret's withholding of confidence from her had been the desire to spare her a season of most painful anxiety. Speaking of a letter recently received from her, Margaret says, She blessed us. She rejoiced that she should not die, feeling there was no one left to love me with the devotion she thought I needed. She expressed no regret at our poverty, but offered her feeble means. After a stay of some weeks at Rieti, Margaret, with her husband and child, journeyed to Prugia, and thence to Florence. At the former place she remained long enough to read D'Azelio's Niccolò de Lapi, which she esteemed, a book unenlivened by a spark of genius, but interesting as illustrative of Florence. Here she felt that she understood for the first time the depth and tenderness of the Umbrian school. The party reached Florence late in September, and were soon established in lodgings for the winter. The police at first made some objection to their remaining in the city, but this matter was soon settled to their satisfaction. Margaret's thoughts now turned toward her own country and her own people. It will be sad to leave Italy uncertain of return, yet when I think of you, beloved mother, of brothers and sisters and many friends, I wish to come. Osoli is perfectly willing. He will go among strangers, but to him as to all the young Italians, America seems the land of liberty. Margaret's home letters give lovely glimpses of this season of peace. Her modest establishment was served by Angelo's nurse, with a little occasional aid from the porter's wife. The boy himself was now in rosy health, as his mother says, a very gay, impetuous, ardent, but sweet-tempered child. She describes with a mother's delight his visit to her room at first waking, when he pulls her curtain aside and goes through his pretty routine of baby tricks for her amusement, laughing, crowing, imitating the sound of the bellows, and even saying, bravo! Then comes his bath, which she herself gives him, and then his walk and midday sleep. I feel so refreshed by his young life, and Osoli diffuses such a power and sweetness over every day that I cannot endure to think yet of our future. We have resolved to enjoy being together as much as we can in this brief interval, perhaps all we shall ever know of peace. I rejoice in all that Osoli did in the interest of the liberal party, but the results are disastrous, especially as my strength is now so impaired. This much I hope, in life or death, to be no more separated from Angelo. This future did indeed look to her full of difficult duties. At forty years of age, having labored all her life for her father's family, she was to begin a new struggle for her own. She had looked this necessity bravely in the face, and with resolute hand had worked at a history of recent events in Italy, hoping thus to make a start in the second act of her life work. The two volumes which she had completed by this time seemed to her impaired in value by the intense personal suffering which had lain like a weight upon her. Such leisure as the care of Angelo left her, while in Florence, was employed in the continuation of this work, whose loss we deplore the more for the intense personal feeling which must have throbbed through its pages. Margaret had hoped to pass this winter without any enforced literary labour. Learning of her child, as she wisely says, and is no doubt she did, whatever else she may have found it necessary to do. In the chronicle of her days he plays an important part. His baby laugh, all dimples and glitter, his contentment in the fair scene about him when, carried to the caschine, he lies back in her arms, smiling, singing to himself, and moving his tiny feet. The Christmas holidays are dearer to her than ever before for his sake. In the evening before the bright little fire he sits on his stool between his father and mother, reminding Margaret of the days in which she had been so seated between her own parents. He is to her a source of ineffable joys, far pure, deeper, than anything I ever felt before. As Margaret's husband was destined to remain a tradition only to the greater number of her friends, the hints and outlines of him given here and there in her letters are important, in showing us what companionship she had gained in return for her great sacrifice. O'Solee seems to have belonged to a type of character the very opposite of that which Margaret had best known and best admired. To one wearied with the over-intellection and restless aspiration of the accomplished New Englander of that time, the simple geniality of the Italian nature had all the charm of novelty and contrast. Margaret had delighted in the race from her first acquaintance with it, but had found its happy endowments heavily weighted with traits of meanness and ferocity. In her husband she found its most worthy features, and her heart, wearied with long seeking and wandering, rested at last in the confidence of a simple and faithful attachment. She writes from Florence, My love for O'Solee is most pure and tender, nor has anyone, except my mother or little children, loved me so genuinely as he does. To some I have been obliged to make myself known. Others have loved me with a mixture of fancy and enthusiasm, excited at my talent of embellishing life. But O'Solee loves me from simple affinity. He loves to be with me, and to serve and soothe me. And in another letter she says, O'Solee will be a good father. He has very little of what is called intellectual development, but has unspoiled instincts, affections pure and constant, and a quiet sense of duty, which, to me who have seen much of the great faults in characters of enthusiasm and genius, seems of highest value. Some reminiscences contributed by the accomplished literature, William Henry Hurlbut, will help to complete the dim portrait of the Marquesse. The frank and simple recognition of his wife's singular nobleness, which he always displayed, was the best evidence that his own nature was of a fine and noble strain. And those who knew him best are, I believe, unanimous in testifying that his character did in no respect belie the evidence borne by his manly and truthful countenance to its warmth and sincerity. He seemed quite absorbed in his wife and child. I cannot remember ever to have found Bada M. O'Solee alone on the evenings when she remained at home. Mr. Hurlbut says further, notwithstanding his general reserve and curtness of speech, on two or three occasions he showed himself to possess a quick and vivid fancy, and even a certain share of humour. I have heard him tell stories remarkably well. One tale especially, which related to a dream he had in early life, I remember as being told with great felicity and vivacity of expression. Though opposed, like all liberals, to the ecclesiastical government of Rome, the Marquesae appeared to Mr. Hurlbut a devout Catholic. He often attended Vesper services in Florence, and Margaret, unwavering in her Protestantism, still found it sweet to kneel by his side. Margaret read this winter Louis Blanc's Story of Ten Years and La Martine's Girondists. Her days were divided between family cares and her literary work, which for the time consisted in recording her impressions of recent events. She sometimes passed an evening at the rooms occupied by the Mosier and Chapman families, where the Americans then resident in Florence were often gathered together. She met Mr. and Mrs. Browning often and with great pleasure. The Marquesae Arconati she saw almost daily. One of Margaret's last descriptions is of the Duomo, which she visited with her husband on Christmas Eve. No one was there. Only the altars were lit up, and the priests, who were singing, could not be seen by the faint light. The vast solemnity of the interior is thus really felt. The Duomo is more divine than St. Peter's, and worthy of genius, pure and unbroken. St. Peter's is, like Rome, a mixture of sublimest heaven with corruptist earth. I adore the Duomo, though no place can now be to me like St. Peter's, whereas been past the splendidest part of my life. Thus looked to her, in remembrance, the spot where she had first met her husband, where she had shared his heroic vigils, and stood beside him within reach of death. The little household suffered some inconvenience before the winter was over. By the middle of December the weather became severely cold, and Margaret once again experienced the inconvenience of ordinary lodgings in Italy, in which the means of heating the rooms are very limited. The baby grew impatient of confinement, and constantly pointed to the door, which he was not allowed to pass. Of their several rooms only one was comfortable under these circumstances. Of this, as occupied in the winter evenings, Mr. Herlbut has given a pleasant description. A small, square room, sparingly yet sufficiently furnished, with polished floor and frescoed ceilings, and, drawn up closely before the cheerful fire, an oval table, on which stood a monkish lamp of brass, with depending chains that support quaint classic cups for the olive oil. There seated beside his wife I was sure to find the Marquesse, from some patriotic book, and dressed in the dark-brown, red-coated coat of the Guardia Civica, which it was his melancholy pleasure to wear at home. So long as the conversation could be carried on in Italian, he used to remain, though he rarely joined in it to any considerable degree. If many forestieri chanced to drop in, he betook himself to a neighbouring café, not absenting himself through a version to such visitors, but in the fear lest his silent presence might weigh upon them. To complete the picture here given of the Ossolli interior we should mention Horace, the youngest brother of Charles Sumner, who was a daily visitor in this abode of peace. Margaret says of him, He has solid good in his mind and heart. When I am ill or in a hurry he helps me like a brother. William Sumner exchanged some instruction in English in Italian. This young man, remembered by those who knew him as most amiable and estimable, was abroad at this time for his health, and passed the winter in Florence. Mr. Hurlbut tells us that he brought Margaret every morning his tribute of fresh wildflowers, and that every evening, beside her seed in her little room, his mild, pure face was to be seen, bright with a quiet happiness, which was, in part, derived from her kindness and sympathy. This brief chronicle of Margaret's last days in Italy would be incomplete without a few words concerning the enviable position which she had made for herself in this country of her adoption. The way in which the intelligence of her marriage was received by her country-people in Rome and Florence gives the strongest proof of the great esteem in which they were constrained to hold her. Equally honourable to her was the friendship of Madame Arconati, a lady of high rank and higher merit, beloved and revered as few were in the Milan of that day. She was the friend of Joseph Mussini, and shared with George Sand and Elizabeth Barrett Browning the honours of prominence in the liberal movement and aspiration of the time. But it is in her intercourse with the people at large that we shall find the deepest evidence of her true humanity. Hers was no barren creed divorced from beneficent action. The wounded soldiers in the hospital, the rude peasants of Rietti, knew her heart and thought of her as a mild saint and ministering angel. Ferocious and grasping as these peasants were, she was able to overcome for the time their savage instincts and to turn the tide of their ungoverned passions. In this place two brothers were one day saved from the guilt of fratricide by her calm and firm intervention. Both of the men were furiously angry and blood had already been drawn by the knife of one when she stepped between them and so reasoned and insisted that the weapons were presently flung away and the feud healed by a fraternal embrace. During this occurrence the American lady was recognized as a peacemaker, and differences of various sorts were referred to her for settlement, much as domestic and personal difficulties had been submitted to her in her own New England. Among the troubles brought under her notice at Rietti were the constant annoyances caused by the lawless behavior of a number of Spanish troops who happened to be quartered upon the town. Between these and the villagers she succeeded in keeping the peace by means of good counsel and enforced patience. In Florence she seems to have been equally beloved and respected. A quarrel here took place between her maid from Rietti and a fellow lodger in which her earnest effort prevented bloodshed and effectually healed the breach between the two women. The porter of the house in which she dwelt while in Florence was slowly dying of consumption. Margaret's kindness so attached him to her that he always spoke of her as la cara signora. The unruly Garibaldi legion overtook Margaret one day between Rome and Rietti. She had been to visit her child at the latter place and was returning to Rome alone in a vettura. While she was resting for an hour at a wayside inn the master of the house entered in great alarm crying, We are lost, here is the legion Garibaldi. These men always pillage and if we do not give up all to them without pay they will kill us. Looking out upon the road Margaret saw that the men so much dreaded were indeed close at hand. For a moment she felt some alarm, thinking that they might insist upon taking the horses from her carriage and thus render it impossible for her to proceed on her journey. Another moment she had found a device to touch their better nature. As the troop entered noisy and disorderly Margaret rose and said to the innkeeper, Give these good men bread and wine at my expense, for after their ride they must need refreshment. The men at once became quiet and respectful. They partook of the offered hospitality with the best grace and at parting escorted her to her carriage and took leave of her with great deference. She drove off wondering at their bad reputation. They probably were equally astonished at her dignity and friendliness. The statements of Margaret's friends touch us with their account of the charities which this poor woman was able to afford through economy and self-sacrifice. When she allowed herself only the bare necessaries of living and diet she could have the courage to send fifty dollars to an artist whom she deemed poorer than herself. Rich indeed was this generous heart, to an extent undreamed of by wealthy collectors and pleasure-seekers. CHAPTER XVI of Margaret Fuller, Marqueso Ossolli, by Julia Ward Howe. The Slybervox recording is in the public domain. Margaret turns her face homeward. Last letter to her mother. The bark Elizabeth, presages and omens. Death of the Captain, Angelo's illness, the wreck, the long struggle, the end, final estimate of Margaret's character. Returned to her own country now lay immediately before Margaret. In the land of her adoption the struggle for freedom had failed and no human foresight could have predicted the period of its renewal. Margaret had cried out like the sluggard on his bed. You have waked me too soon. I'm a slumber again. Margaret's delight in the new beauties and resources unfolded to her in various European countries and especially in Italy had made the thought of this return unwelcome to her. But now that free thought had become contraband in the beautiful land where should she carry her high-hearted hopes, if not westward, would the tide of the true empire that shall grow out of man's conquest of his own brute passions. This holy westward way, found of Columbus, broadened and brightened by the pilgrims, and become an ocean highway for the nations of the earth lay open to her. From its farther end came to her the loving voices of kindred and friends of youth. There she, a mother, could show her babe and make her boast to a mother of her own. Their brothers, trained to noble manhood through her care and labor, could rise up to requite something of what they owed her. There she could tell the story of her Italy with the chance of a good hearing. There, where she had sown most precious seed in the field of the younger generations, she would find some sheaves to bind for her own heart harvest. And so the last days in Florence came. The vessel was chosen, and the day of sailing fixed upon. Margaret's last letter, addressed to her mother, is dated on the 14th of May. We read it now with a weight of sorrow which was hidden from her. In the light of what afterwards took place it has the sweet solemnity of a greeting sent from the borders of another world. Florence May 14th, 1850 I will believe I shall be welcome with my treasures. My husband and child. For me I long so much to see you. Should anything hinder our meeting upon earth, think of your daughter as one who always wished, at least, to do her duty, and one who always cherished you, according as her mind opened to discover excellence. Give dear love, too, to my brothers, and first to my eldest faithful friend Eugen, a sister's love to Ellen, love to my kind and good aunts, and to my dear cousin E. God bless them. I hope we shall be able to pass some time together yet in this world. But if God decrees otherwise, here and hereafter, my dearest mother, your loving child Margaret. Who is there that reads twice a sorrowful story without entertaining an unreasonable hope that its ending may change in the re-perusal? So does one return to the fate of Paul and Virginia. So to that of the Bride of Lamermore. So even in the wild tragedy of Othello, seen for the hundredth time, one still sees a way of escape for the victim. Still an imagination implores her to follow it. And when repeated representation has made assurance doubly sure, we yield to the mandate which none can resist, once issued, and say, it was to be. This unreasonable struggle renews itself within us as we follow the narrative of Margaret's departure for her native land. Why did she choose a merchant vessel from Leghorn? Why one which was destined to carry in its hold the heavy marble of powers Greek slave? She was warned against this, was uncertain in her own mind, and disturbed by presages of ill. But economy was very necessary to her at the moment. The vessel chosen, the bark Elizabeth, was new, strong, and ably commanded. Margaret had seen and made friends with the captain, hasty by name, and his wife. Horace Sumner was to be their fellow passenger, and a young Italian girl, Celeste Paulini, engaged to help in the care of the little boy. These considerations carried the day. Just before leaving Florence, Margaret received letters, the tenor of which would have enabled her to remain longer in Italy. Ossolly remembered the warning of a fortune-teller, who in his childhood had told him to beware of the sea. Margaret wrote of omens which gave her a dark feeling. She had a vague expectation of some crisis, she knows not what, and this year, 1850, had long appeared to her a period of pause in the ascent of life, a point at which she should stand as on a plateau and take more clear and commanding views than ever before. She prays fervently that she may not lose her boy at sea, either by unsolest illness or amid the howling waves, or if so, that Ossolly, Angelo, and I may go together, and that the anguish may be brief. These presentiments, strangely prophetic, returned upon Margaret with so much force that on the very day appointed for sailing, the 17th of May, she stood at bay before them for an hour, unable to decide whether she should go or stay. But she had appointed a general meeting with her family in July, and had positively engaged her passage in the bark. Fidelity to these engagements prevailed with her. She may have felt, too, the danger of being governed by vague forebodings which, shunning death in one form, often invited in another. And so, in spite of fears and omens, too well justified in the sequel, she went on board, and the voyage began in smooth tranquillity. The first days at sea passed quietly enough. The boy played on the deck, or was carried about by the captain. Margaret and her husband suffered little inconvenience from sea sickness, and were soon walking together in the limited space of their floating home. But presently the good captain fell ill with smallpox of a malignant type. On June 3rd the bark anchored off Gibraltar. The commander breathed his last, and was accorded a seamen's burial in the sea. Here the ship suffered a detention of some days from unfavorable winds, but on the 9th was able to proceed on her way. And two days later Angelo showed symptoms of the dreadful disease, which visited him severely. His eyes were closed, his head swollen, his body disfigured by the accompanying eruption. Margaret and Ossolly, strangers to the disease, hung over their darling, and nursed him so tenderly that he was in due time restored, not only to health, but also to his baby beauty, so much prized by his mother. Margaret wrote from Gibraltar, describing the captain's illness and death, and giving a graphic picture of his ocean funeral. She did not at the time foresee Angelo's illness, but knew that he might easily have taken the infection. Relieved from this painful anxiety, the routine of the voyage re-established itself. Ossolly and Sumner continued to instruct each other in their respective languages. The baby became the pet and delight of the sailors. Margaret was busy with her book on Italy, but found time to soothe and comfort the disconsolate widow of the captain, after her own veiling fashion. Thus passed the summer days at sea. On Thursday, July 18th, the Elizabeth was off the Jersey Coast, in thick weather, the wind-blowing east of south. The former mate was now the captain. According to avoid the coast, he sailed east-northeast, thinking presently to take a pilot and to pass Sandy Hook by favor of the wind. At night he promised his passengers an early arrival in New York. They retired to rest in good spirits, having previously made all the usual preparations for going on shore. By nine o'clock that evening the breeze had become a gale. By midnight a dangerous storm. The commander, casting the lead from time to time, was without apprehension, having, it is supposed, mistaken his locality and miscalculated the speed of the vessel, which, under close-reefed sails, was nearing the sandbars of Long Island. Here on Fire Island Beach she struck, at four o'clock on the morning of July 19th. The main and mizzen masts were promptly cut away, but the heavy marble had broken through the hold, and the waters rushed in. The bow of the vessel struck fast in the sand. Her stern swung around, and she lay with her broadside exposed to the breakers, which swept over her with each returning rise, a wreck to be saved by no human power. The passengers sprang from their berths, aroused by the dreadful shock, and guessing but too well its import. Then came the crash of the falling masts, the roar of the waves, as they shattered the cabin's skylight and poured down into the cabin, extinguishing the lights. These features of the moment are related, as recalled by Mrs. Hastie, sole survivor of the passengers. One scream only was heard from Margaret's stateroom. Mrs. Hastie and Horace Sumner met in the cabin in clasped hands. "'We must die,' was his exclamation. "'Let us die calmly,' said the resolute woman. "'I hope so,' answered he. The leeward side of the cabin was already under water, but its windward side still gave shelter, and here for three hours the passengers took refuge, their feet braced against the long table. The baby shrieked, as well he might, with the sudden fright, the noise and chill of the water. But his mother wrapped him as warmly as she could, and in her agony cradled him on her bosom and sang him to sleep. The girl Celeste was beside herself with terror, and here we find recorded a touching trait of Osoli, who soothed her with encouraging words, and touched all hearts with his fervent prayer. In the calm of resignation they now sat conversing with each other, passing last messages to friends, to be given by any one of them who might survive the wreck. The crew had retired to the top-gallant folksle, and the passengers hearing nothing of them supposed them to have left the ship. By seven o'clock it became evident that the cabin could not hold together much longer, and Mrs. Hasty, looking from the door for some way of escape, saw a figure standing by the formast, the space between being constantly swept by the waves. She tried in vain to make herself heard, but the mate, Davis, coming to the door of the folksle, saw her, and immediately ordered the men to go to her assistance. So great was the danger of doing this that only two of the crew were willing to accompany him. The only refuge for the passengers was now in the folksle, which, from its position and strength of construction, would be likely to resist longest the violence of the waves. By great effort and coolness the mate and his two companions reached the cabin, and rescued all in it from the destruction so nearly impending. Mrs. Hasty was the first to make the perilous attempt. She was washed into the hatchway, and besought the brave Davis to leave her to her fate, but he, otherwise minded, caught her long hair between his teeth, and, with true seamen's craft, saved her and himself. Angelo was carried across in a canvas bag, hung to the neck of a sailor. Reaching the folksle they found a dry and sheltered spot, and wrapped themselves in the sailor's loose jackets for a little warmth and comfort. The mate three times revisited the cabin, to bring thence various valuables for Mrs. Hasty and Margaret, and, last of all, a bottle of wine and some figs, that these weary ones might break their fast. Margaret now spoke to Mrs. Hasty of something still left behind, more valuable than money. She would not, however, ask the mate to expose his life again. It is supposed that her words had reference to the manuscript of her work on Italy. From their new position, through the spray and rain, they could see the shore, some hundreds of yards off. Men were seen on the beach, but there was nothing to indicate that an attempt would be made to save them. At nine o'clock it was thought that some one of the crew might possibly reach the shore by swimming, and once there make some effort to send the mate. Two of the sailors succeeded in doing this. Horace Sumner sprang after them, but sank, unable to struggle with the waves. A last device was that of a plank, with handles of rope attached, upon which the passengers, in turn, might seat themselves, while a sailor swimming behind, should guide their course. Mrs. Hasty, young and resolute, led the way in this experiment, the stout mate helping her, and landing her out of the very jaws of death. In here we fall back into that bootless wishing of which we spoke a little while ago. Oh, that Margaret had been willing that the same means should be employed to bring her and hers to land. Again and again, to the very last moment, she was urged to try this way of escape, uncertain, but the only one. It was all in vain. Margaret would not be separated from her dear ones. Doubtless she continued for a time to hope that some assistance would reach them from the shore. The lifeboat was even brought to the beach, but no one was willing to man her, and the delusive hope aroused by her appearance was soon extinguished. The day wore on, the tide turned. The wreck would not outlast its return. The commanding officer made one last appeal to Margaret, before leaving his post. To stay, he told her, was certain and speedy death, as the ship must soon break up. He promised to take her child with him, and to give Celeste, Ossole, and herself each the aid of an able seaman. Margaret still refused to be parted from child or husband. The crew were then told to save themselves, and all but four jumped overboard. The commander and several of the seaman reached the shore in safety, though not without wounds and bruises. By three o'clock in the afternoon the breaking up was well in progress. Cabin and stern disappeared beneath the waves, and the folks all filled with water. The little group now took refuge on the deck, and stood about the foremast. Three able-bodied seaman remained with them, and one old sailor, homeward bound for good and all. The deck now parted from the hull, and rose and fell with the sweep of the waves. The final crash must come in a few minutes. The steward now took Angelo in his arms, promising to save him or die. At this very moment the foremast fell, and with it disappeared the deck and those who stood on it. The steward and the child were washed ashore soon after, dead, though not yet cold. The two Italians, Celeste Anosoli, held for a moment by the rigging, but were swept off by the next wave. Margaret, last seen at the foot of the mast in her white night dress with her long hair hanging about her shoulders, is thought to have sunk at once. Two others, Cook and Carpenter, were able to save themselves by swimming, and might alas have saved her had she been minded to make the attempt. That strain of the heroic in her mind overcame the natural instinct to do and dare all upon the chance of saving her own life and those so dear to her we shall never know. No doubt the separation involved in any such attempt appeared to her an abandonment of her husband and child. Resting in this idea she could more easily nerf herself to perish with them than to part from them. She and the babe were feeble creatures to be thrown upon the mercy of the waves even with the promised aid. Her husband, young and strong, was faithful unto death and would not leave her. Both of them, with fervent belief, regarded death as the entrance to another life, and surely upon its very threshold sought to do their best. So we must end our questioning and mourning concerning them with a silent acquiescence in what was to be. A friend of Margaret, who visited the scene on the day after the catastrophe, was persuaded that seven resolute men could have saved every soul on board the vessel. Through the absence of proper system and discipline, the lifeboat, though applied for early on the morning of the wreck, did not arrive until one o'clock in the afternoon, when the sea had become so swollen by the storm that it was impossible to launch it. One hopes, but scarcely believes, that this state of things has been amended before this time. The bodies of Margaret and her husband were never found. That of Angelo was buried at Fire Island, with much mourning on the part of the surviving sailors whose pet and playmate he had been. It was afterwards removed to the cemetery at Mount Auburn, where, beneath a marble monument which commemorates the life and death of his parents and his own, he alone lives buried, the only one of Margaret's treasures that ever reached the country of her birth. Death gives an unexpected completeness to the view of individual character. The secret of a noble life is only fully unfolded when its outward envelope has met the fate of all things perishable. And so the mournful tragedy just recounted, set its seal upon a career whose endeavor and achievement the world is bound to hold dear. When all that could be known of Margaret was known, it became evident that there was nothing of her which was not heroic in intention. Nothing which truly interpreted could turn attention from a brilliant exterior to meaner traits allowed and concealed. Since she had faults we need not deny, nor that, like other human beings, she needs must have said and done at times what she might afterwards have wished to have better said, better done. But as an example of one who, gifted with great powers, aspired only to their noblest use, who, able to rule, sought rather to counsel and to help, she deserves a place in the highest niche of her country's affection. As a woman who believed in women, her word is still an evangel of hope and inspiration to her sex. Her heart belonged to all of God's creatures, and most to what is noblest in them. Gray-headed men of today, the happy companions of her youth, grow young again while they speak of her. One of these, who is also one of her earlier biographers, still recalls her as the greatest soul he ever knew. Such a word, spoken with the weight of ripe wisdom and long experience, may fitly indicate to posterity the honor and reverence which belong to the memory of Margaret Fuller. CHAPTER XVII. The preceding narrative has, necessarily, involved some consideration of the writings which gave its subject her place among the authors of her time. This consideration has been carefully interwoven with the story of the life which it was intended to illustrate not to interrupt. With all this care, however, much has been left unsaid, which should be said concerning the value of Margaret's contributions to the critical literature of her time. Of this our present limits will allow us to make brief mention only. Margaret so lived in the life of her own day and generation so keenly felt it's good and ill that many remember her as a woman who spoke and word and presence had in them a power which is but faintly imaged in her writings, nor is this impression wholly a mistaken one. Certain it is that those who recall the enchantment of her conversation always maintain that the same charm is not to be found in the productions of her pen. Yet if we attentively read what she has left us, without this disparagement, we shall find that it entitles her to a position of honour among the prose writers of her time. The defects of her style are easily seen. They are in some degree the result of her assiduous study of foreign languages in which the pure and severe idioms of the English tongue were sometimes lost sight of. Among them may be mentioned a want of measure in expression, and also something akin to the fault which is called on the stage anti-climax, by which some saying of weight and significance loses its point by being followed by another of equal emphasis. With all this, the high quality of her mind has left its stamp upon all that she gave to the reading public. Much of this first appeared in the form of contributions to the Tribune, the Dial, and other journals and magazines. Some of these papers are brief and even fragmentary, but the shortest of them showed careful study and conscientious judgment. All of them are valuable for the admirable view which they present of the time in which Margaret wrote, of its difficulties and limitations, and of the hopes and convictions which, cherished then in the hearts of the few, were destined to make themselves a law to the conscience of the whole community. The most important of the more elaborate essays is undoubtedly that entitled Woman in the Nineteenth Century, of which some account has already been given in the preceding pages. Of the four volumes published in 1875, one bears this title. A second, entitled Art, Literature, and the Drama, contains many of the papers to which reference has been made in our brief account of Margaret and her contemporaries. From a third volume, entitled At Home and Abroad, we have quoted some of her most interesting statements concerning the liberal movement in Europe, of which she was so ardent a friend and promoter. A last volume was collected and published in 1859 by her brother, the Reverend Arthur B. Fuller, who served as an army chaplain in the War of the Southern Rebellion, and met his death on one of its battlefields. This volume is called Life Without and Life Within, and is spoken of in Mr. Fuller's preface as containing, for the most part, matter never before given to the world in book form, and also poems and prose fragments never before published. In this volume two papers seem to us to ask for a special mention. One of these is a review of Carlisle's Cromwell, written when the book was fresh before the public. It deserves to be read for its felicity of diction, as well as for the justice of the thought expressed. If we take into consideration the immense popularity of Mr. Carlisle in America, at the time when this work of his appeared, we shall prize the courage and firmness with which Margaret applies to it her keen power of criticism. The moral insufficiency of the doctrine of the divine right of force is clearly shown by her, and her own view of Cromwell's character maintains itself in spite of the vituperations with which Carlisle visits those who will not judge his hero as he does. She even returns these threats with the following humorous passage at arms. Nobody ever doubted his, Cromwell's, great abilities and force of will. Neither doubt we that he was made an instrument, just as he proposed it. But as to looking on him through Mr. Carlisle's glasses, we shall not be sneered or stormed into it, unless he has other proof to offer than is shown yet. If he has become interested in Oliver, or any other pet hyena, by studying his habits, is that any reason why we should admit him to our pantheon? No. Our imbecility shall keep fast the door against anything short of proofs that in the hyena a god is incarnated. We know you do with all your soul of kings and heroes, Mr. Carlisle, but we are not sure you would always know the sols from the Davids. We fear, if you had the disposal of the holy oil, you would be tempted to pour it on the head of him who is taller by a head than all his brethren. Of Cromwell himself, the following is Margaret's estimate. We see a man of strong and wise mind, educated by the pressure of great occasions, to the station of command. We see him wearing the religious garb which was the custom of the times, and even preaching to himself as well as others. But we never see heaven answering his invocations in any way that can interfere with the rise of his fortunes, or the accomplishment of his plans. To ourselves the tone of these religious holdings forth is sufficiently expressive. They all ring hollow. Then we see Cromwell ruling with a strong arm and carrying the spirit of monarchy to an excess which no steward could surpass. Cromwell indeed is wise, and the king he punished with death is foolish. Charles is faithless and Cromwell crafty. We see no other difference. Cromwell does not, in power, abide by the principles that led him to it. And we cannot help, so Rosewater imbecile or we, admiring those who do. To us it looks black for one who kills kings to grow to be more kingly than a king. The other paper of which we desire to speak in this connection is one treating of the French novelists prominent at the time, and in particular of Balzac, Eugène Su, and Divigny. Of these three names the first alone retains the prestige which it had when Margaret wrote her essay. Divigny, remarkable mostly for purity of sentiment, finish of style, and a power of setting and limiting his pictures, is a boudoir author, and one read only in boudoirs of studious refinement. Su, to whose motives Margaret gives the most humanitarian interpretation, has failed to commend his method to posterity. His autopsy of a diseased state of society is thought to spread too widely the infection of the evils which he deplores. His intention is also too humane for the present day. The world of the last decade and of the present is too deeply wedded to the hard worship of money to be touched by the pathos of women who perish or of men who starve. The grievances of the poor against the rich find today no one to give ear to them, and few even to utter them, since those who escape starvation are too busy with beggary and plunder to waste time in such useless musines. Of the three here cited, Balzac alone remains a king among novelists, and Margaret's study of him imports as much to us today as it did to the world of her time. She begins by commenting upon the lamentation general at that time, and not uncommon in this, over the depravity of taste and life already becoming familiar to the youth of America through the medium of the French novel. Concerning this, she says, It is useless to bewail what is the inevitable result of the movement of our time. Europe must pour her corruptions no less than her riches on our shores, both in the form of books and of living men. She cannot, if she would, check the tide which bears them hitherward. No defences are possible on our vast extent of shore that can preclude their ingress. Our only hope lies in rousing in our own community a soul of goodness, a wise aspiration that shall give us strength to assimilate this unwholesome food to better substance, or to cast off its contaminations. In view of the translation and republication of these works, it remarks that it would be desirable for our people to know something of the position which the writers occupy in their own country. She says, moreover, what we would feign hope may be true today that our imitation of Europe does not yet go so far that the American milliner can be depended on to copy anything from the Parisian grizzette except her cap. Margaret speaks at some length of Balzac's novel, Le Père Gordio, which she had just read. The author, she says, reminds one of the Spanish romancers in the fearlessness with which he takes mud into his hands and dips his foot in slime. We cannot endure this when done, as by most Frenchmen, with an air of recklessness and gaiety, but Balzac does it with the stern manliness of a Spaniard. The conception of this novel appears to her so sublime that she compares its perusal to a walk through the catacombs, which the reader would not willingly have missed, though the light of day seems stained afterwards with the mould of horror and dismay. She infers from much of its tenor that Balzac was familiar with that which makes the agony of poverty, its vulgarity, dirt, confusion, shabby expedience, living to live. These are what make poverty terrible and odious, and in these Balzac would seem to have been steeped to the very lips. The skill with which he illustrates both the connection and the contrast between the depth of poverty and the height of luxury co-existing in Parisian life is much dwelt upon by Margaret, as well as the praiseworthy fact that he depicts with equal faithfulness the vices developed by these opposite conditions. His insight and mastery appear to her admirable throughout, the characters excellently drawn, especially that of the Père Gordio, the father of two heartless women, for whom he has sacrificed everything and who in turn sacrifice him without mercy to their own pleasures and ambitions. Admirable too, she finds him in his description of look, tone, gesture. He has a keen sense of whatever is peculiar to the individual. With this acute appreciation of the great novelist's merits, Margaret unites an equally comprehensive perception of his fatal defects of character. His skepticism regarding virtue, she calls fearful, his spirit mephestophalian. He delights to analyze, to classify, but he has no hatred for what is loathsome, no contempt for what is base, no love for what is lovely, no faith for what is noble. To him there is no virtue and no vice. Men and women are more or less finely organized, noble and tender conduct is more agreeable than the reverse. That is all. His novels show goodness, aspiration, the loveliest instincts, stifled, strangled by fate in the form of our own brute nature. Margaret did not, perhaps, foresee how popular strangling of this kind was destined to become in the romance of the period following her own. Contrasting Eugene Su with Balzac, she finds in the first an equal power of observation disturbed by a more variable temperament and enhanced by the heart and faith that Balzac lacks. She sees him standing, pen in hand, armed with this slight but keen weapon as the champion of poverty, innocence, and humanity, against superstition, selfishness, and prejudice. His works, she thinks, with all their strong points and brilliant decorations, may ere long be forgotten. Still, the writer's name shall be held in imperishable honor as the teacher of the ignorant, the guardian of the weak. She sums up thus the merits of the two. Balzac is the heartless surgeon, probing the wounds and describing the delirium of suffering men for the amusement of his students. Su a bold and glittering crusader, with endless ballads jingling in the silence of night before the battle. She finds both of them much right and a good deal wrong, since their most virtuous personages are allowed to practice stratagems, falsehood, and violence, a taint, she thinks, of the old regime under which Lebel France has worn rouge so long that the purest mountaineer will not soon restore the natural hues to her complexion. Two ideal sketches, the rich man and the poor man, are also preserved in this volume, and are noticeable as treating of differences and difficulties which have become rather aggravated than diminished since Margaret's time. The rich man is a merchant who sees in commerce a representation of most important interests, a grand school that may teach the heart and soul of the civilized world to a willing, thinking mind. He plays his part in the game, but not for himself alone. He sees the interests of all mankind engaged with his, and remembers them while he furthers his own. In regard of his social status, she says, Our nation is not silly in striving for an aristocracy. Humanity longs for its upper classes. The silliness consists in making them out of clothes, equipage, and a servile imitation of foreign manners, instead of the genuine elegance and distinction that can only be produced by genuine culture. Our merchant shall be a real nobleman, whose noble manners spring from a noble mind, his fashions from a sincere, intelligent love of the beautiful. Margaret's poor man is an industrious artisan, not too poor to be sure of daily bread, cleanliness, and reasonable comfort. His advantages will be in the harder training and deeper experience which his circumstances will involve. Suffering privation in his own person, he will, she thinks, feel for the sufferings of others. Having no adventitious aids to bring him into prominence, there will be small chance for him to escape a well-tempered modesty. He must learn enough to convince himself that mental growth and refinement are not secured by one set of employments, or lost through another. Muhammad was not a wealthy merchant. Profound philosophers have ripened on the benches not of the lawyers, but of the shoemakers. It did not hurt Milton to be a schoolmaster, nor Shakespeare to do the errands of a London playhouse. Yes, the mind is its own place, and if it will keep that place, all doors will be opened from it. This ideal poor man must be religious, wise, dignified, and humble, grasping at nothing, claiming all, willing to wait, ever willing to give up, servile to none, the servant of all, esteeming at the glory of a man to serve. Such a type of character, she tells us, is rare, but not unattainable. The poems in this volume may be termed fugitive pieces, rhymes twined and dropped in the pathway of a life too busy for much versification. They somewhat recall Mr. Emerson's manner, but have not the point and felicity which have made him scarcely less eminent in verse than in prose. They will, however, well repay a perusal. In order that this volume may not be wholly lacking in their grace, we subjoin two short poems, which we have chosen from among a number of perhaps equal interest. One of these apostrophizes an artist whose rendering of her Greeks made him dear to her. Flaxman. We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone, which spake in Greek simplicity of thought, and in the forms of gods and heroes wrought eternal beauty from the sculptured stone. A higher charm than modern culture won, with all the wealth of metaphysical lore, gifted to analyze, dissect, explore. A many-colored light flows from one sun. Art, beneath its beams, a motley thread has spun. The prism modifies the perfect day. But thou hast known such mediums to shun, and cast once more on life a pure white ray. In the creations of thy mind, forgetting daily self, my truest self, I find. The other poem interprets for us the significance of one of the few jewels which Queenly Margaret deigned to wear. A signet ring, bearing the image of Mercury. My seal ring. Mercury has cast aside the signs of intellectual pride. Mercury offers thee the soul. Art thou noble to receive? Canst thou give or take the whole, nobly promise and believe? Then thou holy human art, a spotless radiant ruby heart, and the golden chain of love has bound thee to the realm above. If there be one small, mean doubt, one serpent thought that fled not out, take instead the serpent rod, thou art neither man nor God. Guard thee from the powers of evil. Who cannot trust, vows to the devil. Walk thy slow and spellbound way. Keep on thy mask or shun the day. Let go my hand upon the way. CHAPTER 17. The subject of the following sketch, Sarah Margaret Fuller, has already been most fortunate in her biographers. Cut off herself in the prime of life, she left behind her devoted friends who were still in their full vigor of thought and sentiment. Three of these, James Freeman Clark, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and William Henry Channing, set their hand some thirty or more years ago to the happy task of preserving for posterity their strong personal impressions of her character and influence. With these precious reminiscences were interwoven such extracts from her correspondence and diary as redeemed fittest to supply the outline of her own life and experience. What, it may be asked, can such biographers have left for others to do? To surpass their work is not to be thought of. But in the turning and perseverance of this planet present soon becomes past and that which has been best said asks to be said again. This biography, so rich in its suggestions and so valuable in its details, is already set in a past light by the progress of men and of things. Its theme has lost none of its interest. Nay, it is through the growing interest felt in Margaret and her work that a demand seems to have arisen for a later word about her, which cannot hope to be better or wiser than the words already made public, but which may borrow from them the inspiration for a new study in presentment. According to the authorities already established, Sarah Margaret Fuller, the child of Timothy Fuller and Margaret Crane, was born at Cambridge Port near Boston on the 23rd of May, 1810. She has herself given some account of her early life in an autobiographical sketch which forms the prelude to the work already published. Her father, she says, was a lawyer and a politician, the son of a country clergyman, Harvard Bred, both as to his college and his professional studies. She remembers him chiefly as absorbed in the business and interest of his profession, intent upon compassing the support of his family, and achieving such distinction as might prove compatible with that object. Her mother, she describes as, one of those fair, flower-like natures, which sometimes spring up even beside the most dusty highways of life, bound by one law with the blue sky, the dew, and the frolic birds. And in the arduous labor of her father's life, his love for this sweet mother was the green spot on which he stood apart from the common places of mere bread-winning, bread-bestowing existence. The case between Margaret and her father is the first to be disposed of in our consideration of her life and character. In the document just quoted from, she does not paint him on bow. Here and elsewhere she seems to have been inclined to charge upon him the excessive study which exaggerated her natural precocity of temperament, and the puritan austerity which brought her ungratified imagination into early conflict with the circumstances and surroundings of her start in life. In a brief preface to the memoir already published, a surviving brother of Margaret characterizes this view of the father as inadequate and unjust. Margaret herself called her sketch an autobiographical romance, and evidently wrote it at a period of her life in which her personal experience had thrown little light upon the difficulties which parents encounter in the training of their children, and especially in that of their eldest born. From the sketch itself we gather that the fuller household, though not corresponding to the dreams of its wonder-child, had yet in it elements which were most precious for her right growth and development. The family itself was descended from a stock deeply thoughtful and religious. With the impulses of such kindred came to Margaret the strict and thrifty order of primitive New England life, the absence of frivolity, the distaste for all that is paltry and superficial. In after-years her ripe judgment must have shown her, as it has shown many, the value of these somewhat stern surroundings. The little Puritan children grew up, it is true, in the presence of a standard of character and of conduct which must have seemed severe to them. The results of such training have shown the world that the child so circumstanced will rise to the height of his teaching. Yet on a solid and worthy plane of thought and of motive he will not condescend to what is utterly mean, base, and trivial, either in motive or in act. If, as may happen, he fails in his first encounters with outside temptation, he will nevertheless severely judge his own follies, and will one day set himself to retrieve them with earnest diligence. In the instance before us we can feel how bitter may have been the contrast between the child's natural tastes and the realities which surrounded her. Routine and restraint were burdensome to her when as yet she could not know their value. Not the less were they of great importance to her. The surroundings, too, which were devoid of artistic luxury and adornment, forced her to have recourse to the inner sense of beauty, which is sometimes lost and overlaid through much pleasing of the eye and ear. But indeed insists upon having the whole heavenly life unpacked upon the spot. Its to-day knows no to-morrow, hence its common impatience and almost inevitable quarrel with the older generation, which in its eye represents privation and correction. The early plan of studies marked out for Margaret by her father was not devised by any commonplace mind. Mr. Fuller had gained from his own college life that love of culture which is valuable beyond any special attainment. His own scholarship had been more than common, and it became his darling object to transmit to his little daughter all that he himself had gained by study, and as much more as his circumstances would permit. He did indeed make the mistake, common in that day, of urging the tender intellect beyond the efforts proper to its stage of growth. Margaret says that the lessons set for her were as many and various as the hours would allow, and on subjects far beyond my age. These lessons were recited to her father after office hours, and as these hours were often prolonged the child's mind was kept in a state of tension until long after the time when the little head should have rested serenely on its pillow. In consequence of this it often rested very ill, and the youthful prodigy of the daytime was terrified at night by dreams and illusions and disturbed by sleepwalking. From these efforts and excitements resulted, as she says, a state of being too active and too intense which wasted my constitution, and will bring me, although I have learned to understand and to regulate my now morbid temperament, to a premature grave. This was unhappy, certainly. The keen, active temperament did indeed acquire a morbid intensity, and the young creature thus spurred on to untimely effort, began to live and to learn at a pace with which the slowness of circumstance was never able to keep abreast. Even with the allowance which must be made for the notion of that time as to what a child should be able to accomplish, it must grieve and surprise us to find Margaret, at the age of six years, engaged in the study of Latin and of English grammar. Her father demanded accuracy and clearness in everything. Intelligible statement, reasoned thought, and a certainty which excluded all suppositions and reservations, these were his requirements from his young pupil. A certain quasi-dogmatic mode of enunciation in later life, which may have seemed, on a superficial view, to indicate an undue confidence and assumption, had probably its origin in the decided way in which the little Margaret was taught to recite her lessons. Under the controlling influence of her father, she says that her own world sank deep within, away from the surface of her life. In what I did and said, I learned to have reference to other minds, but my true life was only the dearer that it was secluded and veiled over by a thick curtain of available intellect and that coarse but wearable stuff woven by the ages, common sense. The Latin language opened for Margaret the door to many delights. The Roman ideal, definite and resolute, commended itself to her childish judgment, and even in later life she recognized Virgil as worthy to lead the great Dante through hell and to heaven. In Horus she enjoyed the serene and courtly appreciation of life. In Ovid the first glimpse of a mythology which carried her to the Greek Olympus. Her study soon ceased to be a burden and reading became a habit and a passion. Her first real friends she found in her father's book-closet, to which in her leisure moments she was allowed free access. Here from a somewhat miscellaneous collection she singled out the works of Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Molière. Three great authors all, though of unequal, yet of congenial powers, all of rich and wide rather than aspiring genius, all free to the extent of the horizon their eye took in, all fresh with impulse, racy with experience, never to be lost sight of or superseded. Of these three Shakespeare was the first in her acquaintance, as in her esteem. She was but eight years old when the interest of Romeo and Juliet led her to rebel against the discipline whose force she so well knew and to persevere in reading before her father's very eyes a book forbidden for the Sabbath. For this offense she was summarily dismissed to bed, where her father, coming presently to expostulate with her, found her in a strangely impenitent state of mind. Margaret's books thus supplied her imagination with the food which her outward surroundings did not afford. They did not, however, satisfy the cravings of a childish heart. These presently centered around a human object of intense interest, a lady born and bred in polite European life, who brought something of its tone and atmosphere to cheer for a while the somber New England horizon. Margaret seems to have first seen her at church, where the general aspect of things was especially distasteful to her. The puny child sought everywhere for the Roman or Shakespeare figures, and she was met by the shrewd, honest eye, the homely decency, or the smartness of a New England village on Sunday. There was beauty, but I could not see it then. It was not of the kind I longed for. As my eye one day was ranging about, with its accustomed coldness, it was arrested by a face most fair, and well known, as it seemed at first glance, for surely I had met her before and waited for her long. But soon I saw that she was an apparition foreign to that scene, if not to me. She was an English lady, who, by a singular chance, was cast upon this region for a few months. This stranger seems to have been as gracious as she was graceful. But after this first glimpse saw her often, sometimes at a neighbor's house, sometimes at her own. She was more and more impressed by her personal charm, which was heightened in the child's eyes by her accomplishments, rare in that time and place. The lady painted in oils and played on the harp. Margaret found the greatest delight in watching the growth of her friend's pictures and in listening to her music. Later still they walked together in the quiet of the country. Like a guardian spirit she led me through the fields and groves, and every tree, every bird greeted me and said, what I felt, she is the first angel of your life. Delight so passionate led to a corresponding sorrow. The lady, who had tenderly responded to the child's mute adoration, vanished from her sight, and was thenceforth known to her only through the interchange of letters. When this friend was withdrawn, says Margaret, I fell into a profound depression. Melancholy unfolded me in an atmosphere as joy had done. This suffering, too, was out of the gradual and natural course. Those who are really children could not know such love or feel such sorrow. Her father saw in this depression a result of the two great isolation in which Margaret had thus far lived. He felt that she needed change of scene and still more intercourse with girls of her own age. The remedy proposed was that she should be set to school, a measure which she regarded with dread and dislike. She had hitherto found little pleasure in the society of other girls. She had sometimes joined the daughters of her neighbors in hard play, but had not felt herself at home with them. Her retired and studious life had, she says, given her a cold aloofness which could not predispose them in her favor. Despite her resistance, however, her father persevered in his intention and Margaret became an inmate of the Mrs. Prescott School in Groton, Massachusetts. Her experience here, though painful in some respects, had an important effect upon her afterlife. 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 unwanted 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 on 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 perceptress the crimson spot with which she had persisted in adorning her own. Suppressed laughter in which even the servants shared 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 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 school fellows sorrowfully found her, and did their utmost to soothe her wounded feelings, and to a face 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, and, born for love, now hated all the world. This morbid condition of mind led to her result still more unhappy. Masking her real resentment beneath a calm exterior, Margaret received the confidences of her school fellows, and used their unguarded speech to remote discord among them. The girls, naturally enough, talked about each other, and said things which it would have been kind and wise not to repeat. Margaret's central position among them would have enabled her to reconcile their small differences and misunderstandings, which she, on the contrary, did her utmost to foment, not disdaining to employ misrepresentation in her mischievous mediation. Before long the spirit of discord reigned throughout the school, in which the prime mover of the trouble tells us, scarcely a peaceful affection or sincere intimacy remained. She had instinctively followed the ancient precept, Divide et Impera, and ruled for evil those who would have followed her for good. 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, on which a fire was burning, and was taken up senseless. 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. During these she would neither speak nor eat, but remained in a sort of stupor, the result of conflicting emotions. 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. During this emergency, when neither the sorrow of her young companions nor the entreaties of her teachers seemed to touch her, 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, had always felt a special interest in Margaret, whose character somewhat puzzled her. With the tact of true affection she drew the young girl from the contemplation of her own failure, by narrating to her the circumstances which, through no fault of hers, had made her own life one of sorrow and of sacrifice. Margaret herself, with a discernment beyond her years, had felt the high tone of this lady's character, and the proud sensibility expressed in her changing countenance. From her she could learn the lesson of hope and of comfort. According to the story, she no longer repulsed the hand of healing, but took patiently the soothing medicine offered by her visitor. This story of Margaret's school life she herself is told, in an episode called Mariana, which was published in her Summer on the Lakes, and afterwards embodied in Mr. Clark's contribution to the memoir already published. We have already quoted several passages from it, and will here give her account of the end of the whole matter. She returned to life, but it was as one who has passed through the valley of death. The heart of stone was quite broken in her. The fiery will fallen from flame to coal. When her strength was a little restored, she had all her companions summoned and said to them, I deserved to die, but a generous trust has called me back to life. I will be worthy of the past, nor ever betray the trust, nor resent injury more. Can you forgive the past? And says the narrative, they not only forgave, but with love and earnest tears clasped in their arms the returning sister. They vied with one another in offices of humbled love to the humbled one, and let it be recorded as an instance of the pure honor of which young hearts are capable, that these facts, known to some forty persons, never, so far as I know, transpired beyond those walls. In making this story public, we may believe Margaret to have been actuated by a feeling of the value of such an experience, both in the study of character and in the discipline of young minds. Here was a girl, really a child in age, but already almost a woman in selfhood and imagination. And in intercourse with her peers in age, she felt and exaggerated her own superiority to those with whom her school life first brought her in contact. This superiority she felt impelled to assert and maintain. So long as she could queen it over the other pupils, she was content. The first serious wounding of her self-love aroused in her avengeful malignity, which grew with its own exercise. As soon as she found herself to command her little public by offices which had seemed to her acts of condescension, she determined to rule through the evil principle of discord. In a fortunate moment she was arrested in this course by an exposure whose consequences showed her the reflection of her own misconduct in the minds of those around her. Extreme in all things, her self-reproach took the form of helpless despair, which yet, at the touch of true affection, gave way before the courageous determination to retrieve past error by future good desert. The excellence of Margaret's judgment and the generosity of her heart appear in the effect which this fortunate failure had upon her mature life. The pride of her selfhood.