From: Love-Letters of Margaret Fuller, 1845-1846
Author:
Published: 1903 New York
I take the little sheet to answer the long and beautiful letter, not because there is not much to say, but because it does not seem that I can say it yet.
The sweet ray touches my life and I wish it might bring out full and splendid blossoms, like the pink cactuses seen in the windows of the rich these bright spring days. But my thoughts lie, rather, deep in the ground like lily roots; not till the full summer-time will they show themselves in their whiteness and their fragrance, but then, where they stand lovely in the confidential night, they will return a blessing for all that has been given.
I am with you as never with any other one, I like to be quite still and have you the actor and the voice. You have life enough for both; you will indulge me in this dear repose.
Sweetly you answer to my thoughts and even in the same images in which myself had clothed them. I will trust you deeply. I will not recall my thoughts from an involuntary flight. But can there fail to be timidity? Of the many who have stretched out their arms, there was not one who did not sometimes scare back the little birds to their nest. Often when they pecked at the window to which they had been invited, the inmate was asleep, or hearing, said: “It is nothing but the wind.” And on one pure altar they would always alight, save that sometimes the fire burned there too fiercely, and at others it was desolate with ashes. Long has it seemed they might not be permitted to soar and sing, until a better world should offer freer and surer invitation. Yet the lark may never refuse her song, if the true sun should dawn.
I hear the fire bells; perhaps the happiness of hearths is being marred at this moment. Heaven bless all thy children and save them from inexpressible ills. I am full of pity to-night. I know not why especially.
Farewell, dear friend, take the little incoherent letter in good part; if you are like me, you wish for one every day. But I wish still more to see you now and borrow courage from your eyes. I like to see the old-fashioned Deutscher Name written by your hand and should like to hear it from your lips, but would rather myself not sign, but come unannounced, and depart informally as if at home.
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