Fuller, Margaret 1810-1950 Susan Shermaker 304-292-2947 - c04-ie85-1767.com HOLLIS FULL CATALOG - Full View of Record Page 1 of 3 P Your Account Start Over Help Comments Full Catalog I Journals Reserves E-Resources HOLLIS CATALOC Previous Searches I Results List Display Options Harvard University Search I Expanded Search I Command Search Harvard Libraries Full View of Record : FULL CATALOG Save/Mail Add to List I View List Last Browse Choose format: Full view I Short view MARC Record 82 out of 82 Previous Record Author : Fuller, Margaret, 1810-1850. Title : Family papers, 1662-1909 (inclusive), 1760-1864 (bulk). Locations/Orders : Availability Location : Houghton i f MS Am 1086 Holdings Availability Description : 23 V. and 5 boxes. History notes : Fuller was an American author, editor, critic, and social reformer interested in Transcendentalism, feminism, and the revolution in Rome. Summary : Chiefly correspondence among family members. Contains correspondence, journals, and writings of Margaret Fuller, including letters she wrote as a child to her father; correspondence with her husband Giovanni Angelo Ossoli; and letters to other relatives and friends; notebooks on her reading, literary studies, and the first issue of the Dial; clippings of her articles for the New York Tribune; "Italian letters"; and her Roman diary, 1849, that was washed ashore. Much of the material is handwritten transcriptions of the originals. The Ossoli-Fuller letters have been translated into English. Also contains much original correspondence between her parents Timothy Fuller, a lawyer and politician, and Margarett Crane Fuller; their correspondence with their children; and the correspondence of the younger Margaret Fuller's brothers, especially Arthur Fuller, a minister. Timothy Fuller's papers include diaries, journals, orations, college themes, an expense book he kept while a student at Harvard, 1797-1801, and his correspondence with family, friends, and associates. Arthur Fuller's papers consist mainly of letters written to his wife and brothers when he was an army chaplain during the Civil War. .../IMGG5VG9MB26HEDNTP2HU4BMCTIKYE1A8FP1FHM82HUPT4TJHR-00672?func=fu7/1/2004 HOLLIS FULL CATALOG - Full View of Record Page 2 of 3 Summary : Collection also contains poems and notebooks of Richard Fuller, a younger brother; a few portraits of Margaret Fuller and biographical essays about her; clippings on the shipwreck in which she, her husband, and son died; correspondence and printed material concerning memorials to Margaret Fuller; and early family correspondence and documents. Restrictions : Access may be restricted. Details at the repository. Provenance : Bequest of Edith D. Fuller, 1926. Cite as : Margaret Fuller Papers. Houghton Library, Harvard University. Finding aids : Unpublished finding aids available in repository. For access to related Margaret Fuller material, consult manuscript card catalogue in the Houghton Library or Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Houghton Library, Harvard University, published by Chadwyck- Healey, 1986. ILL References : Hudspeth, Robert N., "A Calendar of the Letters of Margaret Fuller," Studies in the American Renaissance (1977), 49-143. Subject : Arconati-Visconti, Costanza, marchesa. Channing family. Clark family. Fuller, Arthur B. (Arthur Buckminster), 1822-1862. Fuller family. Fuller, Margaret, 1810-1850. Fuller, Margarett Crane, 1789- Fuller, Richard Frederick, 1824-1869. Fuller, Timothy, 1778-1835. Greeley, Horace, 1811-1872. Kilshaw, Ellen. Mazzini, Giuseppe, 1805-1872. Ossoli, Giovanni Angelo, d. 1850. Subject : Harvard University -- Students. Subject : Critics. Family records." Revolutionaries. Subject : Massachusetts -- Social life and customs -- 19th century. Rome (Italy) -- History -- Revolution of 1848-1849. United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Chaplains. Form/Genre : Account books. Articles. /IMGG5VG9MB26HEDNTP2HU4BMCTIKYE1A8FP1FHM82HUPT4TJHR-00672?func=f7/1/2004 IHAS: Poet Page 1 of 4 Thomas Hampson Hear America Singing Profession Restaurantes MARGARET FULLER (1810-1850) America's first true feminist, Margaret Fuller holds a distinctive place in the cultural life of the American Renaissance. Transcendentalist, literary critic, editor, journalist, teacher, and political activist, ultimately turned revolutionary, she numbered among her close friends the intellectual prime movers of the day: Emerson, Thoreau, the Peabody sisters, the Alcotts, Horace Greeley, Carlyle, and Mazzini--all of whom regarded her with admiration and sometimes even awe. Born in Cambridgeport, MA, on May 23, 1810, Fuller received an intellectually rigorous classical education, whose boundaries she challenged when she won admittance for herself to the male-only halls of Harvard's Library, where she continued her reading, research, and study of languages--(she was especially fond of French and German Romantic literature and an able scholar of German, French, Italian, Greek, and Latin.) After a period of teaching and attending to family concerns in Groton, CT, Fuller set about to carve for herself a niche in the Transcendentalist community. Invited by Emerson to visit him in Concord in 1836, it was not long before she had made captive to her conversation not only Emerson and Lidian, and their circle, but also the Alcotts. Her introduction to Bronson Alcott proved fortuitous; the idealistic educator invited her to replace Elizabeth Peabody at his innovative Temple School in Boston, which Margaret did in December of that year. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/poet/fuller.html 8/15/2003 IHAS: Poet Page 2 of 4 Conversations After Alcott's experiment went bankrupt, Fuller organized a series of LILI II: "Conversations" or seminars for women, which she offered in Boston from 1839-1844. So The Fuller family home as it appears today popular were in Groton, CT. the subscriptions to these discussions and SO spellbinding a conversationalist was Fuller, that she attracted not only the wives of prominent citizens, but also other sympathetic social reformers. Her method--one she shared with Bronson Alcott--was Socratic; each conversation was devoted to a philosophical question, and Margaret would engage the participants in discussion and dialogue before expounding her own views with a clarity of thought and luminosity of expression that dazzled her listeners. That women could have their own opinions on matters outside their "sphere" proved an intoxicating proposition. One of the lasting results of these Conversations was Fuller's publication of her 1845 feminist tract, WOMEN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. It was also during this period that she and Emerson founded the Transcendentalist journal, THE DIAL, in 1840. Fuller served as editor for the first two years, turning the publication over to Emerson's editorship in 1842. The Dial After THE DIAL ceased publication in 1844, Fuller was invited by Horace Greeley, Owner and Editor of the NEW YORK TRIBUNE, to relocate to that city and to serve as literary and cultural critic for the paper. Fuller worked for Greeley, boarding for a time with him and his wife, before taking her own lodgings. The period proved to be one of personal, as well as intellectual growth in Fuller's life. Not only did she embark on what was likely her first romantic liaison--revealed only years after her death with the publication of her letters to James Nathan--but she increased her awareness of urban poverty and strengthened her commitment to social justice and to the causes that concerned her: prison reform, Abolitionism, Women's Suffrage, and educational and political equality for minorities. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/poet/fuller.html 8/15/2003 IHAS: Poet Page 3 of 4 Roman Years In 1846 she embarked for Europe as a foreign correspondent for the TRIBUNE. After touring England and France, she settled in Rome in 1847, where she entered the last vivid phase of her all-too-short life. Introduced to Giuseppe Mazzini, the leader of the Italian Unification Movement, she soon embraced the cause of Italian freedom. Her partisanship was also sparked by her falling in love with one of Mazzini's lieutenants, the Marchese Giovanni Ossoli, to whom she bore a son out of wedlock and with whom she played an active role the Siege of Rome in 1849. The hopes of the liberationists dashed after the failure of their revolt, Ossoli and Margaret married and decided to return to America with their son Angelino. They set sail from Livorno on May 17, 1850, reaching the waters off Fire Island on June 19, where in the early hours of the morning the ship struck a sandbar and slowly sank. Fuller, Ossoli, and their son drowned. Her shocked friends mourned her lavishly. Of the numerous tributes received, the reminiscence by her fellow journalist Charles T. Congdon is one of the most touching: "In American literature she will remain a remarkable biographic phenomenon, while the tragic death of this Lycidas of women, a most painful personal story of shipwreck, was intensified by SO many melancholy incidents that whoever, long years hence, may read them, will wonder how the gods could have been SO pitiless, and why the life of new happiness and larger intellectual achievement which was before her should SO suddenly have ended upon that savage and inhospitable shore." Writings From THE LOVE LETTERS OF MARGARET FULLER (Fisher Unwin, London 1903) "We will worship by impromptu symbols, till the religion is framed for all Humanity. The beauty grows around us daily, the trees are now all in blossom and some of the vines; there is a Crown Imperial just in perfection, to which I paid my evening worship by the light of the fire, which reached to us, and there are flashes of http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/poet/fuller.html 8/15/2003 IHAS: Poet Page 4 of 4 lightening too. But I do not like the lightening SO well as once, having been in too great danger. Yet just now a noble flash falls upon my paper, it ought to have noble thoughts to illumine, instead of these little nothings, but indeed to-night I write only to say: thou dear, dear friend, and we must must meet soon. "(Letter IV to James Nathan) "To feel that there is SO quick a bound to intercourse, makes us prize the moment, but then also makes it SO difficult to use. Yet this one thing I wish to say, where SO many must be left unsaid. You tell me, that I may, probably never know you wholly. Indeed the obstacles of time and space may prevent my understanding the workings of character; many pages of my new book may be shut against me, better than to yourself. Perhaps? I believe in Ahnungen beyond anything." (Letter XIII to James Nathan) From REMINISCENCES OF MARGARET FULLER "She wore this circle of friends, when I first knew her, as a necklace of diamonds about her neck. They were SO much to each other that Margaret seemed to represent them all, and to know her was to acquire a place with them. The confidences given her were their best, and she held them to them. She was an active, inspiring companion and correspondent, and all the art, the thought, the nobleness in New England seemed at that moment related to her and she to it. She was everywhere a welcome guest. '(Emerson on Fuller) Home [ Home | Profiles Timeline ] [ wNetStation ] [ PBS Online ] http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/poet/fuller.html 8/15/2003 Margaret Fuller Page 1 of 6 Margaret Fuller Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) "possessed more influence on the thought of American women than any woman previous to her time." So wrote Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in their 1881 History of Woman Suffrage. Author, Dictionary of editor, and teacher, Fuller contributed Unitarian & significantly to the American Renaissance in Universalist literature and to mid-nineteenth century reform Biography movements. A brilliant and highly educated member of the Transcendentalist group, she Search the Dictionary challenged Ralph Waldo Emerson both intellectually and emotionally. Women who Search attended her "conversations" and many prominent men of her time found Fuller's influence life-changing Her major work, Woman in the Nineteenth Alphabetical List Century, published in 1845, profoundly affected the women's rights movement which had its formal beginning at Seneca Falls, New York, A.F G-N O.Z three years later. Main Page Margaret was the first-born child of Unitarian parents, Margarett Crane About the Project and Timothy Fuller, Jr. Margarett Crane's family were Unitarians in Canton, Massachusetts. As a student at Harvard College, Timothy Fuller Editors exchanged his family's Calvinistic views for Unitarian rationalism. After Contact Us their marriage, they joined the Cambridgeport Parish Unitarian Church where Thomas Brattle Gannett was minister. Timothy Fuller served on the Notes for Church Council. Margarett Crane Fuller was lively, affectionate, well-read Contributors Information Form and independent in her thinking. A lawyer and a Republican in Federalist Contributors New England, Timothy Fuller was elected to the Massachusetts Senate in 1813 and in 1818 began the first of four terms in the United States Congress, later returning to the state legislature and finally retiring to write. Eight daughters and sons were born to the couple, and six grew to Unitarian Universalist Association adulthood. Unitarian Universalist After a younger sister died, Margaret was an only child and the focus of Women's Heritage Society her parents' attention until she was five. Determined to give his daughter the best possible education, her father taught her himself. "I was put at General Assembly of once under discipline of considerable severity," Margaret remembered, Unitarian and Free "and, at the same time, had a more than ordinarily high standard presented Christian Churches to me. (UK) [My father] thought to gain time, by bringing forward the intellect as early as possible. Thus I had tasks given me, as many and Notable American various as the hours would allow, and on subjects beyond my age; with the Unitarians Not additional disadvantge of reciting to him in the evening." Margaret seemed a sponge for many disciplines, including Latin, begun at age six, English grammar, mathematics, history, music and modern languages. Margaret herself thought the price paid for this early and intensive drilling, sometimes late into the night, was sleeplessness and http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/margaretfuller.html 8/15/2003 Margaret Fuller Page 2 of 6 nightmares as a child and a lifetime of poor eyesight and migraine headaches. On an irregular basis between 1819 and 1825, Margaret attended the Cambridge Port Private Grammar School, Dr. Park's Boston Lyceum, and Miss Prescott's Young Ladies' Seminary in Groton, Massachusetts, where her parents hoped she would gain polish in feminine accomplishments. Early instruction and natural brilliance gave her a sense of superiority which classmates interpreted as arrogance. Longing for admiration and companionship, Margaret was socially awkward and unpopular among peers who responded to her with a mixture of awe and ridicule. Her schooling ended, she pursued her studies on her own. While serving as governess to the younger Fullers, she also found time to study informally with Lydia Maria Francis (later Child) who lived in the Watertown parsonage with the family of her brother, the Unitarian minister Convers Francis. Together Margaret and Maria read the classics and moderns like Rousseau, Byron and Mme. de Staël, who excited Margaret's romantic enthusiasm. Acknowledging that she was "wanting in intuitive tact and polish" with "powers of intellect" "not well disciplined," Margaret was determined that "all such hindrances may be overcome by an ardent spirit." Her ardent spirit and astonishing accomplishments appealed to several young collegians who soon became her intimates, among them James Freeman Clarke, Frederic Henry Hedge and William Henry Channing. Clarke commented that a conversation with Margaret "could not merely entertain and inform, but make an epoch in one's life." Eliza Farrar, wife of Harvard professor John Farrar, took Margaret on as a project in the improvement of dress and manners and introduced her to visitors like Fanny Kemble and Harriet Martineau. A cluster of girl friends completed a happy social circle as Margaret came into her own in her late teens and early twenties. In 1833 Timothy Fuller moved his family to a farm in Groton, Massachusetts, where Margaret resented her isolation but set to work on serious writing. She translated a drama of Goethe and published essays in Boston papers and in James Freeman Clarke's journal, the Western Messenger. Her father's sudden death of cholera in the fall of 1835 threw the family into financial crisis. Fuller had to give up the prospect of a European tour with the Farrars and Harriet Martineau. She struggled to take her father's place, protect her mother's interests and see to the education and welfare of the younger children. From that time forward, financial difficulties plagued her life. In compensation for the lost trip to Europe, Eliza Farrar and Harriet Martineau urged Emerson to befriend Fuller, and Elizabeth Peabody suggested he invite her to Concord. Though she had counted on the experience abroad to prepare her for a literary career, the introduction into the Transcendentalist circle served the purpose. http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/margaretfuller.htm 8/15/2003 Margaret Fuller Page 3 of 6 She first visited the Emersons for three weeks in the summer of 1836 while Emerson was finishing his essay, Nature, published later that year. As many were on first acquaintance, he was put off by Fuller's "extreme plainness," her "trick of opening and shutting her eyelids," and her "nasal voice," predicting that we would "never get far." Soon however, as many were, he was won over and wrote to Elizabeth Peabody that his guest "has the quickest apprehension & immediately learned all we knew & had us at her mercy when she pleased to make us laugh. She has noble traits & powers & cannot fail of a permanent success." As the friendship grew, their correspondence revealed Emerson's growing respect for Fuller's intellect, and her dissatisfaction with his cool reserve. Through the Emersons, Fuller met Bronson Alcott, who was looking for a teacher to replace Elizabeth Peabody as assistant at his controversial Temple School. In the fall Fuller moved to Boston, began a series of language classes for women, and served as assistant to Alcott for a few months before he was forced to close the school. The following year she took a teaching position at the Greene Street School in Providence. In 1839 Fuller moved her family from the Groton farm to a rented house in Jamaica Plain, five miles from Boston. In Elizabeth Peabody's West Street bookshop, she held several series of conversations that attracted women of the city and surrounding area who were intellectuals and social activists. The circle included Unitarians Lidian Emerson, Sarah Bradford Ripley, Abigail Allyn Francis, Lydia Maria Child, Elizabeth Hoar, Eliza Farrar, Mary Channing, Elizabeth, Mary and Sophia Peabody, Sophia Dana Ripley and Lydia (Mrs. Theodore) Parker. Though women might be taught the same subjects as men, they had little opportunity to use their learning. Fuller provided a setting where they could discuss what they knew, free to explore ideas and speak their own thoughts on such topics as classical mythology, education, ethics, the fine arts, and woman. Men were included in one evening series hosted by George and Sophia Ripley, but it was less successful than the women-only sessions. Income from the conversations supported Fuller for five years during which she published her acclaimed translation of Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe and several shorter pieces. Earlier she had begun a never-completed biography of Goethe, the polymath romantic who greatly appealed to her. At Emerson's invitation Fuller had begun attending meetings of the Transcendentalist circle in 1838, and the following year she agreed to serve as editor of the new Transcendentalist journal, the Dial. Emerson, Alcott, Henry Hedge, Ellen Hooper, Caroline Sturgis, Ellery Channing, Henry David Thoreau, Theodore Parker, Elizabeth Peabody, George and Sophia Ripley were among its contributors. For almost three years she coaxed articles and poems from reluctant writers, rejected unsuitable material, and wrote much of the Dial's content herself. While part of the Transcendentalist scene Fuller wrote her personal credo. http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/margaretfuller.html 8/15/2003 Margaret Fuller Page 4 of 6 Raised a Unitarian in Cambridge, she had later attended the Federal Street Church, calling Channing "our philanthropist" whose "sermons purged as by fire." In Providence she had gone to the church of Unitarian antislavery activist the Rev. Edward B. Hall. Gradually she adapted her inherited faith to her own needs, wishing to be a Christian "in full possession of my reasoning powers." In 1842 she wrote that she believed in Christ "because I can do without him but I do not wish to do without him. He is constantly aiding and answering me." But Christ was not enough. "We have all had the Messiah to reconcile and teach, let us have another to live out all the symbolical forms of human life with the calm beauty and physical fulness of a Greek god, with the deep consciousness of a Moses, with the holy love and purity of Jesus. Amen!" She did not reject the church as did some Transcendentalists, but she joined them in finding that "nowhere I worship less than in places set apart for that purpose. The blue sky seen above the opposite roof preaches better than any brother." When Emerson took over as editor of the Dial, Fuller contributed her groundbreaking essay, "The Great Lawsuit: Man VS. Men and Woman VS. Women," for the July, 1843 issue. She then went with Sarah Freeman Clarke on a tour of the Great Lakes territory, the subject of Summer on the Lakes in 1843, published the following year. Horace Greeley, publisher of the New York Tribune, noted Fuller's new book and her work with the Dial and invited her to write for his paper. Before taking that post, she enlarged "The Great Lawsuit" to be published in 1845 as Woman in the Nineteenth Century. On finishing it, she described to William Henry Channing "a delightful glow as if I had put a good deal of my true life in it, as if, suppose I went away now, the measure of my foot-print would be left on the earth." Indeed, the book was her major gift to the times. A manifesto for the women's rights movement, it revealed Fuller's enormous knowledge of literature and philosophy as she described the oppression of the female sex through history and advocated equal status for women. Years later Horace Greeley wrote, "If not the clearest and most logical, it was the loftiest and most commanding assertion yet made of the right of Woman to be regarded and treated as an independent, intelligent, rational being, entitled to an equal voice in framing and modifying the laws she is required to obey, and in controlling and disposing of the property she has inherited or aided to acquire hers is the ablest, bravest, broadest, assertion yet made of what are termed Woman's Rights." For the Tribune, Fuller wrote essays, reviews and criticism brought together and published as Papers on Literature and Art in 1846. That summer she sailed for Europe as the newspaper's foreign correspondent. Relishing her long-postponed trip abroad, she visited England and Scotland, moved on to Paris, and finally to Italy. In Paris she met George Sand, whom she had long admired, and found a new friend and mentor in the exiled Polish philosopher and poet Adam Mickiewicz. Having met the http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/margaretfuller.html 8/15/2003 Margaret Fuller Page 5 of 6 Italian revolutionary Guiseppe Mazzini in England, she became an ardent supporter of his movement. On the eve of the 1848 uprisings in Italy, Austria and France, Fuller plunged into the turmoil. No longer the "outsider" she had seemed in New England, she felt at home in Italy, free to express her fullest sense of self. When war broke out, she saw a role for herself "either as actor or historian." To her the revolution meant freedom and human rights for the laboring class and for women. She rededicated herself to Rome, "City of the Soul," and sent vivid eye-witness reports to the Tribune. Soon after her arrived in Rome she met the handsome twenty-six-year-old nobleman, Giovanni Angelo Ossoli. Then in her late thirties, she had survived several unfulfilled love relationships. She enjoyed the attentions of this young man in what soon became a serious attachment. In the summer of 1848, she retreated to the village of Rieti where her son, Angelo Eugenio Filippo Ossoli, was born on September 7. It is not clear whether Fuller and Ossoli ever married. Her letters home had made only oblique references to her personal situation. Finally, in 1849, she sent a packet of letters to her mother and other friends, telling of Ossoli and the birth of their son. With the outbreak of war in Rome itself, Ossoli's unit of the Guard was actively involved, and Fuller volunteered in a hospital. Although the revolution at first succeeded and a Roman Republic was celebrated, Fuller was right in predicting that it would not last. When the pope was restored to power, the Ossolis fled to Florence. There for the first time they lived together openly and were readily accepted by the expatriate colony, including the Brownings, whose baby son was close to theirs in age. Fuller continued work on her history of the Italian revolution. For a time she thought of remaining in Italy where they could live inexpensively and she could complete her book. Friends urged her to stay there, uncertain of her reception at home in her new role. Nevertheless, in May, 1850, the Ossolis sailed for New York on the merchant freighter, Elizabeth. Not long after leaving port, the captain died of smallpox. Baby Angelo caught the disease but recovered during the voyage. The inexperienced mate who took command after the captain's death miscalculated his position and was unaware of an approaching hurricane. During the night before the ship's expected landfall, it struck a sandbar within sight of Fire Island and began to break up. Some crew members managed to reach shore, but the wind and high surf made it impossible to launch a lifeboat. The Ossoli family perished on July 19, 1850. Emerson sent Henry Thoreau to search the wreckage, but no trace was found of their bodies or personal effects, including Fuller's manuscript history of the revolution. The Fuller family erected a monument to Margaret in their plot at Mount Auburn cemetery in Cambridge. http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/margaretfuller.html 8/15/2003 Margaret Fuller Page 6 of 6 The bulk of Fuller's manuscripts are at the Boston Public Library and the Houghton Library, Harvard University. The Massachusetts Historical Society also has some of her papers. Her letters are collected in Robert Hudspeth, editor, The Letters of Margaret Fuller, 6 volumes (1983-94). Collections of Fuller's work include Arthur B. Fuller, editor, At Home and Abroad (1856) and Life Without and Life Within (1860); Perry Miller, Margaret Fuller, American Romantic: A Selection from Her Writings and Correspondence (1963); and Jeffrey Steele, editor, The Essential Margaret Fuller (1992). Joel Myerson has prepared Margaret Fuller: A Descriptive Bibliography (1978). Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Freeman Clarke, and William Henry Channing gathered material from the friends of Fuller and published The Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852). Early biographies are Julia Ward Howe, Margaret Fuller (Marchesa Ossoli) (1883); Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1884); and Caroline W. H. Dall, Margaret Fuller and Her Friends (1898). Higginson also wrote an article, "Who Was Margaret Fuller?" in Eminent Women of the Age (1869), which is reprinted in Howard N. Meyer, The Magnificent Activist: The Writings of Thomas Wentworth Higginson (2000). Among many modern biographies are Bell Gale Chevigny, The Woman and the Myth: Margaret Fuller's Life and Writings (1976); Paula Blanchard, Margaret Fuller: From Transcendentalism to Revolution (1978); Charles Capper, Margaret Fuller: The Private Years (1992); and Joan VonMehren, Minerva and the Muse: A Life of Margaret Fuller (1994). There are extracts from Fuller's writings and a biographical sketch by Paula Blanchard in Dorothy May Emerson, editor, Standing Before Us: Unitarian Universalist Women and Social Reform, 1776-1936 (2000). See also Alice S. Rossi, "The Making of a Cosmopolitan Humanist: Margaret Fuller," in The Feminist Papers, From Adams to deBeauvoir (1973). Article by Joan Goodwin Main Page | About the Project I Contact Us All material copyright UUHS 2003 http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/margaretfuller.htm) 8/15/2003 Overview of The Dial Page 1 of 1 OVERVIEW TITLE: THE DIAL The Dial PUBLICATION DATE 5: July 1840 - April 1844 Jan. 1860 - Dec. 1860 May 1880 - July 1929 CIRCULATION: Varied over the run from Monthly to Bi-weekly to Quarterly "The Literary Timepiece of America" PLACE(S) OF PUBLICATION: Boston (July 1840 - April Back to the Modernism Home Page 1844) E-mail us. Cincinatti (Jan. 1860 - Dec. 1860) Chicago (May 1880 - July 1918) New York (July 1918 - July 1929) FORMAT: Format varied as editors and printing technology changed. From 1920 to 1929, the magazine appeared in 6 3/8" X 10" format on thick paper stock. The paper color changed from dusty rose to light tan. Scofield and Thayer, the editors of The Dial at the time, decided to return to the same wrappers the Transcendentalist Dial (1840- 1844) had used during the magazine's initial run. http://www.davidson.edu/academic/english/Modernism/Dial/stuindex.html 8/15/2003 EMERSON in His Own Time ge A BIOGRAPHICAL CHRONICLE OF His LIFE, DRAWN FROM RECOLLECTIONS, INTERVIEWS, AND MEMOIRS BY FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND ASSOCIATES R be EDITED BY Ronald A. Bosco AND Joel Myerson University of Iowa Press Iowa City EMERSON IN HIS OWN TIME [At Concord with the Emersons in 1842 tion from the usual caresses. His fair form was seen among us a little while d 'he was not, for God took him.' [MARGARET FULLER] I hardly dared enter their home after this unexpected stroke. What could ay to relieve, and dared I intrude upon such sorrow? I, however, received note from Elizabeth Hoar, mentioning the time when 'they would lay the le statue away,' and I attended I underwent my examinations with small expectations of success. But the Margaret Fuller was one of the most important women in Emerson's life. They had heard about each other through mutual friends, and they shared a desire y appeared to have been smoothed for me and I suspected my Concord to meet. This was fulfilled when she spent three weeks visiting him in Concord ends of having spoken a good word At any rate, my labors were in the summer of 1836. Although Emerson was at first put off by Fuller's physi- ought to a close by success and to my astonishment, when I went to the cal mannerisms, he soon praised her intelligence, though he was (and always esident's to learn the result, the only fault found with me was that I did not remained) bothered by what he considered her egotism. Fuller became a regu- onounce Latin correctly! lar attendant at the meetings of the Transcendental Club, the closest thing the movement had to a social center, and she served as the first editor of the Dial chard Frederick Fuller, "The Younger Generation in 1840 from the Diary of a New En- from 1840 to 1842, which also brought her into regular contact with Emerson, nd Boy," ed. Margaret Fuller Marquand, Atlantic Monthly Magazine, 36 (August 1925): one of the magazine's major contributors. Their relationship soon became an 8-22. awkward one, for Fuller had expected a lowering of Emerson's traditional re- serve as they saw each other more often and worked together on the Dial more closely, and he did not comply. For his part, Emerson was both fascinated and repelled by Fuller, an intellectually stimulating companion who also wanted an emotional as well as a mental relationship. Although Fuller began to accept Emerson's position by 1840 (as in the fa- mous scene at the dining table in this selection demonstrates), she joined with two other young women, Caroline Sturgis Tappan and Anna Hazard Barker Ward, in continuing to try to draw Emerson out about issues such as marriage and friendship over the next few years, and some of the group's correspon- dence was incorporated into Emerson's writings. She moved to New York in 1844, published a narrative of her trip to the Midwest as Summer on the Lakes in 1843, served as a literary and cultural critic for the New-York Daily Tribune, wrote her feminist masterpiece Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845), col- lected her reviews as Papers on Literature and Art (1846), and left for Europe in 1846. While there, Fuller served in the Roman Revolution of 1848 as a nurse, where she met and later probably married Giovanni Ossoli, by whom she had a son. The family perished by drowning when their ship went down off Fire Is- land, New York, in 1850 as they were returning from Europe. After her death, Emerson joined William Henry Channing and James Freeman Clarke in editing Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852), in which they created a "Margaret Fuller" more consistent with their views of what constituted a traditional nine- [20] [21] EMERSON IN HIS OWN TIME Margaret Fuller Dichtung und Wahrheit is certainly the name for his life, for he does not care (continued) for facts, except SO far as the immortal essence can be distilled from them. teenth-century woman. The excerpts from Fuller's journal, describing a stay He has little sympathy with mere life: does not seem to see the plants grow, with the Emerson family in Concord for five weeks in the summer of 1842, is merely that he may rejoice in their energy. perhaps the finest depiction of the Emerson household written by an outsider We got to talking, as we almost always do, on Man and Woman, and Mar- we have for this period. riage.-W. took his usual ground. Love is only phenomenal, a contrivance of nature, in her circular motion. Man, in proportion as he is completely un- folded is man and woman by turns. The soul knows nothing of marriage, in Waldo & I went to walk to Walden pond, as usual, & staid till near sunset on the sense of a permanent union between two personal existences. The soul the water's brink beneath the pines. It was a very lovely afternoon, great is married to each new thought as it enters into it. If this thought puts on the happy clouds floating, a light breeze rippling the water to our feet: it was al- form of man or woman, if it last you seventy years, what then? There is but together sweet, and not out of memory, as is too often the case between us, one love, that for the Soul of all Souls, let it put on what cunning disguises it but from the present moment & to be remembered. We go but very little way will, still at last you find yourself lonely,-the Soul. on our topics, just touch & taste and leave the cup not visibly shallower. There seems to be no end to these conversations: they always leave us Waldo said once his were short flights from bough to bough, & SO it is not both where they found us, but we enjoy them, for we often get a good ex- up into the blue. I feel more at home with him constantly, but we do not act pression. powerfully on one another. He is a much better companion than formerly, Waldo said "Ask any woman whether her aim in this union is to further for once he would talk obstinately through the walk, but now we can be si- the genius of her husband; and she will say yes, but her conduct will always lent and see things together. We talked on the subject of his late letter, the be to claim a devotion day by day that will be injurious to him, if he yields." threatenings of the time which come to SO little, and of some individual cases "Those who hold their heads highest," quoth he, with a satirical side glance, where Sorrow is still the word, of those who began with such high resolve. "would do no better, if they were tried." I made no reply, for it is not worth- Too high I said, & W. agreed. We spoke of the prayer of a friend Lord use while to, in such cases, by words. me only for high purposes, no mean ones.-We must not dictate to the [2 September.] It is a most brilliant day, & I stole the morning from my spirit writing to take Lidian and then Mamma to ride. L. has had a slow fever Friday [19 August 1842]. In the evening I took a walk with W. Looking at which has confined her to her chamber almost ever since I came, & I have the moon in the river he said the same thing as in his letter, how each twin- not been attentive to her as I should have been, if I had thought she cared kling light breaking there summons to demand the whole secret, and how about it. I did not go into her room at all for a day or two, simply because I "promising, promising nature never fulfils what she thus gives us a right to was engaged all the time and kept expecting to see her down stairs. When I expect." I said I never could meet him here, the beauty does not stimulate did go in, she burst into tears, at sight of me, but laid the blame on her me to ask why?, and press to the centre, I was satisfied for the moment, full as nerves, having taken opium &c. I felt embarrassed, & did not know whether if my existence was filled out, for nature had said the very word that was ly- I ought to stay or go. Presently she said something which made me suppose ing in my heart. Then we had an excellent talk: We agreed that my god was she thought W. passed the evenings in talking with me, & a painful feeling love, his truth. W. said that these statements alternate, of course, in every flashed across me, such as I have not had, all has seemed SO perfectly under- mind, the only difference was in which you were most at home, that he liked stood between us. I said that I was with Ellery [Channing] or H[enry]. the pure mathematics of the thing T[horeau]. both of the evenings & that W. was writing in the study. [1 September.] This golden afternoon I walked with Waldo to the hem- I thought it all over a little, whether I was considerate enough. As to W.I locks. There we sat down and staid till near sunset. He read me verses.- never keep him from any such duties, any more than a book would.-He [22] 23 ] EMERSON IN HIS OWN TIME Margaret Fuller lives in his own way, & he dont soothe the illness, or morbid feelings of a oughly made up to the truth.-A for myself, if I have not done as much as I friend, because he would not wish any one to do it for him. It is useless to ex- ought for L. it is that her magnanimity has led her to deceive me. I have really pect it; what does it signify whether he is with me or at his writing. L. knows thought that she was happy to have me in the house solely for Waldo's sake, perfectly well, that he has no regard for me or any one that would make him and my own, and she is, I know, in the long account, but there are pains of wish to be with me, a minute longer than I could fill up the time with every day which I am apt to neglect for others as for myself.-But Truth, thoughts. spotless Truth, and Prayer and Love shall yield a talisman to teach me how As to my being more his companion that cannot be helped, his life is in to steer. the intellect not the affections. He has affection for me, but it is because I I suppose the whole amount of the feeling is that women cant bear to be quicken his intellect.- dismissed it all, as a mere sick moment of L's. left out of the question. And they dont see the whole truth about one like Yesterday she said to me, at dinner, I have not yet been out, will you be my me, if they did they would understand why the brow of Muse or Priestess guide for a little walk this afternoon. I said "I am engaged to walk with Mr E. must wear a shade of sadness. On my side I dont remember them enough. but" was going to say, I will walk with you first,) when L. burst into tears. They have SO much that I have not, I cant conceive of their wishing for what The family were all present, they looked at their plates. Waldo looked on the I have. (enjoying is not the word: these I know are too generous for that) But ground, but soft & serene as ever. I said "My dear Lidian, certainly I will go when Waldo's wife, & the mother of that child that is gone thinks me the with you." "No!" she said "I do not want you to make any sacrifice, but I do most privileged of women, & that E[lizabeth]. H[oar]. was happy because feel perfectly desolate, and forlorn, and I thought if I once got out, the fresh her love was snatched away for a life long separation, & thus she can know air would do me good, and that with you, I should have courage, but go with none but ideal love: it does seem a little too insulting at first blush.-And yet Mr E. I will not go." they are not altogether wrong. I hardly knew what to say, but I insisted on going with her, & then she in- Aft[ernoon]. Waldo came into my room to read me what he has written in sisted on going SO that I might return in time for my other walk. Waldo said his journal about marriage, & we had a long talk. He listens with a soft wist- not a word: he retained his sweetness of look, but never offered to do the ful look to what I say, but is nowise convinced. It was late in a dark after- least thing. I can never admire him enough at such times; he is SO true to noon, the fine light in that red room always so rich, cast a beautiful light himself. In our walk and during our ride this morning L. talked SO fully that upon him, as he read and talked. Since I have found in his journal two sen- I felt reassured except that I think she will always have these pains, because tences that represent the two sides of his thought. she has always a lurking hope that Waldo's character will alter, and that he In time, "Marriage should be a covenant to secure to either party the will be capable of an intimate union; now I feel convinced that it will never sweetness and the handsomeness of being a calm continuing inevitable ben- be more perfect between them two. I do not believe it will be less: for he is efactor to the other." sorely troubled by imperfections in the tie, because he dont believe in any In eternity, "Is it not enough that souls should meet in a law, in a thought, thing better.-And where he loved her first, he loves her always. Then the obey the same love, demonstrate the same idea. These alone are the nuptials influence of any one with him would be just in proportion to independence of minds. I marry you for better, not for worse, I marry impersonally." of him, combined with pure love of him for his own sake. Yet in reply to all I shall write to him about it. L. said, I would not but own that though I thought it was the only way, to Waldo had got through with his tedious prose, & to day he got into the take him for what he is, as he wishes to be taken, and though my experience mood to finish his poem. Just at night he came into the red room to read the of him has been, for that very reason, SO precious to me, I dont know that I passage he had inserted. This is to me the loveliest way to live that we have. could have fortitude for it in a more intimate relation. Yet nothing could be I wish it would be so always that I could live in the red room, & Waldo be nobler, nor more consoling than to be his wife, if one's mind were only thor- stimulated by the fine days to write poems & come the rainy days to read [24] 25 ] EMERSON IN HIS OWN TIME Margaret Fuller them to me. My time to go to him is late in the evening. Then I go knock at us, & may be again, for we do not fully meet, and to me you are too much & the library door, & we have our long word walk through the growths of too little by turns, yet thanks be to the Parent of Souls, that gave us to be things with glimmers of light from the causes of things. Afterward, W. goes born into the same age and the same country and to meet with SO much no- out & walks beneath the stars to compose himself for his pillow, & I open bleness and sweetness as we do, & I think constantly with more and more. the window, & sit in the great red chair to watch them He has put more of himself into Saadi and the other poem Masque than in Joel Myerson, "Margaret Fuller's 1842 Journal: At Concord with the Emersons," Harvard any thing he has written before. On Library Bulletin, 21 (July 1973): 323-24, 330-32, 335, 338-39, 340. "yet it doth not seem to rue That the high gods love tragedy" His voice was beautiful. He seems indeed to have entirely dismissed the other province. When- ever in his journal he speaks of his peculiar character & limitations he has written in the margin "Accept," and Saadi is one acceptance throughout. Late in the evening, he came in again, to read me some lines he had been adding. When he had done he asked me how I got such a cold. I could not but laugh then to see that grief was the last thing Saadi ever thought of, and I told him Lidian had been making me cry. "What" said he "my boy"? I told him afterward how I was affected for I did not wish him to think it was all for the child's sake, but I dont know that I did well for Saadi the joygiver walked in deep shadow for one or two days after. Saturday [24 September] In the evening, Waldo & I took a long moonlight walk. I cant think about what passed all the time. I have only an indefinite recollection of the moonlight & the river. We were more truly to- gether than usual. Sunday [25 September]. All this morning I spent in reading W's journals for the last year, or rather in finishing them, for I have had them by me for weeks. This afternoon I meant to have gone into the woods but I went into the library after dinner & staid till night: it was our last talk and my best. We talked over many things in the journal, especially a good lead was given by "Sickness is generally the coat in which genius is drest," an unusual re- mark for W.-We talked too of Bulwer & the people of talent,-W grows more merciful day by day. I ought to go away now these last days I have been fairly intoxicated with his mind. I am not in full possession of my own. I feel faint in the presence of too strong a fragrance. I think, too, he will be glad to get rid of me Farewell, dearest friend, there has been dissonance between [26] [27] Page 1 of 2 Chronology 1810 Sarah Margaret Fuller, eldest of nine children of Timothy and Margaret Crane Fuller, is born at Cambridgeport, Mass., May 23. 1823- 1824 Student at Misses Prescott's school, Groton, Mass. 1824 1824-1833 Flowering in Cambridge. Companion and confidante of several members of Harvard Class of 1829 and Divinity School Class of 1833: William Henry Channing, James Freeman Clarke, Frederick Henry Hedge. 1833 Rustication on Groton farm. Teaches younger children of family: Arthur, Ellen, Richard, Lloyd. 1835 Timothy Fuller dies; Margaret becomes breadwinner and head of family. 1836 First visit to the Emersons in Concord and beginning of lifelong correspondence and friendship with Waldo. 1836-1837 Teacher in Bronson Alcott's Temple School. Gives private instruction in German and Italian. 1837-1839 Teacher in Hiram Fuller's Greene Street School, Providence, R.I. Translates Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe (1839). 1839 Moves family from Groton to Jamaica Plain and takes upon herself burdens as head of the house. Begins Conversation classes in Boston and Cambridge, which continue until 1844. 1840 Edits The Dial from July of this year until July, 1842. 1841 Brook Farm started. Margaret and Emerson are wellwishers but prize individuality too much to join the "association." 1842 Publishes her translation of Correspondence of Fraulein Guderode and Bettina von Arnim. 1843 Western trip with James and Sarah Clarke. 1844 Publishes Summer on the Lakes, an account of her "westering," which attracted the attention of Horace Greeley and was partially responsible for his offering her the job of literary critic for the New York Daily-Tribune. Goes to New York in December. http://www.arh.eku.edu/Eng/KOPACZ/CHRON.HTM 7/1/2004 Page 2 of 2 1845 Meets James Nathan in February and falls deeply in love. Publication of Woman in the Nineteenth Century, an expanded version of the July, 1843, article in The Dial, "The Great Lawsuit: Man VS. Men, Woman VS. Women." 1846 Publication of Papers on Literature and Art, a miscellany of critical articles. Sails for Europe in August with Marcus and Rebecca Spring. Learns of Nathan's engagement to a German girl. Travels in England, Scotland, and France; acts as foreign correspondent for Greeley's Tribune. 1847 Arrives in Rome and meets a young Italian nobleman, the Marchese Ossoli, who offers his love. Leaves Rome to travel in northern Italy and Switzerland. Returns in the autumn and accepts Ossoli. Marriage takes place secretly either in late winter or early spring after Margaret discovers she is to have a child. 1848 Leaves Rome and spends summer in the Abruzzi at Aquila and Rieti while she waits for child. Her son Angelo born on September 5. 1849 Roman Republic proclaimed in February. Margaret with Ossoli during siege of Rome by French in April, May, and June. Appointed director of a hospital and cares for wounded. Reveals the existence of her husband and child to Mrs. Emelyn Story. Writes home to family and friends of marriage. News excites gossip that still colors contemporary accounts. 1850 Goes to Florence after the Republic falls. Sails for America with husband and child on May 17. All three perish in shipwreck at Fire Island, July 19. 1852 Publication of Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli by devoted friends Ralph Waldo Emerson, W. H. Channing, and J. F. Clarke. From the book written by: Brown, Arthur W. Margaret Fuller. New York: Twayne, 1964. http://www.arh.eku.edu/Eng/KOPACZ/CHRON.HTM 7/1/2004 Fuller, Margaret Ed. Kalant N.Hurspeth. 4 "My Heart Is a Large Kingdom" Selected Letter of layout Fuller. Hold On in Courage Soul 5 Ithaca: Cornell, 2001. Even more important was her friendship with yet another distant Emerson lived in Concord, they could stay in touch only by lett cousin, James Freeman Clarke, who shared her passion for German litera- Fuller began another significant correspondence. ture. Fortunately for us, Clarke left New England to take a pastorate in She was a successful teacher in Providence, and she became a pa Louisville, thus making it necessary for Fuller to write often and in detail lively intellectual circle of men and women, but she liked neither t to him. It is through these letters that we now get the best insight into the nor the teaching. She fretted under the daily routine of instructio mind of a brilliant young woman as she expands her knowledge and de- she was impatient with the complacent, rather conservative bent velops her own critical power. But it was not literature alone that Providence acquaintances. Inevitably she gave it all up, even thou prompted the letters, for Fuller was willing to keep Clarke up to date financial reward was substantial. Early in 1839 she went back to P about the goings on in Cambridge and Boston, and so we have a corre- where she gave private lessons and translated Johann Peter Eckerr sponding record of life among their friends in New England. Gespräche mit Goethe, a "table talk" book of conversations with the I But Margaret's father put an end to that life when he moved the family Fortunately for Fuller, George Ripley had begun a series of translat to Groton, some forty miles from Cambridge. Fuller felt isolated and German works, Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature, and balked, so she turned to her books, even more determined to keep cepted her work for publication. abreast of the world of letters. All too soon, however, disaster fell: her fa- At the same time Fuller planned a new project: in November 18 ther suddenly died of cholera on 1 October 1835. Though he had been organized a series of "Conversations" for women in Boston. Parti successful, Timothy had not left the family on a sound financial basis, so paid $10 to join. Fuller would begin each session by offering an C the family faced an immediate need for action. Margaret had just been in- and then draw out her participants in a conversational give-and-tal vited to go abroad in the company of Samuel G. Ward (a young man who series was highly successful, for it gave Fuller an income, and it was became her second love) and John and Eliza Farrar, a Harvard professor tractive to the women, some of whom were also prominent intello of mathematics and his wife. Fuller, of course, had to decline the trip and others were the wives of public men in the Boston area. Fuller wa look for employment. Her only choice was teaching, for she was not yet ural conversationalist, SO she was able to exploit this modification practiced enough to think of herself as a professional author, and even if lecture format for five years. She gave semiannual courses and she were rash enough to try, the probability of making a living with her some of them to men-unhappily, it turned out, for the men, a: pen was small. So teach she did. have been predicted, dominated the discussions and silenced the Her first opportunity came when she found that Bronson Alcott But her Conversations limited to women seem to have been cons needed an assistant at his Temple School in Boston. An educational re- successful and strengthened her public presence. former and philosopher, Alcott had tried to teach in radically new ways, During those years Fuller's friendship with Sam Ward grew in among them the use of Socratic dialogues with his pupils. Elizabeth but, like Davis before him, Ward did not respond to her. She t Peabody had been Alcott's first teacher and recorder of the talks with the Ward a promising young painter and encouraged him to ( children, but the subject matter sometimes bordered on sexuality and the his talent, but he was in fact headed to Baring Brothers to join manhood of Jesus-topics that could and did cause scandal-so Peabody ther as a banker. Even more confounding was the fact that War resigned. Fuller took the position in 1836, only to find Alcott interesting love with one of Fuller's close friends, Anna Barker, a beauty fro but improvident, for he could not pay her for her efforts. It was, then, Orleans whom Fuller deeply admired. Sam and Anna mari with some relief that she received an offer to teach in Providence, where Ward's birthday, 3 October 1840, a date Fuller noted each suc Hiram Fuller (no relation) had established a school on Alcott's principles year. but on a firmer financial basis. He offered Fuller a handsome salary of Readers will find in the letters in this section a record of Fuller's $1,000 a year and the freedom to teach the girls in the school as she from childhood to maturity. These letters show clearly how im wished. In midsummer 1837 she accepted the offer. German literature was to her and how liberated she felt in expl In one way it was not a propitious time for Fuller to leave Massachusetts, The letters chart the emotions of a woman trying to find her pl for she had finally made the acquaintance of the man most electrifying to world that offers her few opportunities. She loves and loses two n young intellectuals-Ralph Waldo Emerson, at whose home she spent a father dies, and she makes her first, successful ventures outwar satisfying visit in July 1836 and again in May and June 1837. But because professional life as conversationalist and writer. Margart 9/15/2015 Uncovering what Thoreau uncovered Harvard Gazette HARVARDgazette Arts & Culture > Literature & Poetry Uncovering what Thoreau uncovered Report on Margaret Fuller's death is acquired by Houghton July 31, 2015 I Editor's Pick Popular Pause Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer A recent Houghton Library acquisition is shedding new light on the tragic drowning of Margaret Fuller and on what Henry David Thoreau found as he investigated the death on behalf of Ralph Waldo Emerson. "Here's Thoreau, he is being sent by Emerson, also a very important figure to our collections, to investigate the death of Margaret Fuller. And the Fuller papers are here," said Leslie Morris (photo 2), the curator of modern books and manuscripts, who helped acquire the manuscript. "It really plays to three of our major figures here at the library. It brings them together." By Colleen Walsh, Harvard Staff Writer Email Twitter Facebook Some might say the pioneering feminist, literary critic, social reformer, teacher, and war correspondent Margaret Fuller died as she lived, determinedly on her own terms. On a journey back to the United States from Europe, Fuller's ship, the steamer Elizabeth, ran aground off New York's Fire Island during a violent storm in the early hours of July 19, 1850. According to Megan Marshall's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Fuller stood firm with her husband and 2-year-old son on the sinking deck. "Margaret would not leave her family; they would not leave her. Surely first mate Davis would return with the lifeboat now visible on shore," wrote Marshall of Fuller's plight and the sailor who had managed to swim to land. But incapable of navigating the boat alone in the rough waves and unable to recruit others to help him, Davis didn't return and Fuller drowned http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/07/uncovering-what-thoreau-uncovered/ 1/3 9/15/2015 Uncovering what Thoreau uncovered I Harvard Gazette with her family only 50 yards from safety. Her death at 40 was a blow to Transcendentalism: From 1840 to 1842 Fuller had edited the movement's main publication, "The Dial," alongside Ralph Waldo Emerson. Fuller's friends and colleagues rushed to the site, desperate to recover the family's remains. They were also anxious to find an account of the rise and fall of the 1849 Roman republic - "what is most valuable to me if I live of any thing," Fuller had written of her last manuscript. One of those travelers was Henry David Thoreau, sent by Emerson to "go, on all our parts, & obtain on the wrecking ground all the intelligence &, if possible, any fragments of manuscript or other property." Fuller's body and manuscript were lost to the sea. But a recent Houghton Library acquisition is shedding new light on the tragedy and on what Thoreau found as he wandered the beach for clues and interviewed survivors. A found link In May, the library purchased nine leaves of a largely unknown manuscript: Thoreau's notes taken during his shoreline search. The pencil- scrawled, double-sided pages contain vivid descriptions of Fuller's last moments, related to Thoreau by witnesses; they also describe how scavengers eagerly snatched up belongings that had washed ashore. "The thieves told me that they withdrew a little & divided the spoil - (while the friends of the dead are seeking their remains) - this will do for your child & that for your wife - these were the expressions which they themselves quoted," wrote Thoreau. "I found the young men playing at dominoes with their hats decked out with the spoils of the drowned." The manuscript had been transcribed by Thoreau's contemporaries, and the resulting story of his search has been recounted by Boston University historian Charles Capper in "Margaret Fuller: An American Romantic Life, The Public Years" (2007). Capper was the first scholar to see and use Thoreau's report, which he discovered in a contemporaneous copied version in a collection at the Boston Public Library. But the original manuscript is a boon for both Thoreau scholars and for Harvard. The pages directly link Houghton's Thoreau, Emerson, and Fuller collections. "Here's Thoreau, he is being sent by Emerson, also a very important figure to our collections, to investigate the death of Margaret Fuller. And the Fuller papers are here," said Leslie Morris, the curator of modern books and manuscripts, who helped acquire the manuscript. "It really plays to three of our major figures here at the library. It brings them together." Scholars have long been aware that a 20-volume edition of Thoreau's works released by Houghton Mifflin in 1906 included a little something extra. Bound into the front of the first volume in each of 600 special sets were original pieces of a Thoreau manuscript. The practice was fairly common at the turn of the century by publishers eager to boost sales, said Morris. "But it creates a nightmare for people who want to actually work with the manuscripts, because you've got pieces." Fortunately, Harvard's acquisition appears largely intact. Explore: The things they carried By Corydon Ireland, Harvard Staff Writer | October 9, 2013 I Editor's Pick Photography Unlike SO many other sets from 1906, many of which had only a page or two of original manuscript, this set, No. 1, contained nine leaves - 18 pages of notes in total - with a linear narrative documenting in detail what Thoreau had previously only summarized. "Until this manuscript surfaced, Thoreau's most detailed account of his engagement with the event was in a single brief letter to Emerson, also http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/07/uncovering-what-thoreau-uncovered/ 2/3 9/15/2015 Uncovering what Thoreau uncovered I Harvard Gazette in the Houghton Library," said Beth Witherell, who directs The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau, a project at Davidson Library at the University of California, Santa Barbara, begun in 1966 to provide accurate texts of Thoreau's works. "Thoreau described parts of his experience in his journal and in 'Cape Cod,' but he didn't explicitly connect those descriptions with this event. The new manuscript confirms his Fire Island experience as the source of those descriptions. "In terms of our understanding of the effort that Thoreau went to in his attempts to discover what had happened," she added, "this is a big discovery." Fortunately, readers can refer to Witherell's transcription of the text instead of trying to decipher Thoreau's swooping script on their own. Having worked since 1974 on Thoreau manuscripts, she is an expert at decoding his often-cryptic handwriting. The work is exciting, she said, because the manuscripts represent "what's left of a physical connection to Thoreau." An examination of the new manuscript offers up both the thrill of seeing Thoreau's hand on the page, and insights into his process. While the author is supposed to have made "fair copies" of the account, edited versions written in ink, these pages, experts agree, are almost certainly the notes he jotted down on site. The key clue: They were done in pencil. "In those days they didn't have fountain pens," said Witherell. "If you were going to write in ink you had to sit down with a bottle of ink, and Thoreau usually used a quill pen." After numerous revisions a cleaner version was produced for friends. "There's some rearranging. There are cancellations. There are also use marks, which I see in a lot of his manuscripts," said Witherell. "These are vertical lines Thoreau used to remind himself that he has used that part in the next iteration of the account." Treasure in the margins Once at Harvard, the manuscript yielded more than had initially met the eye. Working with Morris, Debora Mayer and Karen Walter, conservators at the Weissman Preservation Center, agreed to remove a non-original paper border surrounding each of the nine delicate leaves. The paper frames had begun to tear and were in turn tearing the manuscript. "Our goal is usually not to make changes like that," said Walter, who adheres to the conservator's creed: Save any material that might be of use to a researcher. "But in cases where the original is going to suffer damage because of the way it was handled or the way it was later treated by someone else, then we are more likely to intervene." When Walter gently lifted the frames, entire sentences by Thoreau, long-hidden notes scribbled along the edges of the pages, were revealed. "I was surprised to see how much text there was," she said, "and happy we did the right thing." Using a fine Japanese paper treated with adhesive and brushed with water, Walter repaired the small tears. She also worked with the library's digital-imaging team to create "surrogate" copies of the manuscript, high-quality images printed on paper the same thickness as the original that were reinserted into the first volume. "We wanted to keep the original feel of the piece," said Walter, "while protecting the original notes." Like Witherell, Walter's favorite part of working on the manuscript was the thrill of seeing the indentations the author's pencil made on the page. "You get a sense of Thoreau sitting there, writing," Walter said, "pressing hard into this paper." For Witherell, who has been trying for years to track down the original pages from the 1906 sets, Houghton's addition is a rare find and an important piece of literary history. "This manuscript is a great big deal for those who study 19th-century American literature and history, and in particular for students of Thoreau and of Fuller. It's very unusual for long Thoreau manuscripts to come on the market, and it's a wonderful surprise to find SO much new material. Nine leaves that's a lot." http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/07/uncovering-what-thoreau-uncovered/ 3/3 1969 THE ROMAN YEARS OF MARGARET FULLER A Biography by Joseph Jay Deiss " H.A.B. Shapiro Memorial Library NEW HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE Manchaster, N.H. he portrait of Margaret Fuller by Chappel. THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY ESTABLISHED 1834 NEW YORK Deiss 2 and rumors flew that he was courting another girl, she became SO desperately ill that she had to take to her bed-and no one seemed to understand the source of Margaret's fever. All her friends were getting married and "expecting." On the day of George's wedding she busied herself with copying her transla- tion of Goethe's lines on Queen Elizabeth's lament for her lover Essex: Alone! This day the cup of woe is full. This deadly blow! I feel it here But the low prying world shall not perceive it. The name Samuel Gray Ward also produced a hollow ache. 9 In the end the affair had been almost incestuous, because in ad- dition to Margaret he had loved Anna Barker, and Margaret had loved them both. The infatuation with Anna had been much more than an adolescent "crush." The rich and beautiful Anna Barker, kin of the Astors, had come to Cambridge at the Two age of fifteen to acquire the culture that was not to be had in decades since her earliest, adolescent, love had passed, New York. She visited in the house of her cousin, the wealthy, but she still could not think of George Davis without regret. elderly Harvard professor John Farrar. His young wife, Eliza, How painful is first lovel-as she had learned. And how can- cultivated and widely traveled, earlier had seized on the un- didly and unsubtly one reveals oneself, implicitly opening one- gainly Margaret like a fairy godmother, and smoothed out the self to rebuff-forever assuming that the other's emotions are roughness in her manner and appearance. So Margaret at eight- identical with one's own. een was invited by Mrs. Farrar to help add intellectual polish to Dear old George, who in afteryears had tried to make an already lustrous jewel called Anna. At once the girls, so un- amends by offering her brother Richard a job in his law firm in like, were intensely attracted to one another, and gave talismans Cincinnati. It was one proof that he had not forgotten her. Al- of their affection. Anna's gift to Margaret was a ruby; and most since childhood they had played together, for George Margaret's to Anna an amethyst and a poem which concluded Davis was her father's kinsman, and they called each other "cou- with the hope that the stone "Keeps thee steadfast, chaste and sin." She had been SO shocked when, at thirteen, she had discov- wise." ered he was reading Gil Blas, and had taxed him with its A decade later Margaret mused in her journal: "It is SO true "devious intrigues and the impure atmosphere of actresses and that a woman may be in love with a woman and a man with a picaroons." George was a very bright boy, and with his class- man It is a love all intellect and spirit. Its law is that mate Oliver Wendell Holmes made a reputation for wit at Har- of love between the sexes, the desire of the spirit to realize a vard. "His mirth," Margaret wrote, "unsettled all things from whole. What one finds not in oneself one seeks in another. The their foundations." He was, she said, "the first and only person strong seeks the beautiful, the beautiful the strong Why who SO excited her." When suddenly he moved to another town, did I love Anna? I loved her for a time with as much passion 58 59 Deiss-3 as I was then strong enough to feel. Her face was always gleam- in the fact that it was Mrs. John Farrar who had done the ing before me and her voice echoing in my ear Anna matchmaking-that very Mrs. Farrar, too, with her tales of Eu- loved me too, though not SO much. Her nature was 'less high, rope, who had instilled in Margaret such passion to see Europe less grave, less deep.' She loved more tenderly, less passionately. at first hand. Not Margaret, but Sam and Anna had summered She loved me, for I well remember when she first felt my faults in Switzerland with Mrs. Farrar, and the results were a foregone how she wished to weep all day. I remember too the night she conclusion. The year Margaret was thirty, Sam married Anna at leaned on me and her eyes were such a deep violet-blue; we Mrs. Farrar's house. Not Margaret, but Waldo Emerson went to felt a mystic thrill and knew what we had never known before. the wedding. For Emerson, Anna, the all-captivating Anna, was She wished to be with me always." a new experience with Beauty. Tactlessly he had written to By the time of the journal entry Sam Ward for several years Margaret about Anna, calling her "that very human piece of di- had been in Margaret's orbit-and while she was the sun, he vinity." And knowing that Caroline Sturgis was Margaret's con- nevertheless could not resist spinning in a secondary plane fidant, he nevertheless wrote Caroline that Anna's "unique gen- about SO lovely a planet as Anna. Sam was Margaret's junior by tleness unbars all doors and with such easy & frolic sway she seven years, but in the intellectual young the age gap is easily advances & advances & advances on you with that look." Accept- bridged by common interests and exciting creative projects. ing the inevitable, Margaret wrote to her "dear Raffaello" som- Sam Ward was full of creative projects-one moment he was a berly in the spirit of renunciation. "We were truly friends-yet painter, the next a writer, and the next a combination of both. not as men are friends or as brother and sister. There was that And to Margaret he was SO special that she called him "Raf- pleasure-possibly conjugal-of finding oneself in an alien faello," he who was "so sensuous, SO loving, and so lovely. nature. Was there a tinge of love between us? Perhaps!" She urged him constantly to develop his not inconsiderable A year earlier, at the breaking point, she had written: "You talents, and when at length he followed the demands of his love me no more. How did you pray me to draw near to you! wealthy banking family and became a banker (eventually a lob- What words were spoken in impatience of separation! How did byist in Washington), she mourned him as if "her votary" had you promise to me, ay, and doubtless to yourself, too, of all we committed suicide. It was he who had brought her from Italy a might be to one another. At an earlier period I would fain bursting portfolio of engravings of great Italian art and archi- have broke the tie that bound us, for I knew myself incapable of tecture; it was he who returned from the German universities, feeling or being content to inspire an ordinary attachment. As with his friend Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, speaking fluent soon as I saw a flaw I would have broke the tie. You would not German and French and brimful of literary projects. He was -you resented, yet with what pathetic grace, any distrust on more than a little stimulating even to his sister Julia (who as my part. Forever, ever are words of which you have never been, Julia Ward Howe was to become SO famous in the Civil War). are not now afraid. All I loved in you is at present dead And he was more than a little exciting to his most intimate and buried, only a light from the tomb shines now and then in friend, Ellery Channing-the erratic Ellery who married Mar- your eyes." garet's sister Ellen, but who idealized Sam and used to write him Who could have guessed-including Mrs. Emerson-that "the wildest letters of devotion and gratitude.") Margaret might finally fall in love with Waldo? Henry Sam Ward was London-tailored, handsome, amusing, intelli- Thoreau, maybe, for whom Emerson bore more affection than is gent, and for a long while wholly devoted to Margaret-until usually allotted a "hired man." Thoreau invited Margaret to he met the glamorous Anna Barker. And the ultimate irony lay row with him on Walden Pond in his homemade boat, and they 60 61 Deiss-4 talked of many things, including Emerson. "Last night I went in this or that other temporary relation." In his journal next out quite late, and stayed till the moon was almost gone," she day he entered without specifically using Margaret's name, wrote her brother Richard. Though she liked Henry, a hint of "You would have me love you. What shall I love? Your jealousy existed between them, not as authors but as competi- body? The supposition disgusts you. What you have thought tors for Waldo's attention. and said? Well, whilst you were thinking and saying them, but Other than Thoreau, only friend Caroline Sturgis might have not now. I see no possibility of loving anything but what now is, guessed the secret, for she too was greatly admired by the defen- and is becoming; your courage, your enterprise, your bud- sively Platonic Mr. Emerson. Caroline Sturgis was considered by ding affection, your opening thought, your prayer, I can love many to resemble a lively, dark-haired gypsy, who made no pre- -but what else?" On the date of Emerson's letter, Margaret tensions to the vastness of Margaret's intellect, yet nevertheless was writing to Caroline, "Of the mighty changes in my spiri- loved and admired Margaret. "With her," said Margaret, tual life I do not wish to speak, yet surely you cannot be igno- though Caroline was nine years younger, "I can talk of any- rant of them." thing. She is like me. She is able to look facts in the face." Four days later she wrote to Waldo (or at least he copied it Margaret first met Emerson when she was twenty-five, and thus for his file, probably leaving out phrases that did not suit he, thirty-two. Not surprisingly, they met at the home of Mrs. him), I have felt the impossibility of meeting far more Farrar. "He is a ray of white light, and she is a prism," said Eliz- than you; SO much that, if you ever know me well, you will feel abeth Hoar. From the very first Emerson was repelled and fasci- that the fact of my abiding by you thus far, affords a strong nated by Margaret, while she adored the lean and craggy proof that we are to be much to one another. How often have I clergyman in his splendid long blue coat. When she visited him left you despairing and forlorn. How often have I said, This at his home in Concord, they carried on an intense correspon- light will never understand my fire; this clear eye will never dis- dence from room to room, using Emerson's small son as their cern the law by which I am filling my circle; this simple force messenger boy-unable to bear the distraction of each other's will never interpret my need of manifold being Could I physical presence. lead the highest angel captive by a look, that look I would not When it became evident that Sam Ward was to be denied to give, unless prompted by true love: I am no usurper. I ask only Margaret, her preoccupation with Waldo Emerson increased. mine own inheritance. If it be found that I have mistaken its The Ward-Barker wedding took place during the first week of boundaries, I will give up the choicest vineyard, the fairest flow- October 1840, and the preceding month of September witnessed ergarden, to its lawful owner But did you not ask for a the full crisis of Margaret's private communications with the 'foe' in your friend? Did you not ask for a 'large formidable na- "Dear Wise One." As everybody knew, Mr. Emerson had a habit ture'? But a beautiful foe, I am not yet, to you. Shall I ever be? of carefully indexing and filing all his correspondence; but dur- To L [Lidian, Mrs. Emerson] my love. In her I have al- ing the climactic period of his relationship with Margaret all of ways recognized the saintly element. That, better than a Bible her calorous letters to him disappeared, with a single exception in my hand, shows that it cannot be wholly alien. Yet I am no in transcription, which he himself copied for the file. saint, no anything, but a great soul born to know all, before it Toward the end of September (the twenty-fifth), he wrote can return to the creative fount Margaret that "certain crises must impend," and "perhaps it A month later she confided to Caroline: "I have just written a [is] better to part now. In your last letter you do say letter to our dear Waldo which gives me pain. It was all into the that I am yours and yours shall be, let me dally how longsoever past. His call bids me return, I know not how, yet full of tender 62 63 Ralph Waldo Emerson Lidian Emerson Men, Giovanni Angelo Ossoli Waldo Emerson Jr. Women, and Margaret Fuller Nathaniel Hawthorns Henry David Thoreau by Laurie James The truth that existed between Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson Elizabeth Hoar Bronson Alcott Margaret Fuller Ossoli and their circle of Transcendental friends. Ellen Fuller Carolyn Sturgis Volume 3 Harriet Martineau Julia Ward Howe in a series on the life and work of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1810-1850) Golden Heritage Press, Inc. New York 1990 Samuel Grey Ward Edgar Allen Poe Thomas Cartyle Horace Greeley James - 2 62 to 63 Meanwhile, Fuller worked on an outline for developing some even features. Seven years younger than Fuller, he was a distant historical tragedies and Hebrew romances and German tales. Hedge cousin with unusual charisma, of Salem and Puritan stalk. He wanted wrote about an idea for a new "periodical of an entirely different to be an artist, but his wealthy mercantile father and family were character of any now existing, a journal of spiritual philosophy in steering him towards business His father was American agent for the which we are to enlist all the Germano-philisophico-literary talent in distinguished investment firm of Baring Brothers of England, also the country." He wanted Fuller to write for it. treasurer of the Boston Athenxum and of Harvard. Sam Ward moved Fuller was charmed with the idea: "I shall feel myself honored if I effortlessly among the upper-social ruling echelon of Boston. Fuller am deemed worthy of lending a hand albeit I fear I am merely was quite aware of the distinction. 'Germanico' and not 'transcendental' She meant that her back- Fuller saw immediately how sensitive and poetic Sam Ward was. ground was literary with a German emphasis, rather than with reli- She listened attentively to his conflicts while they shared a moonlit gious philosophy. She asked to "know the facts about Goethe and Lili, evening. They could sympathize with one another, share silences can you give them me? I want to know did he give her up from together. He had no interest in entering the business world. He saw merely interested (ie. selfish) motives." himself as a student, a literary man. He was an excellent conversation- She begged every knowledgeable person to give her the facts of alist, informed, refined, a gentleman with youthful energy. His intelli- Goethe's liaisons for her projected book, but could find no one who gence was superior. His imagination was superlative. She dubbed him would discuss the subject with her; such things were not for women's "Rafaello" after their favorite artist, Raphael, who was young seer of ears. beauty, with eyes softly contemplative, yet lit with central fire." Hedge's project for a journal faded into oblivion as he made his Sam Ward, Fuller felt, had a future of statues, buildings, splendid final decision to move away from the supports in Boston to new landscapes. He had the touch, the divine spark to be the Painter of responsibilities in Bangor, Maine. the Age, to translate the beauty of centuries. In Louisville, Kentucky, James Freeman Clarke began to produce a Ward dubbed her "Mother." new publication, The Western Messenger. His object was to spread liberal Back in Cambridge, visiting the Farrars, Margaret met Harriet religion in the West. Clarke solicited his friends for material and thus, Martineau, an English writer and abolitionist who was touring the two of Margaret's articles saw print. It did encourage. United States. Here was a woman, eight years older, who had cut A new project formed in Fuller's mind. She planned to write two tragedies on the history of Gustavus Adolphus.* through obstacles and was doing work she felt destined to do, earning a living by writing. Fuller gravitated to her. In April word came that her friend, William Henry Channing was engaged to Julia Allen, who was a sister of Mrs. Jared Sparks, and now Harriet Martineau had been an awkward fearful child, rejected and ridiculed by her family. She'd developed nightmares, chronic in- he was off to Europe with his mother and sister. digestion, depression, and any number of other illnesses such as In June 1835 Fuller, now twenty five, was invited to go on a trip up "languor," and "muscular weakness." She was so deaf she had to use the Hudson to Trenton Falls with the Farrars and friends. She asked an ear trumpet. When her father died leaving the family destitute, her father for an appropriate amount of money, and he obliged. One her mother, sisters and she did needlework for income. Because her of the party was Samuel Gray Ward a Harvard senior rooming with mother disapproved of women authors, Martineau wrote at night and the Farrars. He was a handsome young man with curly brown hair and hid her work by day. When her book, Illustrations on Political Economy was rejected by every publisher, she published it herself with her own money. Overnight it was a sensation. In 1840 her tragedies "are sleeping peacefully in my trunk." James-3 178 179 In the end Emerson wrote a poem about the controversy, "Uriel" N.1 Frothingham, C. P. Cranch, G. W. Haven. Fuller requested her himself against the establishment. initials: "S. M. Fuller." One reason Transcendentalism seemed so eccentric was because Fuller's translations were received favorably by the Transcenden- each adherent promoted differently. Alcott, for instance, hiked tals, including Thomas Carlyle who claimed that no Englishman had through backwoods areas to hand out his and Emerson's writings. uttered as much sense about Goethe and German things." The fact that each adherent considered it was his right to pursu. In December Fuller missed Emerson's new lecture series, "Human whatever method seemed best to accomplish goals seemed divisive Life," which opened at the Masonic Temple in Boston with "The traditionalists, but to Transcendentalists diversity - and freedom Doctrine of the Soul," which contained the embryo of his philosophy, represented strength. Transcendentalism could be identified as di that within the temple of man is the Oversoul that man is wiser than sent. Dissent was noble. he knows and can accomplish and enter the highest sphere.* That summer of 1838, Emerson was making two new friends. Sinc Fuller also missed his lectures, "Home," "The School," and "Love." Fuller urged, he invited Sam Ward to Concord for the weekend His fifth, "Genius," was set for January 2,1839. Fuller was ecstatic. She Concord was hardly Ward's upper crust social sphere. He went could be there. But as she arrived, the audience was leaving. The cause of his long standing friendship with Fuller. There was also lecture had been postponed because Emerson had felt sickly. age difference - Ward was years younger. But the idealism of Ward "How could you omit your lecture?" Fuller berated in a letter. and Emerson turned out to be simpatico and long lasting. Could you not have taken some other time for your 'slight indisposi- Emerson was also striking up a kinship with one of Ward's Harvar ion.' I fancied L. (Lidian) was worse and had passed from diet on classmates, Jones Very, who had twice won the Bowdoin Pri ucewater to nothing at all. I sent a maiden to inquire at Mrs. A.'s Elizabeth Peabody had brought this meeting about. She had been Alcott's) and she returned all smiles to tell me that Mrs. E. taken by Very's lecture on epic poetry that she wrote Emerson Emerson) was quite well, that Mr. E. (Emerson) had lost a night's invite him to speak at the Concord Lyceum. Emerson's reaction Estil but had since rode to Waltham, walked five miles, sawed wood, "Such a mind cannot be lost." d by use of these mild remedies was now perfectly restored. Imag- This eccentric was thought by many to be insane. He beh my indignation: lost a night's rest! as if an intellectual person ever visions from the Holy Ghost who spoke to him and dictated what a night's rest " should write. He had just been released from a month's stay Friend was apologetic and defensive: "As Night preceded the first MacLean Asylum in Charlestown. He had been committed Day, so always wise men have slept upon their problems, and an being dropped as freshman tutor in Greek at Harvard because somnolent counsellor is as good as none." cried out to his class, "Flee to the mountains, for the end of all thin Fuller could always read his lectures at leisure. He lent them to her is at hand!" enever she requested. In the one entitled "Love," there would be After visiting with Very for a week, Emerson wished "the who fle with which she could agree. world were as mad as he." Very "charmed us all by telling us he Emerson always wrote from the standpoint of universality but, like us all." st writers, he wrote from his own perspective, basing his premises John Sullivan Dwight queried Fuller as to how she wanted his own private experience. No woman can identify with or benefit name signed under her German translations. All contributors m his premise. European series were men - except for her. Some were signing full names, George Bancroft, James Freeman Clarke, William Channing, Charles T. Brooks, Frederic Hedge, but some used inth ter to be published with the title, "The Over-Soul." James-4 194 195 coming straight from heaven which set her off always to good advan- tage, of the unadorned elegance of her neck movements, of the held by the hand. And with Mr. E for the representative of religious aspiration and one other of Earth's beauty I thought my circle would knockout way she had of squinting her eyes. be as complete as friendship could make it. Such a declaration would have caused a revolution, fired a shot heard round the world. Women everywhere would have changed How this hope was turned sickly, how deeply it was wounded you their lives to emulate Fuller's intellectual excellence. Her face would know not yet, you do not fully understand what you did or what passed have launched a thousand ships. in my mind. - I will own that in no sacred solitary wood walk, in no But make no mistake. Emerson's notes on woman's beauty are hour of moonlight love had I been able to feel that that hope could recover from its wound. My feelings had not changed since you went stereotypically male: away. I had not been able, much as I desired it, to take a different view Gratior est veniens inpulschro corpore virtus. (Worth shows more of the past or future. But your letter has changed it. Your vow is winsome in a fair form.) Virgil, Aeneid, V, 344 registered in heaven.- I know not yet whether I can avail myself of it, but, oh, my Caroline, for mine you must ever be in memory of your Formosa facies muta commendation est. (A handsome appearance is an first hours of real youth, blessed the Great Spirit, that it has been offered, that you have not been permitted to quench a flame upon so unspoken testimonial.) Publilius Syrus, 199. lonely, so ill-sustained an altar. A beautiful woman is universal. How she takes all things up into Whatever is done shall be noble, be true. Only for a moment did I herself. R.W.E. cease to love you. I wept at the loss you were to sustain in me. I would have given all but self-respect to save you. I said, Worldwise, at least I When beautiful Anna Barker left Jamaica Plain, Fuller collapsed can always be her friend in the spirit realm I will wait for her. o may it into bed. be that on earth I can walk with you. 30 Tides of feeling overwhelmed. In journals she poured forth prayer and passionate calls for strength in such sentimental emotion that In the nineteenth century female bonding was "above the bestial reader is tempted to turn away with a laugh but instead feels such nature of man," out of the mainstream of the marketplace. In fact, sinking of heart that the response is a silent cry of woe. sociologists have pointed out that intimate female relationships verify Anna Barker had told Fuller that she and Sam Ward were in lov the unfortunate inequality and distancing that exists between men Too depleted at first to open a letter from Cary Sturgis, Fulle and women. Such female friendships often "saved" marriages, for finally turned to this most compatible woman friend for the neede they were considered innocent. They served women's needs, espe- sustenance: cially for those who were boxed into a separate world, relegated as less important than men. I loved you, Caroline, with truth and nobleness. I counted to Fuller once expressed the dilemma superbly: "Tis an evil lot to you much more. I thought there was a firm foundation for futi have a man's ambition and a woman's heart." years. In this hour when my being is more filled and answered On October 15 Sam Ward wrote Fuller. confirming his engage- ever before, when my beloved has returned to transcend in every ment to Anna Barker. not only my hope, but my imagination, I will tell you that I The story circulated that Barker had told Ward that there was little looked forward to the time when you might hold as high a place life as she. I thought of all women but you two as my children probability of marriage unless he'd give up his life in art and litera- pupils, my play things or my acquaintance. You two alone I would ure and find a suitable financially solvent profession. Considering his upbringing in the cream of Boston society, it was not surprising that Ward chose entry into her father's banking firm.) Jame 5 196 to 197 His decision could not be a greater mistake, Fuller was convinced. and these friends, it is a part of my creed, we always find; the spirit To the outside world she hid her wrenching heart. provides for itself." She wrote Sam Ward, affirming friendship forever: Striking up a warm correspondence with Sam Ward, he wrote that he conceived of him "as allied on every side to what is beautiful and inspiring, with noblest purposes. " believe me, I understand all perfectly though I might grieve that you should put me from you in your highest hour and find He came to decide Margaret Fuller needed "more exercise in the yourself unable to meet me on the very ground where you had taught Concord coach" - that is, she should visit him more often. me most to expect it, I would not complain or feel that the past had in Fuller retreated to her earlier vow of living a life of intellect and any way bound either of us as to the present I had thought too, that celibacy. She would "write constantly life would ripen into genius." in ceasing to be intimates we might cease to be friends. I think so no Her Conversations were about to start. She arranged to hold them longer. The knowledge I have of your nature has become a part of at Elizabeth Peabody's West Street Bookstore. mine, the love it has excited will accompany me through eternity. My attachment was never so deep as now, it is quite unstained by pride or Then, unexpectedly, Emerson and the other male literati voted passion, it is sufficiently disinterested for me to be sure of it. her editor of their projected Transcendental magazine. If there were no outlets for women's expression, neither did the men feel there was media open to their voices. Orestes Brownson, Time, distance, different pursuits may hide you from me, yet will I never forget to be your friend nor to visit your life with a daily who produced the best current journal, The Boston Quarterly Review, benediction o I could weep with joy that real life is lived Live offered space to the Transcendentalists, but they considered his without me now. Do not bid yourself remember me, but should an paper too narrow, and circulation was limited. The Liberator was the hour come and you have any need of me, you will find me in my only journal which had root in the soul and flourished, as Alcott place and find me faithful to you 31 expressed it, but it was an abolitionist tabloid. And Emerson called the conservative The North American Review," the snore of the Muses." It must have been another twist of the screw to receive a message Andrews Norton said he would resign if articles were printed by the from friend Emerson that Anna Barker was "that very human piece of enemy camp in the newspaper he co-edited, The Christian Examiner. In divinity in whom grace goodness & wit have so constitutional a blend England there was Heraud's New Monthly Magazine, which all ad- ing that she quite defies all taking to pieces." He wanted "more time- mired, but that was in England. & more opportunities to arrive at any steady vision of a person Needed was a periodical, but Alcott took a realist stance in his excellent & so remote too from my usual experiences." diary: "We lack the ability to make it worthy of our position." When Fuller went to Concord the next Sunday she announced th Emerson figured that if twenty thousand copies of Addison & engagement. But Emerson, aware that she was experiencing an emo Steel's Spectator were sold in a day, and if four persons read each copy, tional conflict, seemed to have no desire to sensitize himself then "each of those moral lessons" was read by "more than fifty whatever her problem was. Perhaps it was an unhealthy religiou thousand persons." Surely hungry New Englanders would buy an eminent quarterly. experience. Back in Jamaica Plain Fuller succumbed to her scorpions, a thr Lecture halls were always filling up. The soul and the moral life had always predominated New England thought and habit, and people week headache. Emerson again felt the need of a friend. With a few select since were searching for intellectual stimulation as never before. Maga- friends, he could "face with more courage the battle of every day tines in general were on an upward climb. Most were mediocre, ammed with love tales and light reading. Their new magazine would STUDIES IN ROMANTICISM VOLUME VII WINTER 1968 NUMBER 2 Pp. 65-103. Hatred's Swift Repulsions: Share Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Others CARL F. STRAUCH E MERSON's correspondence with Margaret Fuller and her small circle of friends, Caroline Sturgis, Anna Barker, and Samuel Gray Ward, provides a brilliant showcase of Roman- tic expression. In the midst of discussion of books, art portfolios, original criticism, and poems that passed among them, the central topic was friendship, the desire of sensitive persons to seek their sym- pathetic counterparts or affinities and to be understood in their full and creative individuality. Cold and reserved, Emerson, from the vantage point of his isola- tion, admired the idea of friendship; but he took friendship up into a Platonic, impersonal, and abstract realm where spiritual communion (and what was friendship but that?) was one with metaphysical real- I. The letters which I have drawn from the edition of Ralph L. Rusk (The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 6 vols. [New York, 1939]) are all from vols. II and III, and are cited by the dates. There are, however, two important letters by Margaret Fuller which Rusk printed in footnotes, and for these I shall provide volume and page refer- ence. For directness and simplicity of presentation I have used the rough drafts and copies printed by Rusk rather than the originals (both sets of MSS are at the Houghton Library); the rough drafts and copies serve my purposes adequately. There is one ex- ception, a letter by Emerson to Caroline Sturgis (Houghton bms Am I22I, Item 88); I use the original for the sake of a fact not included in the copy available to Rusk. The reader may wish to compare the two. In one instance I have corrected Rusk's conjec- tural dating. I have also used unpublished letters by Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Caroline Sturgis. For courtesies and permission to print material from unpublished letters deposited in the Houghton Library, I wish to thank Mr. William H. Bond, Librarian. I wish also to thank Professor Eleanor M. Tilton, who is editing Emerson's unpublished letters, for allowing me free scope in handling material important in dif- ferent ways to both of us. The limitations I observe in the paper, whether noted above or silently introduced, I have myself thought most proper. I have used also the Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Edward Waldo Emerson and Waldo Emerson Forbes, IO vols. (Boston, 1909-14)-cited in text as "J"; and The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Edward Waldo Emerson (Boston, 1903-04). [ 65 ] This content downloaded from 137.49.1.13 on Wed, 30 Aug 2017 00:22:31 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms BOSTON UNIVERSITY Hatred's Swift Repulsions: Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Others Author(s): Carl F. Strauch Source: Studies in Romanticism, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Winter, 1968), pp. 65-103 Published by: Boston University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25599701 Accessed: 30-08-2017 00:22 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars. researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Boston University is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Studies in Romanticism JSTOR This content downloaded from 137.49.1.13 on Wed, 30 Aug 2017 00:22:31 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 11/13/2018 The letters of Margaret Fuller (Book, 1983) [WorldCat.org] OCLC WorldCat® Search WorldCat Search Advanced Search Find a Library