Fuller’s Writings.

  Yesterday she went away to stay two or three days, and I was obliged to take immedy to my bed, and am not yet really well enough to be up. The nights of talk and days of agitation, the tides of feeling which have been poured upon and from my soul have been too much for my strength of body or mind.—Even yet I cannot think of you, my Caroline. I cannot tell what I shall think or feel.

  I write now because else you would not know why I was silent.

  I do not know whether any time soon I shall recover from all the fatigue and various excitements of the past six weeks. I know not when I can free my thoughts from the poems which have oermastered them of late, but of this be sure, the first hour when I can meet you in a way worthy of us I will.

  I loved you, Caroline, with truth and nobleness. I counted to love you much more. I thought there was a firm foundation for future years. In this hour when my being is more filled and answered than ever before, when my beloved has returned to transcend in every way not only my hope, but my imagination, I will tell you that I once looked forward to the time when you might hold as high a place in my life as she. I thought of all women but you two as my children, my pupils, my play things or my acquaintance. You two alone I would have 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 be as complete as friendship could make it.

  How this hope was turned sickly, how deeply it was wounded you know not yet, you do not fully understand what you did or what passed in my mind.—I will own that in no sacred solitary wood walk, in no 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 away. I had not been able, much as I desired it, to take a different view of the past or future. But your letter has changed it. Your vow is 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 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 lonely, so ill sustained an altar.

  Whatever is done shall be noble, be true. Only for a moment did I 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, World-wise, at least I can always be her friend in the spirit realm I will wait for her. O may it be that on earth I can walk with you.

  But I can say very little now, scarce a word that is not absolutely drawn from me at the moment. I cannot plunge into myself enough. I cannot dedicate myself sufficiently. The life that flows in upon me from so many quarters is too beautiful to be checked. I would not check a single pulsation. It all ought to be;-if caused by any apparition of the Divine in me I could bless myself like the holy Mother. But like her I long to be virgin. I would fly from the land of my birth. I would hide myself in night and poverty. Does a star point out the spot. The gifts I must receive, yet for my child, not me. I have no words, wait till he is of age, then hear him[.]

  Oh Caroline, my soul swells with the future. The past, I know it not. I have just written a letter to our dear Waldo which gives me pain. It was all into the past. His call bids me return, I know not how, yet full of tender renunciation, know not how to refuse. All the souls I ever loved are holy to me, their voices sound more and more sweet yet oh for an hour of absolute silence, dedicated, enshrined in the bosom of the One.

  Yet the cross, the symbol you have chosen seems indeed the one. Daily, hourly it is laid upon me. Tremulously I feel that a wound is yet to be given. Separation! to be severed for ages from my rapture and the angel forms through which it shone, must not that be so? Oh, because I dread it, because my courage is not yet so perfect as my submission, because I might say, Father, ifit be thy will let this cup pass, shall I not be forced to drink it? Oh the prophetic dread and hope and pain and joy. My Caroline, I am not yet purified. Let the lonely Vestal watch the fire till it draws her to itself and consumes this mortal part. Truly you say I have not been what I am now yet it is only transformation, not alteration. The leaf became a stem, a bud, is now in flower. Winds of heaven, dews of night, circles of time, already ye make haste to convert this flower into dead-seeming seed-yet Caroline far fairer shall it bloom again[.]

  Was it as you say that I wished too much to make a virtue bloom in my particular garden. If so I dare to say it was not for me, but for the Universe. I loved the realizing of ideas, and this was easiest in the nearness of mine own persons but it seems to me that they were always recognized with utmost joy elsewhere.

  Still I perceive this love of realizing is here in the desire I feel for nun like dedication in these months to come. All that I have ever known comes up in my thoughts on the other side from what it did. I was stern and fearless. I am soft and of most delicate tenderness. I rushed into the melee an Amazon of breast undefended save by its inward glow. Shrouded in a white veil I would now kneel at the secretest shrines and pace the dimmest cloisters—I rushed out like the great sea, burst against all rocks, strewed with weeds and shells all matted and forlorn the loveliest shores, welcome alike the graceful nymph and the slimiest monster to a refuge or a death in my deep mysterious grottoes I feared no rebuff, I shrunk from no publicity, I could not pause yet ever I sobbed and wailed over my endless motion and foamed angrily to meet the storm-winds which kept me pure—I would now steal away over golden sands, through silent flowery meadows farther still through darkest forests “full of heavenly vows” into the very heart of the untrodden mountain where the carbuncle has lit the way to veins of yet undreamed of diamond.

  All this would be well, or rather, not ill, if he were to her only an object of thought; but when the two figures are brought into open relation with one another; it is too unequal. Were Bettine, indeed, a child, she might bring her basket of flowers and strew them in his path without expecting even a smile in return. But to say nothing of the reckoning by years, which the curious have made, we constantly feel that she is not a child. She is so indeed when compared with him as to maturity of growth, but she is not so in their relation, and the degree of knowledge she shows of life and thought compels us to demand some conscious dignity of her as a woman. The great art where to stop is not evinced in all passages. Then Goethe is so cold, so repulsive, diplomatic, and courteously determined not to compromise himself. Had he assumed truly the paternal attitude, he might have been far more gentle and tender, he might have fostered all the beauteous blossoms of this young fancy, without ever giving us a feeling of pain and inequality. But he does not; there is an air as of an elderly guardian flirting cautiously with a giddy, inexperienced ward, or a Father Confessor, who, instead of through the holy office raising and purifying the thoughts of the devotee, uses it to gratify his curiosity. We cannot accuse him of playing with her feelings. He never leads her on. She goes herself, following the vision which gleams before her. “I will not,” he says, “wile the little bird from its nest,” and he does not. But he is willing to make a tool of this fresh, fervent being; he is unrelenting as ever in this. What she offers from the soul the artist receives,—to use artistically. Indeed we see, that he enjoyed as we do the ceaseless bee-like hum of gathering from a thousand flowers, but only with the cold pleasure of an observer; there is no genuine movement of a grateful sensibility. We often feel that Bettine should perceive this, and that it should have modified the nature of her offerings. For now there is nothing kept sacred, and no balance of beauty maintained in her life. Impatiently she has approached where she was not called, and the truth and delicacy of spiritual affinities has been violated. She has followed like a slave where she might as a pupil. Observe this, young idolaters. Have you chosen a bright particular star for the object of your vespers? you will not see it best or revere it best by falling prostrate in the dust; but stand erect, though with upturned brow and face pale with devotion . . . .

  But . . . my present subject [is] letters which passed between Bettine, and the Canoness Günderode, the friend to whom she was devoted several years previous to her acquaintance with Goethe.

  Günderode was a Canoness in one of the orders described by Mrs. Jameson, living in the house of her order, but mixing freely in the world at her pleasure. But as she was eight or ten years older than her friend, and of a more delicate and reserved nature, her letters describe a narrower range of outward life. She seems to have been intimate with several men of genius and high cultivation, especially in philosophy, as well as with Bettine; these intimacies afforded stimulus to her life, which passed, at the period of writing, either in her little room with her books and her pen, or in occasional visits to her family and to beautiful country-places.

  Bettine, belonging to a large and wealthy family of extensive commercial connexions, and seeing at the house of grandmother Me. La Roche, most of the distinguished literati of the time, as well as those noble and princely persons who were proud to do honor to letters, if they did not professedly cultivate them, brings before us a much wider circle. The letters would be of great interest, if only for the distinct pictures they present of the two modes of life; and the two beautiful figures which animate and portray these modes of life are in perfect harmony with them.

  I have been accustomed to distinguish the two as Nature and Ideal. Bettine, hovering from object to object, drawing new tides of vital energy from all, living freshly alike in man and tree, loving the breath of the damp earth as well as that of the flower which springs from it, bounding over the fences of society as easily as over the fences of the field, intoxicated with the apprehension of each new mystery, never hushed into silence by the highest, flying and singing like the bird, sobbing with the hopelessness of an infant, prophetic, yet astonished at the fulfilment of each prophecy, restless, fearless, clinging to love, yet unwearied in experiment—is not this the pervasive vital force, cause of the effect which we call nature?

  And Günderode, in the soft dignity of each look and gesture, whose lightest word has the silvery spiritual clearness of an angel’s lyre, harmonizing all objects into their true relations, drawing from every form of life its eternal meaning, checking, reproving, and clarifying all that was unworthy by her sadness at the possibility of its existence. Does she not meet the wild, fearless bursts of the friendly genius, to measure, to purify, to interpret, and thereby to elevate? As each word of Bettine’s calls to enjoy and behold, like a free breath of mountain air, so each of Günderode’s comes like the moonbeam to transfigure the landscape, to hush the wild beatings of the heart and dissolve all the sultry vapors of day into the pure dewdrops of the solemn and sacred night.

  The action of these two beings upon one another, as representing classes of thoughts, is thus of the highest poetical significance. As persons, their relation is not less beautiful. An intimacy between two young men is heroic. They call one another to combat with the wrongs of life; they buckler one another against the million; they encourage each other to ascend the steeps of knowledge; they hope to aid one another in the administration of justice, and the diffusion of prosperity. As the life of man is to be active, they have still more the air of brothers in arms than of fellow students. But the relation between two young girls is essentially poetic. What is more fair than to see little girls, hand in hand, walking in some garden, laughing, singing, chatting in low tones of mystery, cheek to cheek and brow to brow. Hermia and Helena, the nymphs gathering flowers in the vale of Enna, sister Graces and sister Muses rise to thought, and we feel how naturally the forms of women are associated in the contemplation of beauty and the harmonies of affection. The correspondence between very common-place girls is interesting, if they are not foolish sentimentalists, but healthy natures with a common groundwork of real life. There is a fluent tenderness, a native elegance in the arrangement of trifling incidents, a sincere childlike sympathy in aspirations that mark the destiny of women. She should be the poem, man the poet.

  The relation before us presents all that is lovely between woman and woman, adorned by great genius and beauty on both sides. The advantage in years, the higher culture, and greater harmony of Günderode’s nature is counterbalanced, by the ready spring impulse, richness and melody of the other.

And not only are these letters interesting as presenting this view of the interior of German life, and of an ideal relation realized, but the high state of culture in Germany which presented to the thoughts of those women themes of poesy and philosophy as readily, as to the English or American girl come the choice of a dress, the last concert or assembly, has made them expressions of the noblest aspirations, filled them with thoughts and oftentimes deep thoughts on the great subjects. Many of the poetical fragments from the pen of Günderode are such as would not have been written had she not been the contemporary of Schelling and Fichte, yet are they native and original, the atmosphere of thought reproduced in the brilliant and delicate hues of a peculiar plant. This transfusion of such energies as are manifested in Goethe, Kant, and Schelling into these private lives is a creation not less worthy our admiration, than the forms which the muse has given them to bestow on the world through their immediate working by their chosen means. These are not less the children of the genius than his statue or the exposition of his method . . . .

  The talisman of this friendship may be found in Günderode’s postscript to one of her letters, “If thou findest Muse, write soon again,” I have hesitated whether this might not be, “if thou findest Muse (leisure) write soon again;” then had the letters wound up like one of our epistles here in America. But, in fine, I think there can be no mistake. They waited for the Muse. Here the pure products of public and private literature are on a par. That inspiration which the poet finds in the image of the ideal man, the man of the ages, of whom nations are but features, and Messiahs the voice, the friend finds in the thought of his friend, a nature in whose positive existence and illimitable tendencies he finds the mirror of his desire, and the spring of his conscious growth. For those who write in the spirit of sincerity, write neither to the public nor the individual, but to the soul made manifest in the flesh, and publication or correspondence only furnish them with the occasion for bringing their thoughts to a focus.

  The day was made rich to Bettine and her friend by hoarding its treasures for one another. If we have no object of the sort, we cannot live at all in the day, but thoughts stretch out into eternity and find no home. We feel of these two that they were enough to one another to be led to indicate their best thoughts, their fairest visions, and therefore theirs was a true friendship. They needed not “descend to meet.” . . .

  . . . [I]n the intercourse with Günderode there is no effort; each mind being at equal expense of keeping up its fires. We think with unmingled pleasure of the two seated together beside the stove in Günderode’s little room, walking in Madame La Roche’s garden, where they “founded a religion for a young prince,” or on the Rhine, or in the old castle on the hill, as described in the following beautiful letters. . . .

  The letter of Günderode to Bettine introduces livelier images, and though we may suppose it to exaggerate in playful malice the picture of Bettine’s environment, corresponds with what we should imagine to be her habits.

To Bettine.

It seems to me sometimes quite too absurd, dear Bettine, that thou shouldst with such solemnity declare thyself my scholar when I might as well hold myself thine, yet it gives me much pleasure, and there is also a truth in it if the teacher feels himself stimulated by the scholar; thus may I with some reason call myself thine. Many new insights are brought me by thy opinions and by thy divinations in which I confide, and since thou art so loving as to name thyself my scholar, I may sometime marvel to see over what a bird I have been brooding.

  . . . While others complain of thy so called inconsequences I secretly lament that my genius does not lead to such “Careless away over the plains where thou seest no path dug before thee by the boldest pioneers.” Yet always do only one thing at a time, do not begin so many all confusedly. In thy chamber it looked like the shore where a fleet lies wrecked. Schlosser wanted two great folios that he lent you now three months ago from the city library and which you have never read. Homer lay open on the ground, and thy canary-bird had not spared it. Thy fairly designed map of the voyages of Odysseus lay near, as well as the shell box with all the Sepia saucers and shells of colors; they have made a brown spot on thy pretty straw carpet, but I have tried to put all once more into order. Thy flageolet which thou couldst not find to take with thee; guess where I found it; in the orange tree box on the balcony; it was buried in the earth up to the mouth-piece; probably thou hast desired on thy return to find a tree of flageolets sprouting up. Liesbet has bountifully watered the tree and the instrument has been all drenched. I have laid it in a cool place that it may dry gradually and not burst, but what to do with the music that lay near by I cannot tell; I put it in the sun, but before human eyes canst thou never show it again. The blue ribbon of thy guitar has been fluttering out of the window to the great delight of the school children opposite ever since thy departure.

  . . . Siegwart, a romance of the olden day, I found on the harpsichord with the inkstand lying on it; luckily there was little ink, yet wilt thou find thy moonlight composition, over which it has flowed, not easy to decipher. I heard something rattle in a little box in the window sill and had the curiosity to open it, then flew out two butterflies which thou hast put in as chrysalises. Liesbet and I chased them into the balcony where they satisfied their first hunger in the bean blossoms. From under the bed Liesbet swept out Charles the Twelfth, the Bible, and also a glove which belongs not to the hand of a lady, in which was a French poem; this glove seems to have lain under thy pillow; I did not know thou hadst ever busied thyself with writing French poems in the old style. The perfume of the glove is very pleasant and reminds me of something which gives me a notion where its fellow may be, yet be easy about thy treasure, I have fastened it up behind Kranach’s Lucretia, and there at thy return it may be found. I saw two letters among many written papers, the seals were unbroken, one was from young Lichtenberg of Darmstadt, the other from Vienna. What acquaintances hast thou there, and how is it possible that one who so seldom receives letters should not be more curious or rather so heedless about them? I left them on thy table. All is now in tolerable order so that thou mayst diligently and comfortably continue thy studies.

  I have with true pleasure described to thee thy chamber, for it, like an optic mirror, expresses thy apart manner of being, and gives the range of thy whole character; thou has brought together various and strange materials to kindle the sacrificial flame; it is burning; whether the Gods are edified thereby is to me unknown.

  Tea at Ellen’s

  We rode home very swift, the white horses schimmering in the moonlight slow through the woods, so delicate in their half dress to be seen by this light. The wind blew full and soft, the moon waded in thin clouds. We were all silent, I wept and sobbed most of the way. I was glad to, it seemed so much more real than anything else. It seemed perhaps the harrowing up to the needed seed-time. I know not how the others felt: there was a wall betwixt me and them, yet I was glad to be with them thus, the memory will be precious.

  I write down this day’s history without touching its secret springs which I can never forget. Next year if living on this day I shall write down how it all strikes me on retrospect and whether what passed within bore any golden fruit. O it ought, it ought. I had on my heart the amulet, but it did no good there this night. I insert here, as in place, these words to Schubert’s Wanderer given me by S.G.W. one night when Rakemann had been enrapturing us with that strain of heavenly sadness. Mein herzen’s kind, it is true we, baptized in the same communion, can never cease to love, though life may see blighted for many years the flowers of love.

    Ich komme vom Gebirge her.
  Es dampt das Thal, es braust das Meer;
    Ich wandle still, bin wenig froh,
  Und immer fragt der Seufzer,—wo?—

  [I come out of the mountains, the valley steams, the ocean roars, I wander silent, rarely happy, and the sigh forever asks—where?—]

  . . .

  [May 5] . . . Last year at this time I wrote of woman, and proudly painted myself as Miranda. At this time seeing Mr. Tracy, I told him I had found peace. He did not believe me: he was right. Much, much has been unveiled by the past year with its deep cup of bitter sweet. Humbled I am but as yet too proudly suffering from it. Make me humble rather!

  . . .

  Thursday [May] 23d.—Better wrote this morning & finished booklet before one[.] I hope they will get through printing by tomorrow or Saty eveg & then there will be nothing else to be done about it, except to abuse it & that I shall not have to attend to. Spent the afternoon at Mt. Auburn. It was of heavenly beauty, but Oh, I am very, very sad. It is useless to make resolutions or arrange the future but the state of my mind is so deep, I think this must be an important era in my life.

  Returned home: there had been visits, but none which I wished to receive. Evening, proofs again and looked over copy. Tis past eleven. I should go to bed. The young moon is sinking in her beauty.

  [May 29?] therefore the thought of God is torpid within me. I can see no way, nor no hope that this story can ever be made beautiful to me, that I can ever be wholly reconciled with the Past. I have got to go on, as resolutely as I can, and perhaps I shall be helped.

  I have not been able to pray, dost thou, my friend, pray for me. Oh, if I were sure thou didst really love me, that it would be permanent, I could find solace with thee but now—

  In the chamber of death I prayed, in very early years. Give me truth[.] Cheat me on by no illusion. Oh the granting of this prayer is sometimes terrible to me. I walk over the burning ploughshares, and they do sear my feet. Yet nothing but truth will do, no love that is not eternal, and as large as the universe, no philanthropy in executing whose behests, I myself become unhealthy, no creative genius which bursts asunder my life to leave it a poor black chrysalid behind. And yet, this last is too true of my life. O it is wonderful to look back and see how, with such an aspiration as I have always had, my outward form has been blighted and distorted, my mental powers impeded, my soul steeped in anguish. Fate thou are all but omnipotent. Thou art not that, I must, shall conquer, though now I feel so weary, and so sad, I have not a right to say I will.

  With the intellect I always have always shall overcome, but that is not the half of the work. The life, the life Oh my God! shall the life never be sweet!

  . . .

  [June 1?] I have seen several fair and noble beings[.] I have fully prized the treasures of each, but none was for me. I sat in the anguish of Tantalus.

  Now I will wait!

  . . .

  Sunday 2d June … Rich thunderous clouds are stealing over. I hope we shall have a shower. Sophia Ripley passed the morning here. I could not but be glad to see her, my ever good friend, though I had wished for the hours in lonely devotion while William was preaching and William was listening.

  It must have been like light falling on the wide and blooming earth What forms! how beautiful is the ideal of either form.

  . . .

  Monday [June 3) … At six went to town on some errands, & brought out my book. It looks pleasant, but there are one or two odd bits of carelessness which escaped me, till I saw it was a whole.—With Cary a moment. W. did return & they passed many hours together. Ah thou tearful life, how much inward burning & stifling to a little bit of objective reality.

  . . .

  [June 5? 6?] Returning much fatigued, I lay on my bed in the twilight room. Cary came and lay there with her head on my bosom. We talked till one. Our situation will never be one of my friendships but its perfect sincerity is wholesome. And I will do without friendships. After I rose, I sat at the little window. The moon had but a little time arisen. I felt stronger for the future: clearness seemed dawning on my mind. I could pray—O God make me more sincere and ground me more deeply in reality.

  . . .

  Friday [June 7) . . . At night Cary came back and found me on the bed, & we talked again. She seemed to have entered into the same thought with me on the river side knoll where she had been. I am glad she has been here.

  Saturday [June 8), trying to arrange these papers. I shall never get through; they interest me too much and excite too many thoughts as I go along. I had a walk this afternoon, but my thoughts swelled on and carried my steps fast. I feel too full of thought, like light . . . .

  Cary had a letter from W. He was really touched by hearing William, & I am glad to feel as if William liked him[.] I think he would not else have gone to meet him, or looked towards him while preaching. If he prizes W. I shall feel in one way relieved, for I have not been sure, but he might see no more in him than S. W. does. They do not seem to have had any intimate intercourse.

  W. speaking of the Highlands reminded me of William’s talk with me the first morning in N. Y. He had come down the night before, and been up alone on the deck in the moonlight. He was still in the trance of feelings and thoughts he had had.

  When I first came down the river, how happy I was.—how perfectly happy. That was the sweetest time of my life. I was one string on the lyre of the universe, and every tone woke music.

  . . .

  Sunday [June 9) . . . There is one thought has come into my mind so painful that I will not write it down but merely mark it thus (ultima)
                   (spoglia)
                   (donzella)
                   (lagune)

I shall know what it means

  . . .

  Monday June 10th This day last year we reached Chicago, between eight and nine in the evening and all the scenes of that day have been floating before my mind amid the trifles of this.

  . . .

    Virgin Mother, Mary mild!
  It was thine to see the child
    Gift of the Messiah dove,
  Pure blossom of ideal love,
    Break, upon the “guilty cross”,
  The seeming promise of his life:
    Of faith, of hope, of love a loss
  Deepened all thy bosom’s strife
    Brow down-bent and-heart-strings tom.
  Fainting, by frail arms upbome.

  But tis mine, oh Mary mild,
  To tremble lest the heavenly child
  Crucified within my heart
  Ere of earth he take his part
  Leave my life that horror wild
  The mother who has slain her child.

  Let me to the tomb repair,
                 watching
  Find the angel sitting there
  Ask his aid to walk again
  Undefiled with brother men.

  Once my heart within me burned
  At the least whisper of thy voice;
  Though my love was unreturned,
  Happy in a holy choice;
  Once my lamp was constant trimmed
  And my fond resolve undimmed.

  Fan again the Parsie fire,
  Let it light my funeral pyre,
  Purify the veins of earth
  Temper for a phoenix birth.

  . . .

  17th June, 1844 [Monday]

  I do not begin this volume of journal with the same eagerness as the last. But that fulfilled so fully my expectations from it, was such a good friend, that I cannot relinquish the habit, once begun. Beside, I continue to feel that this time is one of especial importance, and I wish to mark each day as it goes by.

  It is now a week since I wrote, and I must make up the record, but I will not do it till tomorrow. It is late, sultry, and I am tired, though by no means with severe labor this day.

  Now.

  18th [Tuesday, June] At night C. & I lay down on the bed, as we had done every night. We both went to sleep & kept waking now and then. It was a time of deep life, & has had permanent effect on my life. Ever since I have been soothed and still. I have slept well; the past is past, only to be brought up for precept or poetic suggestion.

  I cannot speak of it; it could not be spoken of unless in verse.

  I thought of Ceres & Persephone.

  It seemed we might meet yet again as Elizabeth and Mary did on the hills of Judea.

  The days that follow generally were spent in arranging my papers, which weary task with many interruptions has occupied me till today June 21st [Friday] when I finished about 5 pm.

  Wednesday aft [June 12]. E. Hooper, A. do. and A. Shaw were here at tea, E. left with me a letter about my book, far more sincere and intelligent than Waldo’s probably, indeed the best I shall get.

  . . .

  Friday [June 14]. I took tea at Aunt K’s. On my way went to the churchyard to the graves of our family. I thought it strange they were the only persons, those four, and all of my own nearest kin, with whom I have seen death. How different the pictures the four memories present! Yesterday I found a bird dead under my very window. There was no visible wound. This incident affected me much[.] I kept it near me two or three days: its gentle head falling languidly whenever it was moved. I shall keep its wings.

  . . .

  [June 16] . . . In the evening I saw C.—How illuminated she was. She had been to her brother William’s grave. There, what thoughts had come! I must not write of our being together this time either.

  Tuesday [June 18] C. went. Our communion has been fair.—C’s days have been productive of thought and song, fed on sweet recollections, rich in suggestions. I have passively seen and known all: have again laid on my breast the Inevitable, and the sources of life have been deepened, perhaps purified.

  When memory is purified
  She will seem never to have sighed.

  . . .

  Sunday [June 23] . . . I went out on the river side into a spot fair and really of deep retirement. There I lay and saw the clouds draw by. My mind too seemed bright and sweet[.] Nature is helping herself with me. I sleep much, & have regained my appetite. Soon all deficiencies caused by the trying season, will be made up.

  I took on all this with more surprize than pleasure. At this rate the chrysalis will envelop me long . . . .

  Monday [June 24) . . . I sleep sound[.] But my dreams are sad. One painful one confirmed the thought donzella, &c.

  I cannot remember just what it was. This last stroke would be so in character with the rest: it seems as if it must come.

  Sarah & I have exchanged parting gifts. I gave her a small case in which she will, I hope, carry her drawing pencils often over the prairies: she has given me a pen of carved shell, which I hope to keep always & write with it some good pages.

  Tuesday [June 25) . . . A letter from S. Ward today, with a postscript from Anna, far from pleasing. S. is no longer my Rafaello: he has perhaps many years to pass in working out this side of his life. I do not care to know him while about it. That side I have studied: he while he breathed the golden exhalations of the dawn cheered me in it. Now it is all well that he should be geographically removed from my ken.

  . . .

  Thursday [June 27). This morning a letter from Ellery, so old gentlemanly, about his baby, and my book.

  Carbuncles, says Southey, are male and female. The female cast out light, the male has his within himself. Mine is the male . . . .

  I remain fixed to be without churlishness or coldness as much alone as possible. It is best for me—I am not fitted to be loved & it pains me to have close dealings with those who do not love, to whom my feelings are “strange.” Kindness & esteem are very well[.] I am willing to receive & bestow them, but these, alone are not worth feelings such as mine, & I wish I may make no more mistakes, but keep chaste for mine own people. I have got beyond what gave me so much pain in the month of May, but it will never seem right, I fear. Looking today on the Miniature occasioned me painful retrospections. There is no hour of absolute beauty in all my past though some have

been made musical by heavenly hope, many, dignified by intelligence . . . .

  Friday [June 28) . . . Mr. and Mrs. Loring came at evening & brought Anna. They were delighted with Sarah’s etchings. After they were gone we three sat in the moonlight and talked of dreams. It was a free blowing wind very musical drifting moonlit clouds . . . .

  Saturday [June 29] I went to town to get a girl for Ellen & do other trifles. Felt so dull & forlorn in town. I can’t bear to go there in summer.

  . . . These amusing incidents about my book. It seems to be generally read & popular . . . .

  We passed the evening at Mrs. Farrar’s & I never saw her appear so pleasant, so gay and simple. She amused Anna & Sarah much with her philosophical toys & mathematical puzzles. I was sleepy & lay down on the sofa.

  . . .

  Tuesday 2d July. Sarah returned from town with the news that in consequence of their bad preparation of her plate for the etchings all her labor for these last ten days is lost.

  She sat down directly to draw again.

  This morning in giving S. Raphael’s Descent from the Cross I gave her a little poem descriptive of it. The Invocation to the Virgin with which it begins is the same with that of one in my last vol. of journal but there it turns to penitential psalm for me, here to interpretation.

    Virgin Mother Mary mild:
  It was thine to see the child
    Gift of the Messiah dove,
  Pure blossom of ideal love,
    Break, upon the guilty cross
  The seeming promise of his life!
    Of faith, of hope, of love a loss
  Deepened all thy bosom’s strife
    Brow down bent and heart strings tom.
  Fainting, by frail arms upborne.

    All those startled figures show
  That they did not apprehend
    The thought of him who there lies low
  On whom those sorrowing eyes they bent.
  They do not feel this holiest hour,
    Their hearts soar not to read the power
  Which this deepest of distress
    Alone could give to save and bless.

    Soul of that fair, now ruined form
  Thou who hadst force to bide the storm,
    Must again descend to tell
  Of thy life the hidden spell.
    Though their hearts within them burned,
  The flame rose not till he returned.

    Just so all our dead ones lie,
  Just so call our thoughts on high.
    Thus we linger on the earth,
  And dully miss death’s heavenly birth.

  . . .

  July 4th [Thursday] . . . O I need some help. No I need a full a godlike embrace from some sufficient love. I know not why, but the wound of my heart has reopened yesterday & today. My head aches.

  Last year this day was the Ganymede day. The full music of soul amid that resplendent beauty of nature. I remember every one of the golden sands of that day. All its pictures of supernatural loveliness pass before my eyes.

  Here all looks so mean! The air is cold, hostile. The color sharp & painful as always in these cold summer days.

  I read Tennyson a little while this morning. I love him. I will write to him this evening.

  I have been writing about the horse, but not well. This is not one of my muse times of energy. Needs more joy, or sorrow; for that, dull, haunting pain don’t suit my constitution.

. . .

    Leila in the Arabian zone
  Dusky, languishing and lone
  Yet full of light are her deep eyes
  And her gales are lovers sighs

  Patient serpent, circle round
  Till in death thy life is found,
  Double form of godly prime
  Holding the whole thought of time,
  When the perfect two embrace,
  Male and female, black and white
  Soul is justified in space,
  Dark made fruitful by the light,
  And centred in the diamond Sun
  Time, eternity, are one.

  . . .

  5th [Friday, July] Last night I went to bed at 12, but not feeling at all like it. I felt as if I could have gone on stringing these verses, like the dropping of sand in an hour glass . . . .

  Afternoon, final arranging of these not quite eternal papers. I will copy here from a packet that I unsealed for the occasion a passage that has often more or less distinctly occurred to memory.

  I feel some difficulty in speaking frankly of the ideas suggested by your letter. They brought home to my mind the reflection how widely apart are the points from which life is surveyed by those whose personal experience of passion has been thorough, and those in whom it has (though giving brightness to the fancy and earnestness to the thoughts) remained comparatively undeveloped.

  X X X The thought that an attachment subsisted between Jesus and Mary sufficient to suggest to the spotless son of God the existence of a new, vast, and tumultuous class of human emotions. Your views of life and affection are perfectly true to you.—I, too, once knew and recognized the possibility of Platonic affection. It is possible to those who have never passed the line X X X X Before that, all the higher classes of emotion all the nobler views of life exist; but in a shape that seems sublimated and idealized to the more experienced: to those who have passed that line, the higher emotions and the passions are apt to be always afterward inextricably commingled.—

  So writes the sentimental man of the world and he, once my Rafaello, would now write so too. I will seal up now and read not again ever perhaps.

. . .

Monday [July 8) This is the day of Allston’s death[.] The day we returned to Chicago.

  “How sweet, did any heart now share in my emotion”

  Wormwood, when drank, mingles in the blood, but this bitterer taste of fate is never lost.

  Well turn all to Muse: it is all thou canst do. Only do that at least.

  . . .

  Tuesday [July 9) to Concord with Almira. Find Sarah, and the happy pair. The little Una is a most beautiful child.

  While Hawthorne and I were looking at her as she lay in her basket-cradle outdoors, looking up and smiling to the whispering trees, Mr E. came. He staid some time and then I went with him through Sleepy Hollow to see Ellen and her little one whom they call Greta. It was a scene of distress—Then I went with him to see Lidian who is momently expecting her new child. He brought the little Edith in her white nightgown and pretty bare feet and put her into my lap. The child is like a seraph. Nothing can be more poetic and tender than her smile and she whispers her little thoughts rather than speaks them. She looks of too frail a beauty for this world, while Una in her noble and harmonious beauty seems as strong as sweet, as if she might stay here always.

  Wednesday [July] 10th I spent the morning with Ellen. Dim and sorrowful indeed seems the prospect that opens before her difficult path, but she will learn from each troublous day, I think. Waldo has a son, born this morning. It is a happiness to him, but we cannot help feeling that this child will be pushed into the place of our lost darling.

  . . .

  11th [Thursday, July] Began to copy for Sarah the 4th July poems which she likes. Went to spend the day with Waldo. Saw his baby. Little Edith kneeling on the bed to look at the baby, it was the fairest picture. He read me his essay on Life. How beautiful, and full and grand. But oh, how cold. Nothing but Truth in the Universe, no love, and no various realities.

  Yet how foolish with me to be grieved at him for showing towards me what exists toward all.

  Then we talked. He showed me a page from his journal which made me rather ashamed of ever exacting more. But lure me not again too near thee, fair Greek, I must keep steadily in mind what you really are. He seemed so happy today and made the atmosphere so serene and golden.

  He went home with me and passed an hour. Then Sarah and I had a little talk before sleep, while the dark trees whispered in the dim starlight . . . .

  12th [Friday, July] Sarah went away. Finished copying poems. Added this motto.

    Last year the curtain rose to show
  A scene of grandeur, hope, and joy
    Kindred with the deep heart glow
  Of Ganymede, ambitious boy!
    This year, the drop-scene hides
  The tender glories of the past
    Those dolphin-bearing, moondrawn tides
  Swelled along too full to last.
    Meantime the bard, with various skill
  Tries its power to make us wait
    Patient though against our will,
  The next act of dramatic Fate.

  I was to lend this to Waldo & sent it this afternoon by Henry Thoreau.—

  Afternoon Ellen came to have her baby nursed by Sophia who goes to her now every day for that good purpose[.] It was most touching to see the gratitude of little Greta, as they call her, looking up in Sophia’s face & cooing.

  I went home with Ellen. Have never seen Ellery so disagreeable, churlish in so low a style as he was this evening. Went then to the White House. Waldo read to me The Nominalist and Realist and walked home with me.

  13th [Saturday, July]

  14th Sunday [July]. I staid with Una while H. & Sophia took a walk & then S. went to Ellen. Then I went to the river bank and lay there watching the clouds till dinner time.

  About 4 I went to Ellen’s. Her baby is visibly prettier for Sophia’s bounty & still Ellen is better now she is not worried.

  [15th] Waked to hear the softest fast falling rain. Am glad to be kept in where I write up this diary & also some letters this morning to S. W. & Georgiana . . . .

  I forgot to mention my going out on the river yesterday morning. I had agreed with H. Thoreau to come for me some day with the first light & call me outside the window. In my dreams a hoarse voice called Miss Fuller, & I thought or had a sense “how strange that any one should call me by that name in a dream.” Then suddenly waking, I remembered & looking out saw it was Henry. The sun had just risen when I got to the river[.] I was disappointed for I wanted to see the dawn & breathe the first breath of morning: however it was very pleasant that early gentle smile of the sun. We staid out some two hours.

  Yesterday afternoon while Sophia was gone to Greta, I staid with Una & her father[.] We had most pleasant communion. He is mild, deep and large.

  The evening being cold & damp the hanging lamp was lit in the study and we sat & read—I The old fashioned book of Murthers! O it is so sweetly sleepy here!

  16th [Tuesday, July] I read and sewed a little while. Then went to pass the day at Mr. E’s. He read aloud great parts of “The Poet” & “Manners.”

  So fine a tissue full of splendid things, yet a few burning simple words would better please. More fine than searching, kept coming into my mind, though the remarks are profound each by itself. That account of the Poet as he who sees the Metamorphosis, the flowing, is admirable so are the two definitions of art.

  E.H. here, we went to see Ellen a while. A miscellaneous day.

  Ellery much more good humored now that his household is like to be on a pleasanter footing.

  . . .

  This afternoon [Thursday, July 18?] is lustrous warm, delicious happy, tender, gently stooping clouds. I went and lay for a long time on the rock. They were making hay in a near field, children splashing and shouting in the river. The fiddle of the village dancing master is heard with its merry shriek and scrape in the distance, but all this noise did not break the seclusion. They were harmonized by the golden fulness of light on the river on the trees, on the fields: it cared not where it lay: it loved and laughed on all.

  H. came down about six and we went out on the river & staid till after sunset. We talked a great deal this time. I love him much, & love to be with him in this sweet tender homely scene. But I should like too, to be with him on the bold ocean shore.

  When we came back Una was lying on the sofa all undrest. She acted like a little wild thing towards me, leaning towards me, stretching out her arms whenever I turned. Her mother tried to attract her attention, in vain, her father took my place, she looked on him and smiled, but discontinued this gesture, the moment I came she resumed it.

  She has daily become more attached to me; she often kisses me in her way, or nestles her head in my bosom. But her prettiest and most marked way with me is to lean her forehead upon mine. As she does this she looks into my eyes, & I into hers. This act gives me singular pleasure: it is described in no initiation. I never saw any body prompted to do it as a caress. It indicates I think great purity of relation.

  I have in my mind a treasury of sweet pictures of this child. Never was lovelier or nobler little creature! Next to little Waldo I love her better than any child I ever saw. She is also the child of a holy and equal marriage. She will have a good chance for freedom and happiness in the quiet wisdom of her father, the obedient goodness of her mother.

  This night I went out and lay in the avenue for hours, looking up at the stars. How the trees whispered: How happy, even pure I felt!—

  Friday [July 19]. I lay on the rock a long time this morning. A full west wind veiling the heavens with thin clouds continually passing and furling gracefully over one another. Where are all the thoughts that stung me so? I can scarcely remember them. My blood flows gently, neither head or heart aches, the soul hovers white plumed with serene thoughts. Fate is not declined, nay is acceptable.—

  Going down to Ellen’s I found her with her heart set on going to Boston and leaving me here at housekeeping in her place. Ellery is gone: she can leave her sable “help” to act under my orders, & thus be absent for a few days.

  I helped her & little Greta to get ready. This child interests but does not attach me yet. She looks full of sensibility, too full, I fear. Then I went back to the H’s to tea. E. Hoar there in her white gown, looked touchingly sweet. She was thirty last Sunday! rather frightful! As I apply to her that number it seems as if time had some reality. Rode down to my new home in a violent shower & then went stilly to bed with a deep sense of pleasure. The spirits of my kin, the various-natural, motley featured, are with me here. Their faults, their limitations are vanished. Bless them. Bless me. Sleep & Death!

  Saturday [July 20] . . . Waldo was here three times yesterday, and sang his song of Nature. It is a delicate a various, but not a deeply penetrating music.

  On his lips is the perfumed honey of Hymettus, but we can only sip, water or wine we could drink.

  We had last night one of those talks which can never bring us together, yet was there in it melody which shall help to attemper either mind.

  . . .

  Monday morning [July 22]. Yesterday was fair indeed[.] I played long with the baby, dined & talked with them, then took Mr. E’s miniature & went to the river side. It is in a fine style, this miniature, & the more I looked at it the better I was pleased with the view of his face. It is thoughtful yet open and gladsome. I took great pleasure in having it with me. With this I can converse, fearless of second thoughts or unintelligent misconstruction.

  At present, it skills not, I am able to take the superior views of life, and my place in it: but I know the deep yearnings of the heart & the bafflings of time will again be felt, & then I shall long for some dear hand to hold. But I shall never forget that my curse is nothing compared with that of those who have entered into those relations but not made them real: who only seem husbands, wives, & friends. H. was saying as much the other evening.

  23rd [Tuesday, July]. My head aches today, I can scarce do any thing.

  Yet have been reading the books of Confucius with great edification. It seems to me my mind acts in a different way when I have this heat and pressure on the top of the head from what it does at other times.

  . . . Confucius says,

  “Alas no one knows me! Isze-Kumy said, how is it that you are not known, Sir. Confucius replied, I repine not at heaven:

  I grumble not with men; I study the inferior branches of learning and advance to a clear knowledge of the superior. It is only heaven that knows me.”

  Yes, it is only love, that heaven on earth, that can make any mortal cease for a moment to be lonely: that divines, and its knowledge is divine[.] Sages must be alone children and lovers are not. But it is no easier to be always a lover than always a child: so the soul of the mortal must often be alone.

  This afternoon [Wednesday, July 24?] a soft-falling shower. I sat awhile in Ellery’s room and enjoyed his presence. Read Rabelais a short time. I enjoyed the richness, but was inclined to recall the address of the Western Judge to the tavern keeper. “If its just the same to you I wish you’d put the dirt on one dish and the bars-meat on another. I’m one of them that like to mix for myself.”

  Waldo came in & talked his transcendental fatalism a little. Then went away, declaring he should not come again till he was less stupid. I had as lief he would sit here and not say a word, but it would be impossible to make him understand that.

  I sleep late in the mornings & tis a shame to waste any part of these sweet days. Yet I dont like to have myself waked: the mind I suppose thinks the body needs a long lullaby. Nestling stilly, long wing feathers grow again . . . .

  These people here in C. (not Waldo: he is an individual;) want to know whether I give the facts of Mariana’s history on my own knowledge—“whether there ever was such a person, for they can conceive of such an one, perfectly!”!! . . .

  I have quite a desire to try my powers on a short narrative poem. I think I should enjoy it. But my head teems with plans & forms, of which there will be time for but few to grow to life. I read in a book that Milton has made himself a list of a hundred subjects for dramas—The recorder seemed to think this many. I think very few. Life is so full, so hopeless[.]

  . . .

  [July 27] . . . Why does the heart constantly drink oblivion of the obvious rule & expect some one tie to be exempt from the universal necessity?

  I will not do so any more.

  O God cleanse me from egotism, day by day!

  I have just been in to see Waldo a few minutes. Sweet child.—Great Sage—Undeveloped Man!

  I made some foolish critiques on his writings. What is the use? Let me get what I can from them & be thankful!

  Last night in the boat I could not help thinking each has something—more all. With Waldo how impossible to enjoy this still companionship, this mutual visionary life. With William even: with whom I have for moments & hours been so happy could I ever depend on his being at leasure, to live thus; certainly for ages I could not. But then H[.] has not the deep polished intellect of the one or the pure & passionate beauty of the other. He has his own powers: I seem to want them all: And through ages if not for ever promises & beckons the life of reception, of renunciation. Passing every 7 days from one region to the other. She grows weary of packing her trunk yet blesses thee. O rich God!

  I got to the Parsonage about 5 & we went out in the boat immediately. But the wind being against us made it too hard work for the boatman & soft clouds overspreading the whole sky, it seemed that we should have no moon back, so we did not go quite to Fairhaven, but stopped about half a mile this side & went on shore to walk. But soon the moon rose in great beauty, above a wood & we went to the boat again.

  We floated carelessly running ashore every now & then, and reached home a little after ten.

  O it is a sweet dream in memory, yet I regretted afterward that I had been led to talk so much[.] Had we floated silently, the captives of the scene, it would have been more entirely separate from the past. Now there are associations with these hours they cannot be remembered alone.

  The night was so beautiful, too, after we came in!

  I cannot write about it, but two poems occurred to me. I shall write them out so soon as I am able.

  Tuesday [July 30]. I passed the morning on the river shore. Happy, happy! A full west wind flying clouds. Elizabeth came down about noon & sat with me on the rock. She drew a very droll picture of what the scene would be if the E.s had settled here. Afternoon I went to ride first with Lidian, then with Mamma. The latter enjoyed it heartily, the former a little, though she is too much in her own way to get much good from any thing. Evening at the Parsonage but Mr. Bradford was there and wanted to go with H. in the boat. So I staid by myself in the avenue or went up the hill opposite with Leo. playing Mephisto. to the Goethean life & then late I went into the orchard & lay on the rock looking up to the sky through the old twisted broken trees.—I am not happy tonight & ugly memories shed their bitter in the cup, but it was a beautiful, a spirit haunted night.

  31st morning [Wednesday, July], played with Una, the child was more sweet and radiant than ever. Sophia told me a truth for which I thank her: she seemed nobly.

  ‘Each Orpheus must to the depths descend.’

  I walked home with H. through the woods. The skies were sighing & veiling their lids, & began to weep almost as soon as I was housed. Getting things ready this p.m. for the two Es & Greta’s return, but it rained so hard they came not.

  Just at night I saw a carriage go to Mr. E’s which I suppose contained Cary. In just such a drenching rain Ellen arrived at night two years ago when Ellery was at Naushon.

  I have been writing a little note to Sophia about the truth[.] I will think prayerfully of it. I am very unwell, thanks to moonlight damps of last night, I suppose.

  Thursday 1st August.

  Ellery came home this morn.g. He has been on foot with H. Thoreau to the Kaatskills[.] Rather cross at first, but it wore off & there was more of genius-light & less of goblin-gleam than for long time before.

  But Waldo’s oration, O that was great heroic, calm, sweet, fair. All aspects melted and rendered into one, an archetypal face of the affair. So beautifully spoken too! Better than he ever spoke before:

  it was true happiness to hear him; tears came to my eyes. The old story of how the blacks received their emancipation: it seemed as if I had never heard before: he gave it such expression. How ashamed one felt ever to be sad, while possessing that degree of freedom which gave them such joy.

  I felt excited to new life and a nobler emulation by Waldo this day. Yes: it is deeply tragic on the one side, my relation to him, but on the other, how noble how dear! If not an immortal relation, it makes me more immortal. Let me keep both sides duly balanced in my mind. Let me once know him & I shall not be disappointed.

  But he is hard to know, the subtle Greek!

  Cary sat by me & we passed a part of the day together. She was very sweet. At sunset I passed an hour alone in Sleepy Hollow. It was one of the finest I ever saw, such painting of the clouds with all the richest hues, and lightning flashes from their gorgeous breasts.

  And that place is a temple, in late afternoon.

  Eveg. Waldo & Cary came to see us Ellen having returned with little Greta, who is much better & prettier, then Elizabeth. Ellery talked very wisely tonight & described the Lenox life well: it is the best talk I have heard from him for long.

  2d [Friday, August] Cary came to breakfast & we took a long drive, very pleasant topics, Ninon, &c.

  Saw a pool starred with full-blown water-lilies. C. waded in, but it was so deep she could get only one. Day at the Parsonage. O it is sad that I shall see Una no more in this stage of her beauty. When I do see her again she will be quite another child. Out with Richard in the boat. Again one of these full lustrous afternoons: it was very pleasant, with the haymakers and cardinal flowers and calm pouring sun. Walk with H. in the woods long paths, dark and mystical. We went far & it was quite dark when we returned: we lost the path & I got wet in the long grass & had much scrambling. Yet this was pleasant too in its way though I reached home quite “beat out” & went straight to bed with burning headach as I did last night.

  I feel more like a sister to H. or rather more that he might be a brother to me than ever with any man before. Yet with him it is though sweet, not deep kindred, at least, not deep yet.

  3d [Saturday, August] . . .

  Passed the morning in the Hollow with E.H. very profitably: what fine just distinctions she made, worlds grew clearer as we talked. She copied & said she would have for her motto—

    “In Arcady I too was born,
  Though now a maiden all forlorn
  I milk the cow with crumpled horn.”

  Said Sarah Storer says God marries women, before they know what they are about that they may have to educate themselves. If they waited long enough to think about it they would never marry. . . .

  After dinner read the Western letters[.] Yes, they are beautiful & moved me deeply. The birth of a soul it looks like, but I loved thee fair rich Earth and all that is gone forever. This that comes we know in much farther stages. But there is silver sweet in the tone, generous nobility in the impulses.

  I went to the White House. Took leave of Lidian, who, as usual, managing to extract poison from the most healthful plants, says she has made herself sick by W’s oration, choosing to think of the stories of Negro suffering instead of the high and deep thoughts which excused the anguish incident to the history of man. Took leave of Edith, the cherub, from whose head I cut a silken curl & inclosed it in a paper of verses her father gave me. Of the elder Edith softened, half transfigured, of my Saadi so soft, so sweet to day! At parting I rose: he still sate with his eyes cast down. His hand I pressed to my heart: it was a gentle vow. He looked like the youngest child.

  Hence in a drizzling rain.

  . . .

  [Sunday, September 8] How entirely dissimilar that boy-baby I saw yesterday, in every act and attitude from Una and Greta. And yet where lies this difference betwixt male and female? I cannot trace it, more than in the plant world farther than function. As the two Shephardias are the same, except that only one bears the fruit.—How all but infinite the mystery by which sex is stamped in the germ.

  By what modification of thought is this caused? Impossible to trace: here am I the child of masculine energy & Eugene of feminine loveliness, & so in many other families.

  Yes! a human birth comprises all mysteries, and a mother that attends to that in its whole progress may apprehend as much as any one on earth.

a.ROME, Aug. 31, 1849

  Order reigns—the same Order that reigned at Warsaw. Russian-Austrian clemency is yielded to those who remain to share it; those who would not, in honor could not, remain to live a lie all day, and weep alone at night, are sunk with cannon at the bottom of the sea-shot here and there, when caught, or driven from port to port, the noblest mendicants, except the Poles, the saddest exiles, since Troy fell. Yet triumph not, Oppressors! The exiles of Ilium founded a new world, and were the parents of all that is good on this very soil. He that had not where to lay His head,—His Apostles, driven from place to place even thus, scattered the seeds of doctrine, and conquered the world . . . .

  That [foreign] intervention, the falsehood of France, the inertia of England, the entrance of Russia into Hungary-all these steps tracked in blood, which cause so much anguish at the moment, Democracy ought in fact to bless. They insure her triumphs-there is no possible compromise between her and the Old. The Roman Moderates will not again welcome a foreign help that abandons them to exile. Hungary will not again believe it is of use to appeal to England, and declare she only wanted to maintain her old privileges; she will know that Radical Reform is the only one possible in these desperate days. Heroic Venice, the land of Garibaldi, the unyielding mildness of Mazzini, will be remembered as possessing the only wisdom. Next time all the Kings have to fly from their thrones, they will know that to return is to undertake an insoluble problem, and that Governments cannot be sustained by conscription of the whole youth of a country to oppress their own fathers and mothers. All the more for what has happened in these sad days, will entire Europe, at the end of this century, be under Republican form of Government, and then Republics will never again elect as President any member of families formerly reigning. . . .

  One word as to the triumphal entrees, joyous receptions of the foreign liberators, prelatic rulers, &c. I have seen one of them; it was managed thus: A message came that the force would enter the following day, and if the municipality valued their safety they would cut down the Liberty-tree before the entry, and have everything nicely ready for the comfort of the troops. The tree was cut down at night by half a dozen persons; the hosts of the locandas tried to feign sleep and avoid giving them drink after their midnight work, but they (the foes of anarchy!) threatened to break in and take it. I heard them myself. Next day entered the troops, the Pontifical arms were raised, a poor Caffi di Progresso shot. All the applause was from a few drunken peasants, though I saw several ‘potent, grave and reverend seigniors’ canvassing earnestly for more. No respectable young men were present. The foreign officers were disgusted, and freely said they had been entirely deceived as to the feeling of this people.

  . . . As to not being able to go out in safety, I reiterate what I have before said, and it ought to be enough-I, a woman, walked alone at all hours, in all quarters of Rome; I stood alone amid the throng of soldiers and of citizens; I took with me little girls to help me at the hospitals, and their parents thought my protection sufficient; I was at the gates, at the post-office, in the nearer quarters of Trastevere, in the Vatican gardens—I never saw an act of violence, was never even jostled in the excitement of the crowd; I do not believe ever people or soldiery showed a finer spirit. I grant you, if I had cried Viva Pio Nino! or Viva Napoleon! it might have angered them. As to robbery, even my friends the bankers, pale with anxiety so many weeks, must confess that the Garibaldi “brigands” went away without sacking any houses or touching their strong boxes, though surely these poor desperadoes, many of them nobles who had given up their all for the cause, had great need of a little help in retreat; yet I hope all the alarmists will have the decency to confess how groundless all that talk was. . . .

b.FLORENCE, Nov. 15, 1849

c.FLORENCE, Jan.6, 1850

  Thus Nature again sympathizes with this injured people, though, I fear me, many a houseless wanderer wishes she did not. For many want both bread, and any kind of shelter this winter, an extremity of physical deprivation that had seemed almost impossible in this richest land. It had seemed that Italians might be subjected to the extreme of mental and moral suffering, but that the common beggar’s plea, “I am hungry,” must remain a mere poetic expression. ‘Tis no longer so, for it proves possible for the wickedness of man to mar to an indefinite extent the benevolent designs of God. Yet, indeed, if indefinitely not infinitely. I feel now that we are to bless the very extremity of ill with which Italy is afflicted. The cure is sure, else death would follow.

  . . . The seeds for a vast harvest of hatreds and contempts are sown over every inch of Roman ground, nor can that malignant growth be extirpated, till the wishes of Heaven shall waft a fire that will burn down all, root and branch, and prepare the earth for an entirely new culture. The next revolution, here and elsewhere, will be radical. Not only Jesuitism must go, but the Roman Catholic religion must go. The Pope cannot retain even his spiritual power. The influence of the clergy is too perverting, too foreign to every hope of advancement and health. Not only the Austrian, and every potentate of foreign blood, must be deposed, but every man who assumes an arbitrary lordship over fellow man, must be driven out. It will be an uncompromising revolution. England cannot reason nor ratify nor criticize it—France cannot betray it—Germany cannot bungle it—Italy cannot bubble it away—Russia cannot stamp it down nor hide it in Siberia. The New Era is no longer an embryo; it is born; it begins to walk-this very year sees its first giant steps, and can no longer mistake its features. Men have long been talking of a transition state—it is over—the power of positive, determinate effort is begun. A faith is offered-men are everywhere embracing it; the film is hourly falling from their eyes and they see, not only near but far, duties worthy to be done. God be praised! It was a dark period of that sceptical endeavor and work, only worthy as helping to educate the next generation, was watered with much blood and tears. God be praised! that time is ended, and the noble band of teachers who have passed this last ordeal of the furnace and den of lions, are ready now to enter their followers for the elementary class.

  At this moment all the worst men are in power, and the best betrayed and exiled. All the falsities, the abuses of the old political forms, the old social compact, seem confirmed. Yet it is not so: the struggle that is now to begin will be fearful, but even from the first hours not doubtful. Bodies rotten and trembling cannot long contend with swelling life. Tongue and hand cannot be permanently employed to keep down hearts. Sons cannot be long employed in the conscious enslavement of their sires, fathers of their children. That advent called EMMANUEL begins to be understood, and shall no more so foully be blasphemed. Men shall now be represented as souls, not hands and feet, and governed accordingly. A congress of great, pure, loving minds, and not a congress of selfish ambitions, shall preside. Do you laugh, Editor of the “Times?” (Times of the Iron Age.) Do you laugh, Roman Cardinal, as you shut the prison-door on woman weeping for her son martyred in the cause of his country? Do you laugh, Austrian officer, as you drill the Hungarian and Lombard youth to tremble at your baton? Soon you, all of you, shall “believe and tremble.” . . .