Fuller’s Writings.

  But, after awhile, they tired of her. She could never be depended on to join in their plans, yet she expected them to follow out hers with their whole strength. She was very loving, even infatuated in her own affections, and exacted from those who had professed any love for her, the devotion she was willing to bestow.

  Yet there was a vein of haughty caprice in her character; and a love of solitude, which made her at times wish to retire entirely, and at these times she would expect to be entirely understood, and let alone, yet to be welcomed back when she returned. She did not thwart others in their humors, but she never doubted of great indulgence from them.

  Some singular habits she had which, when new, charmed, but, after acquaintance, displeased her companions. She had by nature the same habit and power of excitement that is described in the spinning dervishes of the East. Like them, she would spin until all around her were giddy, while her own brain, instead of being disturbed, was excited to great action. Pausing, she would declaim verses of others or her own; or act many parts, with strange catch-words and burdens that seemed to act with mystical power on her own fancy, sometimes stimulating her to convulse the bearer with laughter, sometimes to melt him to tears. When her power began to languish, she would spin again till fired to recommence her singular drama, into which she wove figures from the scenes of her earlier childhood, her companions, and the dignitaries she sometimes saw, with fantasies unknown to life, unknown to heaven or earth.

  This excitement, as may be supposed, was not good for her. It usually came on in the evening, and often spoiled her sleep. She would wake in the night, and cheat her restlessness by inventions that teazed, while they sometimes diverted her companions.

  She was also a sleep-walker; and this one trait of her case did somewhat alarm her guardians, who, otherwise, showed the same profound stupidity as to this peculiar being, usual in the overseeing of the young. They consulted a physician, who said she would outgrow it, and prescribed a milk diet.

  Meantime, the fever of this ardent and too early stimulated nature was constantly increased by the restraints and narrow routine of the boarding school. She was always devising means to break in upon it. She had a taste which would have seemed ludicrous to her mates, if they bad not felt some awe of her, from a touch of genius and power that never left her, for costume and fancy dresses, always some sash twisted about her, some drapery, something odd in the arrangement of her hair and dress, so that the methodical preceptress dared not let her go out without a careful scrutiny and remodelling, whose soberizing effects generally disappeared the moment she was in the free air.

  At last, a vent for her was found in private theatricals. Play followed play, and in these and the rehearsals she found entertainment congenial with her. The principal parts, as a matter of course, fell to her lot; most of the good suggestions and arrangements came from her; and for a time she ruled masterly and shone triumphant.

  During these performances the girls bad heightened their natural bloom with artificial red; this was delightful to them—it was something so out of the way. But Mariana, after the plays were over, kept her carmine saucer on the dressing-table, and put on her blushes regularly as the morning.

  When stared and jeered at, she at first said she did it because she thought it made her look prettier; but, after a while, she became petulant about it,—would make no reply to any joke, but merely kept on doing it.

  This irritated the girls, as all eccentricity does the world in general, more than vice or malignity. They talked it over among themselves, till they got wrought up to a desire of punishing, once for all, this sometimes amusing, but so often provoking nonconformist. Having obtained leave of the mistress, they laid, with great glee, a plan one evening, which was to be carried into execution next day at dinner.

  Among Mariana’s irregularities was a great aversion to the mealtime ceremonial. So long, so tiresome she found it, to be seated at a certain moment, to wait while each one was served at so large a table, where there was scarcely any conversation; from day to day it became more heavy to sit there, or go there at all. Often as possible she excused herself on the ever-convenient plea of headache, and was hardly ever ready when the dinnerbell rang.

  To-day it found her on the balcony, lost in gazing on the beautiful prospect. I have heard her say afterwards, that she had rarely in her life been so happy,—and she was one with whom happiness was a still rapture. It was one of the most blessed summer days; the shadows of great white clouds empurpled the distant hills for a few moments only to leave them more golden; the tall grass of the wide fields waved in the softest breeze. Pure blue were the heavens, and the same hue of pure contentment was in the heart of Mariana.

  Suddenly on her bright mood jarred the dinnerbell. At first rose her usual thought, I will not, cannot go; and then the must, which daily life can always enforce, even upon the butterflies and birds, came, and she walked reluctantly to her room. She merely changed her dress, and never thought of adding the artificial rose to her cheek.

  When she took her seat in the dining-hall, and was asked if she would be helped, raising her eyes, she saw the person who asked her was deeply rouged, with a bright glaring spot, perfectly round, in either cheek. She looked at the next, same apparition! She then slowly passed her eyes down the whole line, and saw the same, with a suppressed smile distorting every countenance. Catching the design at once, she deliberately looked along her own side of the table, at every schoolmate in tum; every one had joined in the trick. The teachers strove to be grave, but she saw they enjoyed the joke. The servants could not suppress a titter. . . .

  She had ruled, like a queen, in the midst of her companions; she had shed her animation through their lives, and loaded them with prodigal favors, nor once suspected that a powerful favorite might not be loved. Now, she felt that she bad been but a dangerous plaything in the hands of those whose hearts she never had doubted.

  Yet, the occasion found her equal to it, for Mariana had the kind of spirit, which, in a better cause, had made the Roman matron truly say of her death-wound, “It is not painful, Poetus.” She did not blench—she did not change countenance. She swallowed her dinner with apparent composure. She made remarks to those near her, as if she had no eyes.

  The wrath of the foe of course rose higher, and the moment they were freed from the restraints of the dining-room, they all ran off, gaily calling, and sarcastically laughing, with backward glances, at Mariana, left alone.

  She went alone to her room, locked the door, and threw herself on the floor in strong convulsions. These had sometimes threatened her life, as a child, but of later years she had outgrown them. School-hours came, and she was not there. A little girl, sent to her door, could get no answer. The teachers became alarmed, and broke it open. Bitter was their penitence, and that of her companions at the state in which they found her. For some hours, terrible anxiety was felt; but, at last, nature, exhausted, relieved herself by a deep slumber.

  From this Mariana rose an altered being. She made no reply to the expressions of sorrow from her companions, none to the grave and kind, but undiscerning comments of her teacher. She did not name the source of her anguish, and its poisoned dart sank deeply in. This was the thought which stung her so. What, not one, not a single one, in the hour of trial, to take my part, not one who refused to take part against me. Past words of love, and caresses, little heeded at the time, rose to her memory, and gave fuel to her distempered thoughts. Beyond the sense at universal perfidy, of burning resentment, she could not get. And Mariana, born for love, now hated all the world.

  The change, however, which these feelings made in her conduct and appearance bore no such construction to the careless observer. Her gay freaks were quite gone, her wildness, her invention. Her dress was uniform, her manner much subdued. Her chief interest seemed now to lie in her studies, and in music. Her companions she never sought; but they, partly from uneasy, remorseful feelings, partly that they really liked her much better now that she did not oppress and puzzle them, sought her continually. And here the black shadow comes upon her life, the only stain upon the history of Mariana.

  They talked to her, as girls, having few topics naturally do, of one another. Then the demon rose within her, and spontaneously, without design, generally without words of positive falsehood, she became a genius of discord among them. She fanned those flames of envy and jealousy which a wise, true word from a third will often quench forever; by a glance, or a seemingly light reply, she planted the seeds of dissension, till there was scarce a peaceful affection, or sincere intimacy, in the circle where she lived, and could not but rule, for she was one whose nature was to that of the others as fire to clay.

  It was at this time that I came to the school, and first saw Mariana. Me she charmed at once, for I was a sentimental child, who, in my early ill health, had been indulged in reading novels, till I had no eyes for the common greens and browns of life . . . .

  It was not, however, easy to approach her. Did I offer to run and fetch her handkerchief, she was obliged to go to her room, and would rather do it herself. She did not like to have people tum over for her the leaves of the music book as she played. Did I approach my stool to her feet, she moved away, as if to give me room. The bunch of wild flowers, which I timidly laid beside her plate, was left there.

  After some weeks, my desire to attract her notice really preyed upon me; and one day, meeting her alone in the entry, I fell upon my knees, and, kissing her hand, cried, “O, Mariana, do let me love you, and try to love me a little.” But my idol snatched away her hand, and laughing . . . wildly, . . . ran into her room. After that day, her manner to me was not only cold, but repulsive, and I felt myself scorned . . . .

  Perhaps four months had passed thus, when, one afternoon, it became obvious that something more than common was brewing. Dismay and mystery were written in many faces of the older girls; much whispering was going on in comers.

  In the evening, after prayers, the principal bade us stay; and, in a grave, sad voice, summoned forth Mariana to answer charges to be made against her.

  Mariana come forward and leaned against the chimney piece. Eight of the older girls came forward, and preferred against her charges, alas, too well founded, of calumny and falsehood.

  At first she defended herself with self-possession and eloquence. But when she found she could no more resist the truth, she suddenly threw herself down, dashing her head, with all her force, against the iron hearth, on which a fire was burning, and was taken up senseless.

  The affright of those present was great. Now that they had perhaps killed her, they reflected it would have been as well, if they had taken warning from the former occasion, and approached very carefully a nature so capable of any extreme. After a while she revived, with a faint groan, amid the sobs of her companions. I was on my knees by the bed, and held her cold hand. One of those most aggrieved took it from me, to beg her pardon, and say it was impossible not to love her. She made no reply.

  Neither that night, nor for several days, could a word be obtained from her, nor would she touch food; but, when it was presented to her, or any one drew near from any cause, she merely turned away her head, and gave no sign. The teacher saw that some terrible nervous affection had fallen upon her, that she grew more and more feverish. She knew not what to do.

  Meanwhile a new revolution had taken place in the mind of the passionate, but nobly-tempered child. All these months nothing but the sense of injury had rankled in her heart. She had gone on in one mood, doing what the demon prompted, without scruple and without fear.

  But, at the moment of detection, the tide ebbed, and the bottom of her soul lay revealed to her eye. How black, how stained and sad! Strange, strange, that she had not seen before the baseness and cruelty of falsehood, the loveliness of truth! Now, amid the wreck, uprose the moral nature, which never before had attained the ascendant. “But,” she thought, “too late, sin is revealed to me in all its deformity, and sin-defiled, I will not, cannot live. The mainspring of life is broken.”

  And thus passed slowly by her hours in that black despair of which only youth is capable. In older years men suffer more dull pain, as each sorrow that comes drops its leaden weight into the past, and, similar features of character bringing similar results, draws up a heavy burden buried in those depths. But only youth has energy, with fixed unwinking gaze, to contemplate grief, to hold it in the arms and to the heart, like a child which makes it wretched, yet is indubitably its own.

  The lady who took charge of this sad child had never well understood her before, but had always looked on her with great tenderness. And now love seemed, when all around were in the greatest distress, fearing to call in medical aid, fearing to do without it, to teach her where the only balm was to be found that could have healed this wounded spirit.

  One night she came in, bringing a calming draught. Mariana was sitting as usual, her hair loose, her dress the same robe they had put on her at first, her eyes fixed vacantly upon the whited wall. To the proffers and entreaties of her nurse she made no reply.

  The lady burst into tears, but Mariana did not seem even to observe it.

  The lady then said, “O, my child, do not despair, do not think that one great fault can mar a whole life. Let me trust you, let me tell you the griefs of my sad life. I will tell to you, Mariana, what I never expected to impart to any one.”

  And so she told her tale: it was one of pain, of shame, borne, not for herself, but for one near and dear as herself. Mariana knew the lady, knew the pride and reserve of her nature; she had often admired to see how the cheek, lovely, but no longer young, mantled with the deepest blush of youth, and the blue eyes were cast down at any little emotion. She had understood the proud sensibility of her character. She fixed her eyes on those now raised to hers, bright with fast falling tears. She heard the story to the end, and then, without saying a word, stretched out her hand for the cup.

  She returned to life, but it was as one who had passed through the valley of death. The heart of stone was quite broken in her. The fiery life fallen from flame to coal. When her strength was a little restored, she had all her companions summoned, and said to them, “I deserved to die, but a generous trust has called me back to life. I will be worthy of it, nor ever betray the truth, or resent injury more. Can you forgive the past?”

  And they not only forgave, but, with love and earnest tears, clasped in their arms the returning sister. They vied with one another in offices of humble love to the humbled one; and, let it be recorded as an instance of the pure honor of which young hearts are capable, that these facts, known to forty persons, never, so far as I know, transpired beyond those walls.

  It was not long after this that Mariana was summoned home. She went thither a wonderfully instructed being, though in ways those who had sent her forth to learn little dreamed of.

  Loveliest of created ministers wives! I have egotized as became a friend so interesting as myself, to one so sympathizing as thyself. For the present I pause, when, oh when shalt thou gather strength to come and hear the remainder? . . .

  I would have been a true friend to you; ever ready to solace your pains and partake your joy as far as possible. Yet I cannot but rejoice that I have met a person who could discriminate and reject a proffer of this sort. Two years ago I should have ventured to proffer you friendship, indeed, on seeing such an instance of pride in you; but I have gone through a sad process of feeling since, and those emotions, so necessarily repressed, have lost their simplicity, their ardent beauty. Then, there was nothing I might not have disclosed to a person capable of comprehending, had I ever seen such a one! Now there are many voices of the soul which I imperiously silence. This results not from any particular circumstance or event, but from a gradual ascertaining of realities.

  So—where was I?—Oh about Reinhard’s memoirs-did you, dear “Minister” ever read them for I am going to quote from them for some time—So if you have not read them do so and partic^y Letter IX and noting what is said therein of the method we should take in examining revelation give me your opinion thereon—Do it in form—I want it—Observe the valuable results of his six years patient industry, admire that truly German spirit which produces fruits of such perfect ripeness, those habits of patient investigation, that freedom of spirit joined with candour and humility—See how beautifully his life passed, spirit constantly victorious over the rebellion of matter, every hour employed in pursuits as useful as elegant, that genuine charity, that consistent sweetness and humility—He gave away the fruits of his own soul to the poor; How delightful his domestick life. Oh my friend how lovely is the picture of a good man!—I hope it is not flattered—Read it and see if it does not affect you as it does me—I think you will find passages which may be useful to [you] partic^y on the way in which he made general literature and great love of philosophy part of his religious character. Similar thoughts have occupied your own mind. He seems to have performed what you could conceive and wish therefore are capable of performing. You will not agree with his doctrine but that is nothing—And tell me how goes your Unitarianism—Before you went to the west I remember you were grafting sundry notions of your own on that most rational system. Have you decided yet how regeneration is to be accomplished . . . .

  Do not, I implore you, whether from pride or affection, wish to exile me from the dark hour. The manly mind might love best in the triumphant hour, but the woman could no more stay from the foot of the cross than from the transfiguration. And I am fit to be the friend of an immortal mortal because I know both these sympathies. [BPL MS]

b . . . . I would have my friends tender of me, not because I am frail, but because I am capable of strength;—patient, because they see in me a principle that must, at last, harmonize all the exuberance of my character. I did not well understand what you felt, but I am willing to admit that what you said of my “over-great impetuosity” is just. You will, perhaps, feel it more and more. It may at times hide my better self. When it does, speak, I entreat, as harshly as you feel. Let me be always sure I know the worst. I believe you will be thus just, thus true, for we are both servants of Truth. [Memoirs, II, 65-66]

  You call me your best of friends, your dearest friend, you say that you always find yourself with me. I doubt not the depth of your attachment, doubt not that you feel my worth. But the confiding sweetness, the natural and prompt expression are gone—are they gone forever?

  You do not wish to be with me; why try to hide it from me, from yourself? You are not interested in any of my interests. My friends, my pursuits are not yours. If you tell me of yours, it is like a matter of duty, not because you cannot help it, and must write or speak to relieve the full heart and mind.

  The sympathizing contemplation of the beautiful in Nature, in Art is over for us. That for which I loved you first, and which made that love a shrine at which I could rest upon my wearing pilgrimage.—Now—moons wax and wane, suns rise and set, the summer segment of the beautiful circle is filled, and since the first flush on the cheek of June we have not once seen, felt, admired together. You come here—to go away again, and make a call upon me in the parlor while you stay! You write to me—to say you would not write before and ask me why I do not write.—You write me to go and see Michel’s work—by myself! You send me your books and pictures—to ask me what I think of them! Thus far at least we have walked no step together and my heart deceives me widely if this be love, or if we live as friends should live:

  Yet, spite of all this, sometimes I believe when I am with you, and come what may, I will be faithful myself, I will not again draw back: it shall be all your fault if we break off again. I will wait—I will not complain. I will exact nothing—I will make every allowance for the restlessness of a heart checked in its love, a mind dissatisfied with its pursuits. I will bear in mind that my presence is like to recal all you have need to forget and will try to believe that you would not be with me that I “spoil you for your part on life’s dull scene,” or as you have said, “call up the woman in you.”

  You say you love me as ever, forever. I will, if I can, rely upon your word, believing you must deem me entitled to unshrinking frankness.

  From a very early age I have felt that I was not born to the common womanly lot. I knew I should never find a being who could keep the key of my character: that there would be none on whom I could always lean, from whom I could always learn; that I should be a pilgrim and sojourner on earth, and that the birds and foxes would be surer of a place to lay the head than I. You understand me, of course; such beings can only find their homes in hearts. All material luxuries, all the arrangements of society, are mere conveniences to them.

  This thought, all whose bearings I did not, indeed, understand, affected me sometimes with sadness, sometimes with pride. I mourned that I never should have a thorough experience of life, never know the full riches of my being; I was proud that I was to test myself in the sternest way, that I was always to return to myself, to be my own priest, pupil, parent, child, husband, and wife. All this I did not understand as I do now; but this destiny of the thinker, and (shall I dare to say it?) of the poetic priestess, sibylline, dwelling in the cave, or amid the Lybian sands, lay yet enfolded in my mind. Accordingly, I did not look on any of the persons, brought into relation with me, with common womanly eyes.

  Yet, as my character is, after all, still more feminine than masculine, it would sometimes happen that I put more emotion into a state than I myself knew. I really was capable of attachment, though it never seemed so till the hour of separation. And if a connexion was torn up by the roots, the soil of my existence showed an unsightly wound, which long refused to clothe itself in verdure.

  With regard to yourself, I was to you all that I wished to be. I knew that I reigned in your thoughts in my own way. And I also lived with you more truly and freely than with any other person. We were truly friends, but it was not friends as men are friends to one another, or as brother and sister. There was, also, that pleasure, which may, perhaps, be termed conjugal, of finding oneself in an alien nature. Is there any tinge of love in this? Possibly! At least, in comparing it with my relation to – – -, I find that was strictly fraternal. I valued him for himself. I did not care for an influence over him, and was perfectly willing to have one or fifty rivals in his heart. * *

  * * I think I may say, I never loved. I but see my possible life reflected on the clouds. As in a glass darkly, I have seen what I might feel as child, wife, mother, but I have never really approached the close relations of life. A sister I have truly been to many—a brother to more—a fostering nurse to, oh how many! The bridal hour of many a spirit, when first it was wed, I have shared, but said adieu before the wine was poured out at the banquet. And there is one I always love in my poetic hour, as the lily looks up to the star from amid the waters; and another whom I visit as the bee visits the flower, when I crave sympathy. Yet those who live would scarcely consider that I am among the living—and I am isolated, as you say.

  As to the premonitions of action and passion, I know the Titanic era must come ere long, but, oh Cary, do nothing to hasten it. Ward it off as long as possible by occupation. Give yourself time to ripen and strengthen for that tremendous strife. They never entered Olympus, those Titans, rather chained to earth, they vented their smouldering rage in volcanoes, “at which Jove laughs”—Do thou build high and strong the ladder before thou dost try to climb—The modelling seemed to me the very thing for you at this juncture. You can pursue that without hurting yourself, and it seems to suit the cant of your mind. Let books alone—you have other and better hieroglyphics before you.

  Tell me all about the pictures you see; that bit of Poussin was admirable.—

  No doubt I was somewhat pained by your want of affection towards me while in Boston, but I did not dislike you, on the contrary I loved you as much as was consistent with the crowded, wearied state of my mind at that time. And, not being upbome by excitement, I had time to feel bodily pain and fatigue. But, I could not seriously think there was any danger of your ceasing to love me. There is so much in me which you do not yet know and have faculties to apprehend that you will not be able I believe, to get free of me for some years.

Dear Caroline,
I think what is poetical in your verses is of the purest tone. And even where most unmusical and unfinished they have the great beauty of being written to the dictation of Nature. The most irregular pulses beat with the mighty heart.

  I hope you will be induced to perfect yourself in this mode of expression for the degree to which you have succeeded surprizes me. Your verse is almost as good as your best prose; with practice I think you would be most free in rhythm. Self-adopted chains well suit ambitious natures.

  Some of these strains are to me of ineffable pathos. To live in your life is soothing and mystical to me even as the pine forest.—Show me whenever you can what you write, what you do, I shall not often answer it directly, for such is not my way, but each drop will swell the wave of thought, of life,—till you hear the rebound.

  One thing I admire at in you is your steadiness of nature, how I am often and not least tonight tired to death of the earnestness of my life. I long to do something frivolous to go on a journey or plunge into externals somehow. I never can, my wheel whirls round again.

  The minority may be divided into two classes: The one, consisting of those who knew you but slightly, either personally, or in your writings. These have now read your book; and seeing in it your high ideal standard, genuine independence, noble tone of sentiment, vigor of mind and powers of picturesque description, they value your book very much, and rate you higher for it.

  The other comprises those who were previously aware of these high qualities, and who, seeing in a book to which they had looked for a lasting monument to your fame, a degree of presumptuousness, irreverence, inaccuracy, hasty generalization, and ultraism on many points, which they did not expect, lament the haste in which you have written, and the injustice which you have consequently done to so important a task, and to your own powers of being and doing. To this class I belong.

  I got the book as soon as it came out,—long before I received the copy endeared by your handwriting,—and devoted myself to reading it. I gave myself up to my natural impressions, without seeking to ascertain those of others. Frequently I felt pleasure and admiration, but more frequently disappointment, sometimes positive distaste.

  There are many topics treated of in this book of which I am not a judge; but I do pretend, even where I cannot criticize in detail, to have an opinion as to the general tone of thought. When Herschel writes his Introduction to Natural Philosophy, I cannot test all he says, but I cannot err about his fairness, his manliness, and wide range of knowledge. When Jouffroy writes his lectures, I am not conversant with all his topics of thought, but I can appreciate his lucid style and admirable method. When Webster speaks on the currency, I do not understand the subject, but I do understand his mode of treating it, and can see what a blaze of light streams from his torch. When Harriet Martineau writes about America, I often cannot test that rashness and inaccuracy of which I hear so much, but I can feel that they exist. A want of soundness, of habits of patient investigation, of completeness, of arrangement, are felt throughout the book: and, for all its fine descriptions of scenery, breadth of reasoning, and generous daring, I cannot be happy in it, because it is not worthy of my friend, and I think a few months given to ripen it, to balance, compare, and mellow, would have made it so. * *

  Certainly you show no spirit of harshness towards this country in general. I think your tone most kindly. But many passages are deformed by intemperance of epithet.** Would your heart, could you but investigate the matter, approve such overstatement, such a crude, intemperate tirade as you have been guilty of about Mr. Alcott,—a true and noble man, a philanthropist, whom a true and noble woman, also a philanthropist, should have delighted to honor; whose disinterested and resolute efforts, for the redemption of poor humanity, all independent and faithful minds should sustain, since the “broadcloth” vulgar will be sure to assail them; a philosopher, worthy of the palmy times of ancient Greece; a man whom Carlyle and Berkely, whom you so uphold, would delight to honor; a man whom the worldlings of Boston hold in as much horror as the worldlings of ancient Athens did Socrates. They smile to hear their verdict confirmed from the other side of the Atlantic, by their censor, Harriet Martineau.

  I do not like that your book should be an abolition book. You might have borne your testimony as decidedly as you pleased; but why leaven the whole book with it? The subject haunts us on almost every page. It is a great subject, but your book had other purposes to fulfil.

  If Abraham Fuller continues to annoy you in this manner I am decidedly of opinion that the management of our affairs had better be transferred to someother lawyer . . . . We pay Abraham and we could as well pay another man who would confine himself to his proper part of managing the money. You must, my dear Mother, steadily consider yourself as the guardian of the children. You must not let his vulgar insults make you waver as to giving the children advantages to which they would be well entitled if the property were only a third of what it now is. I cannot like you think that feelings of kindness, however narrow the mind of the writer, could induce him to taunt you or Eugene or say things which he knows to be false. Do not suffer yourself to be puzzled or scared by such stuff . . . .

  I have had a letter from Lloyd, stating that “he did not like the community as he expected, for he has to work when he does not wish to”!!

      “Lying broad awake, & yet
      Remaining from the body, & apart
      In intellect, & power, & will, To hear
      Time flowing in the middle of the night
      And all things creeping to the day of doom.”

—that such an one should adjourn a lecture on Genius because he has lost a night’s sleep.

  I would tell you of my visit in town, but that I have uttered the record in so circulating a medium, that I cannot but fancy it may have vibrated as far as Concord. Lest it should not, I will say that three things were specially noteworthy. First, a talk with Mr. Alcott, in which he appeared to me so great, that I am inclined to think he deserves your praise, and that he deceived neither you nor himself in saying that I had not yet seen him. Beside his usual attitude and closeness to the ideal, he showed range, grasp, power of illustration, and precision of statement such as I never saw in him before. I will begin him again and read by faith awhile.

  Dear friend on one point misunderstand me less. I do not love power other than every vigorous nature delights to feel itself living. To violate the sanctity of relations, I am as far from it as you can be. I make no claim. I have no wish which is not dictated by a feeling of truth. Could I lead the highest Angel captive by a look, that look I would not give, unless prompted by true love. I am no usurper. I ask only mine own inheritance. If it be found that I have mistaken its boundaries, I will give up the choicest vineyard, the fairest flower-garden, to its lawful owner . . . .

  In me I did not think you saw the purity, the singleness, into which, I have faith that all this darting motion, & restless flame shall yet be attempered & subdued. I felt that you did not for me the highest office of friendship, by offering me the clue of the labyrinth of my own being. Yet I thought you appreciated the fearlessness which shrinks from no truth in myself & others, & trusted me, believing that I knew the path for myself. O it must be that you have felt the worth of that truth which has never hesitated to infringe our relation, or aught else, rather than not vindicate itself. If you have not seen this stair on which God has been so untiringly leading me to himself, you have indeed been wholly ignorant of me. Then indeed, when my soul, in its childish agony of prayer, stretched out its arms to you as a father, did you not see what was meant by this crying for the moon; this sullen rejection of playthings which had become unmeaning? Did you then say, “I know not what this means; perhaps this will trouble me; the time will come when I shall hide my eyes from this mood;’—then you are not the friend I seek.

  But did not you ask for a “foe” in your friend? Did not you ask for a “large formidable nature”? But a beautiful foe, I am not yet, to you. Shall I ever be? I know not. My life is now prayer. Through me sweetest harmonies are momently breathing. Shall they not make me beautiful,—Nay, beauty! Shall not all vehemence, all eccentricity, be purged by these streams of divine light? I have, in these hours, but one pain; The sense of the infinite exhausts & exalts: it cannot therefore possess me wholly; else, were I also one wave of gentlest force. Again I shall cease to melt & flow; again I shall seek & pierce & rend asunder.

  But oh, I am now full of such sweet certainty. never never more can it be utterly shaken. All things have I given up to the central power, myself, you also; yet, I cannot forbear adding, dear friend. I am now so at home, I know not how again to wander & grope, seeking my place in another soul. I need to be recognized. After this, I shall be claimed, rather than claim, yet if I speak of facts, it must be as I see them.

Dear Waldo, I know you do not regard our foolish critiques, except in the true way to see whether you have yet got the best form of expression. What do we know of when you should stop writing or how you should live? In these pages I seem to hear the music rising I so long have wished to hear, and am made sensible to the truth of the passage in one of your letters “Life, like the nimble Tartar &c

  I like to be in your library when you are out of it. It seems a sacred place. I came here to find a book, that I might feel more life and be worthy to sleep, but there is so much soul here I do not need a book. When I come to yourself, I cannot receive you, and you cannot give yourself; it does not profit. But when I cannot find you the beauty and permanence of your life come to me.

  “She (Poesie) has ascended from the depths of a nature, and only by a similar depth, shall she be apprehended!”—I want to say while I am feeling it, what I have often (not always) great pleasure in feeling—how long it must be, before I am able to meet you,—I see you—and fancied it nearer than it was, you were right in knowing the contrary.

  I thought it all over a little, whether I was considerate enough. As to W. I never keep him from any such duties, any more than a book would.—He lives in his own way, & he dont soothe the illness, or morbid feelings of a friend, because he would not wish any one to do it for him. It is useless to expect it; what does it signify whether he is with me or at his writing. L. knows perfectly well, that he has no regard for me or any one that would make him wish to be with me, a minute longer than I could fill up the time with thoughts.

  As to my being more his companion that cannot be helped, his life is in the intellect not the affections. He has affection for me, but it is because I quicken his intellect.—I dismissed it all, as a mere sick moment of L’s.

  Yesterday she said to me, at dinner, I have not yet been out, will you be my guide for a little walk this afternoon. I said I am engaged to walk with Mr E. but—(I was going to say, I will walk with you first,) when L. burst into tears. The family were all present, they looked at their plates. Waldo looked on the ground, but soft & serene as ever. I said “My dear Lidian, certainly I will go with you.” “No! she said I do not want you to make any sacrifice, but I do feel perfectly desolate, and forlorn, and I thought if I once got out, the fresh air would do me good, and that with you, I should have courage, but go with Mr E. I will not go”

  I hardly knew what to say, but I insisted on going with her, & then she insisted on going so that I might return in time for my other walk. Waldo said not a word: he retained his sweetness of look, but never offered to do the least thing. I can never admire him enough at such times; he is so true to himself. In our walk and during our ride this morn g L. talked so fully that I felt reassured except that I think she will always have these pains, because she has always a lurking hope that Waldo’s character will alter, and that he will be capable of an intimate union; now I feel convinced that it will never be more perfect between them two. I do not believe it will be less: for he is sorely troubled by imperfections in the tie, because he dont believe in any thing better.—And where he loved her first, he loves her always. Then the influence of any one with him would be just in proportion to independence of him, combined with pure love of him for his own sake. Yet in reply to all L. said, I would not but own that though I thought it was the only way, to take him for what he is, as he wishes to be taken, and though my experience of him has been, for that very reason, so precious to me, I dont know that I could have fortitude for it in a more intimate relation. Yet nothing could be nobler, nor more consoling than to be his wife, if one’s mind were only thoroughly made up to the truth.—As for myself, if I have not done as much as I ought for L. it is that her magnanimity has led her to deceive me. I have really thought that she was happy to have me in the house solely for Waldo’s sake, and my own, and she is, I know, in the long account, but there are pains of every day which I am apt to neglect for others as for myself.—But Truth, spotless Truth, and Prayer and Love shall yield a talisman to teach me how to steer.

In time

  “Marriage should be a covenant to secure to either party the sweetness and the handsomeness of being a calm continuing inevitable benefactor to the other.”

In eternity

  “Is it not enough that souls should meet in a law, in a thought, obey the same love, demonstrate the same idea. These alone are the nuptials of minds. I marry you for better, not for worse, I marry impersonally.”

  I shall write to him about it.

  At night Mamma & Lidian came down too & sat in my room. I was no longer engrossed in writing & talking, & my anxiety increased as the hour for the stage was approaching lest Ellen should arrive unaccompanied by Ellery. W. declared it was impossible to happen, but I saw well enough he was as anxious as I. At last the stage stopped in a violent rain. W. went to the door. & sure enough it was my poor little prodigal. “Is Mr Channing here” “No, but Margaret is” & in he brought her[.]

  I thought I should faint, but recovered myself directly. I did not wish to frighten her & I did not let her know where Ellery was gone. She behaved sweetly, though so disappointed at not finding him. I saw at once that she was less selfish than formerly.

  Waldo was now distressed for me: he called me out, & offered to go down to Boston this very evening, & bring me back news if I would. But I would not let him & then he said he should go in the morning early. I shall never forget the tender sympathy he showed me at this time. We talked sometime & when I came back I found I had left Ellen too long alone. She felt as if E. must be ill, & she had better go to him in B[oston) next morning “He may not be there” said I. “Why, he must,” says she “where else coul4 he be?” I made no reply—how people can ever bear the task of dissembling or concealing I cant think, one minute of it is so painful.

  I passed a wretched night, yet was much entertained, for she talked all through the night & I wanted to hear about what she had to say.—In the middle of the night she got up unpacked her trunk to get it & set E’s picture (an ugly thing that I should not think she would value) on the mantelpiece that she might see it. Then an hour or two after she said “M. are you asleep,” “No”—”I hope you will like Ellery so that he may enjoy being with you: he needs the stimulus of such minds. He values Cary’s very much: he reads her letters a great deal: Do you know whether he has seen her?”—I believe, he has, said I, & I thought “poor deluded innocent”—Then I thought over all these relations once more, but I still came to the same result that I always do. If I were Waldo’s wife, or Ellery’s wife, I should acquiesce in all these relations, since they needed them. I should expect the same feeling from my husband, & I should think it little in him not to have it. I felt I should never repent of advising Ellery to go whatever happened. Well, he came back next day, and All’s Well that Ends Well. It was I that suppose always thought that he & others will surely do as they intend, & that’s a great mistake.

  But now I am better acquainted with him. His “accept” is true; the “I shall learn,” with which he answers every accusation, is no less true. No one can feel his limitations, in fact, more than he, though he always speaks confidently from his present knowledge as all he has yet, and never qualifies or explains. He feels himself “shut up in a crystal cell,” from which only “a great love or a great task could release me,” and hardly expects either from what remains in this life. But I already see so well how these limitations have fitted him for his peculiar work, that I can no longer quarrel with them; while from his eyes looks out the angel that must sooner or later break every chain. Leave him in his cell affirming absolute truth; protesting against humanity, if so he appears to do; the calm observer of the courses of things. Surely, “he keeps true to his thought, which is the great matter.” He has already paid his debt to his time; how much more he will give we cannot know; but already I feel how invaluable is a cool mind, like his, amid the warring elements around us. As I look at him more by his own law, I understand him better; and as I understand him better, differences melt away. My inmost heart blesses the fate that gave me birth in the same clime and time, and that has drawn me into such a close bond with him as, it is my hopeful faith, will never be broken but from sphere to sphere even more hallowed. * * *

  The tone of your letter was so mild, and its spirit so comprehensive, that I felt as if you must be nearer peace than I had ever expected to find you in this world. Yet your tendency to extremes, as to personal attachments, is so strong, I am afraid you will not wholly rise above it.

  The persons whom you have idolized can never, in the end, be ungrateful, and, probably, at the time of retreat they still do justice to your heart. But, so long as you must draw persons too near you, a temporary recoil is sure to follow. It is the character striving to defend itself from a heating and suffocating action upon it.—

  A little, only a little less of this in you would give your powers the degree of fresh air they need. Could you be as generous and sympathetic, yet never infatuated; then the blur, the haste, the tangle would disappear, and neither I nor any one could refuse to understand you.

  I admit that I have never done you justice. There is so much in you that is hostile to my wishes, as to character, and especially as to the character of woman; how could I be quite candid? Yet when I have looked at you, truly, I have also looked steadily, and always feel myself in your debt that you cordially pardon all that must be to you repressing—and unpleasant in me.

The true lovely time is come at last. The leaves and grasses are out, so that the wind can make soft music as it sweeps along instead of the rattling and sobbing of winter. A dear little shower is refreshing the trees and they grow greener and fairer every moment in gratitude. (I write so badly because the wind shakes my paper too as well as the other leaves, but I cant bear to shut the window.)

  You must use your moderation about our interviews, and as you know best. I like best to rely entirely upon you, yet keep time as much as possible with the enchanting calls of outward nature. It is nothing to be together in the parlor or in the street, and we are not enough so among the green things To-day the lilacs are all in blossom, and the air is full of a perfume which causes exstasy.

  I hear you with awe assert power over me and feel it to be true. It causes awe, but not dread, such as I felt sometime since at the approach of this mysterious power, for I feel deep confidence in my friend and know that he will lead me on in a spirit of holy love, and that all I may learn of nature and the soul will be legitimate. The destiny of each human being is no doubt great and peculiar, however obscure its rudiments to our present sight, but there are also in every age a few in whose lot the meaning of that age is concentrated. I feel that I am one of those persons in my age and sex. I feel chosen among women. I have deep mystic feelings in myself and intimations from elsewhere. I could not, if I would, put into words these spirit-facts, indeed they are but swelling germs as yet, and all I do for them is to try to do nothing that might blight them. Yet as you say you need forget your call, so have I need of escaping from this overpowering sense. But when forced back upon myself, as now, though the first turnings of the key were painful, yet the inner door makes rapturous music too upon its golden hinge. What it hides, you perhaps know, as you read me so deeply; indeed, some things you say seem as if you did. Yet do not, unless you must. You look at things so without their veils, yet that seems noble and antique to me. I do it when you hold me by the hand, yet when I feel how you are thinking, I sometimes inly say Psyche was but a mortal woman, yet as the bride of Love, she became a daughter of the Gods too. But had she teamed in any other way this secret of herself, all had been lost, the plant and flower and fruit.

  But it is impossible to say these things at least for me. They are myself, but not clearly defined to myself. With you, all seems to assume such palpable reality, though you do not forget its inner sense either. I love to hear you read off the secret, and yet you sometimes make me tremble too. I confide in you, as this bird, now warbling without confides in me. You will understand my song, but you will not translate it into language too human. I wish, I long to be human, but divinely human. Let the soul invest every act of its abode with somewhat of its own lightness and subtlety. Are you my guardian to domesticate me in the body, and attach it more firmly to the earth? Long it seemed that it was only my destiny to say a few words to my youth’s companions and then depart. I hang lightly as an air-plant. Am I to be rooted on earth, oh! choose for me a good soil and a sunny place, that I may be a green shelter to the weary and bear fruit enough to pay for staying.

Dearest,
I must begin by “babbling of green fields”. Though it be true as you say that this region of beautiful symbols is not the highest. I do find such relief in the soft trance, the still rapture they can give. I live in their life and am nourished by it, as the infant from the mother’s breast. Do you not cease to love this region too. You shall upbear me to the stars, when your energies overflow, and I feel sure that you will not find me incompetent to receive in the region of Ideas. But let me sometimes hold you by the hand to linger with me here and listen while the grass grows; it does me so much good, the soft warm life close to the earth. Perhaps it is that I was not enough a child at the right time, and now am too childish, but will you not have patience with that?

  The tulips are out now and the crimson ones seem to me like you. They fill gloriously with the sunlight, and the petals glow like gems, while the black stamens in the cup of the flower look so rich and mystical. I have gathered two and put them in my vase, but the perfume is almost overpowering. There are also two golden ones that have rooted themselves on the edge of a grassy bank. I do not know how they could get there; it was a strange elopement from the regular flower-bed, but the effect is beautiful of flowers so vornehm, willing to be wild.

  I have been sitting in the twilight in the spot where we have been several times: always something unpleasant occurred when we were there, but it has all endeared us to one another and ennobled the relation. And now a shrub has starred itself all over with white flowers and bends over the place. The young moon lent her pure crescent above the rocks, my parapet behind; the waves stole in vibrating through the silence with insidious murmurs. Spülen!—how expressive is the German word, we have none like it. In this enchanting solitude, I thought of thee, of thy great thoughts. I have well understood all that has been told me—do not hesitate to unfold the whole, only, indeed, in the musical order, so as to feel satisfied. I feel sure of being equal to it. Indeed, it seems as if there had been a gradual and steady preparation in me to hear it all. It will not be in vain that we have met; whatever be your destiny, whether you be born to give form to these ideas, or are only the harbinger, the father of him who is to come, that they have been uttered on earth and found their due vibration predicts that their fulfilment is near. Man shall stand upon the earth as Man, and no more content himself with specific titles and partial claims.

  My dearest, I feel a deep desire to utter myself, to answer the inspirations of your life from my inmost soul, but I cannot. The easy powers, the superficial eloquence all fail me here. The little wings on my feet upbear me in the world but they are not strong enough for here. You would have to take me to heart and read my silence, but I believe you will. Since I began to write I grow more powerless, whether that you are thinking of me now or from the sense of your thoughts that have been poured upon me I do not know this time. But often I feel that you are thinking of me and it takes away all power of thought or motion. You say it will not always be so, that by and by it will stimulate me to be more myself; this may be; there is at present so much for me to assimilate and absorb. Could I indeed but let it rest in me till I grow to the stature of what I feel. You know how it will be; since you have the secret of this vital energy; you must know how it works in all forms of life, especially in mine, with which you are now in conjunction. I feel the most tender reliance, and also faith that I shall never be a trouble to you. I observe that it is with you, as it has been with me in many cases. You attract beings so much that after a while it is too much for their good or your pleasure. Then comes the painful retrograde motion. But I feel confident that my angel will not let it be so with me. I have never been able to go a step where you did not take me; now, when I want you most, I feel that I cannot seek you, unless you do me. So not even by a thought shall I be permitted to follow you, where I cannot accompany . . . .