From: Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1874).
Author: R.W. Emerson, W.H. Channing, J.F. Clarke
Published: Roberts Brothers 1874 Boston
IN the year 1839, Margaret removed from Groton, and, with her mother and family, took a house at Jamaica Plain, five miles from Boston. In November of the next year the family removed to Cambridge, and rented a house there, near their old home. In 1841, Margaret took rooms for the winter in town, retaining still the house in Cambridge. And from the day of leaving Groton, until the autumn of 1844, when she removed to New York, she resided in Boston, or its immediate vicinity. Boston was her social centre. There were the libraries, galleries, and concerts which she loved; there were her pupils and her friends; and there were her tasks, and the openings of a new career.
I have vaguely designated some of the friends with whom she was on terms of intimacy at the time when I was first acquainted with her. But the range of her talents required an equal compass in her society; and she gradually added a multitude of names to the list. She knew already all the active minds at Cambridge; and has left a record of one good interview she had with Allston. She now became intimate with Doctor Channing, and interested him to that point in some of her studies, that, at his request, she undertook to render some selections of German philosophy into English for him. But I believe this attempt was soon abandoned. She found a valuable friend in the late Miss Mary Rotch, of New Bedford, a woman of great strength of mind, connected with the Quakers not less by temperament than by birth, and possessing the best lights of that once spiritual sect. At Newport, Margaret had made the acquaintance of an elegant scholar, in Mr. Calvert, of Maryland. In Providence, she had won, as by conquest, such a homage of attachment, from young and old, that her arrival there, one day, on her return from a visit to Bristol, was a kind of ovation. In Boston: she knew people of every class,-merchants, politicians, scholars, artists, women, the migratory genius, and the rooted capitalist,—and, amongst all, many excellent people, who were every day passing, by new opportunities, conversations, and kind offices, into the sacred circle of friends. The late Miss Susan Burley had many points of attraction for her, not only in her elegant studies, but also in the deep interest which that lady took in securing the highest culture for women. She was very well read, and, avoiding abstractions, knew how to help herself with examples and facts. A friendship that proved of great importance to the next years was that established with Mr. George Ripley; an accurate scholar, a man of character, and of eminent powers of conversation, and already then deeply engaged in plans of an expansive practical bearing, of which the first fruit was the little community which flourished for a few years at Brook Farm. Margaret presently became connected with him in literary labors, and, as long as she remained in this vicinity, kept up her habits of intimacy with the colonists of Brook Farm. At West Roxbury, too, she knew and prized the heroic heart, the learning and wit of Theodore Parker, whose literary aid was, subsequently, of the first importance to her. She had an acquaintance, for many years,—subject, no doubt, to alter~ations of sun and shade,—with Mr. Alcott. There was much antagonism in their habitual views, but each learned to respect the genius of the other. She had more sympathy with Mr. Alcott’s English friend, Charles Lane, an ingenious mystic, and bold experimenter in practical reforms, whose dexterity and temper in debate she frankly admired, whilst his asceticism engaged her reverence. Neither could some marked difference of temperament remove her from the beneficent influences of Miss Elizabeth Peabody, who, by her constitutional hospitality to excellence, whether mental or moral, has made her modest abode for so many years the inevitable resort of studious feet, and a private theatre for the exposition of every question of letters, of philosophy, of ethics, and of art.
The events in Margaret’s life, up to the year 1840, were few, and not of. that dramatic interest which readers love. Of the few events of her bright and blameless years, how many are private, and must remain so. In reciting the story of an affectionate and passionate woman, the voice lowers itself to a whisper, and becomes inaudible. A woman in our society finds her safety and happiness in exclusions and privacies. She congratulates herself when she is not called to the market, to the courts, to the polls, to the stage, or to the orchestra. Only the most extraordinary genius can make the career of an artist secure and agreeable to her. Prescriptions almost invincible the female lecturer or professor of any science must encounter; and, except on points where the charities which are left to women as their legitimate province interpose against the ferocity of laws, with us a female politician is unknown. Perhaps this fact, which so dangerously narrows the career of a woman, accuses the tardiness of our civility, and many signs show that a revolution is already on foot.
Margaret had no love of notoriety, or taste for eccentricity, to goad her, and no weak fear of either. Willingly she was confined to the usual circles and methods of female talent. She had no false shame. Any task that called out her powers was good and desirable. She wished to live by her strength. She could converse, and teach, and write. She took private classes of pupils at her own house. She organized, with great success, a school for young ladies at Providence, and gave four hours a day to it, during two years. She translated Eckermann’s Conversations with Goethe, and published in 1839. In 1841, she translated the Letters of Gunderode and Bettine, and published them as far as the sale warranted the work. In 1843, she made a tour to Lake Superior and to Michigan, and published an agreeable narrative of it, called “Summer on the Lakes.’’
Apparently a more pretending, but really also a private and friendly service, she edited the “Dial,” a quarterly journal, for two years from its first publication in 1840. She was eagerly solicited to undertake the charge of this work, which, when it began, concentrated a good deal of hope and affection. It had its origin in a club of speculative students, who found the air in America getting a little close and stagnant; and the agitation had perhaps the fault of being too secondary or bookish in its origin, or caught not from primary instincts, but from English, and still more from German books. The journal was commenced with much hope, and liberal promises of many cooperators. But the workmen of sufficient culture for a poetical and philosophical magazine were too few; and, as the pages were filled by unpaid contributors, each of whom had, according to the usage and necessity of this country, some paying employment, the journal did not get his best work, but his second best. Its scattered writers had not digested their theories into a distinct. dogma, still less into a practical measure which the public could grasp; and the magazine was so eclectic and miscellaneous, that each of its readers and writers valued only a small portion of it. For these reasons it never had a large circulation, and it was discontinued after four years. But the Dial betrayed, through all its juvenility, timidity, and conventional rubbish, some sparks of the true love and hope, and of the piety to spiritual law, which had moved its friends and founders, and it was received by its early subscribers with almost a religious welcome. Many years after it was brought to a close, Margaret was surprised in England by very warm testimony to its merits; and, in 1848, the writer of these pages found it holding the same affectionate place in many a private bookshelf in England and Scotland, which it had secured at home. Good or bad, it cost a good deal of precious labor from those who served it, and from Margaret most of all. As editor, she received a compensation for the first years, which was intended to be two hundred dollars per annum, but which, I fear, never reached even that amount.
But it made no difference to her exertion. She put so much heart into it that she bravely undertook to open, in the Dial, the subjects which most attracted her; and she treated, in turn, Goethe, and Beethoven, the Rhine and the Roma1c Ballads, the Poems of John Sterling, and several pieces of sentiment, with a spirit which spared no labor; and, when the hard conditions of journalism held her to an inevitable day, she submitted to jeopardizing a long-cherished subject, by treating it in the crude and forced article for the month. I remember, after she had been compelled by ill health to relinquish the journal into my hands, my grateful wonder at the facility with which she assumed the preparation of laborious articles, that might have daunted the most practised scribe.
But in book or journal she found a very imperfect expression of herself, and it was the more vexatious, because she was accustomed to the clearest and fullest. When, therefore, she had to choose an employment that should pay money, she consulted her own genius, as well as the wishes of a multitude of friends, in opening a class for conversation. In the autumn of 1839, she addressed the following letter, intended for circulation, to Mrs. George Ripley, in which her general design was stated:—
‘My dear friend:—The advantages of a weekly meeting, for conversation, might be great enough to repay the trouble of-attendance, if they consisted only in supplying a point of union to well-educated and thinking women, in a city which, with great pretensions to mental refinement, boasts, at present, nothing of the kind, and where I have heard many, of mature age, wish for some such means of stimulus and cheer, and those younger, for a place where they could state their doubts and difficulties, with a hope of gaining aid from the experience or aspirations of others. And, if my office were only to suggest topics, which would lead to conversation of a better order than is usual at social meetings, and to turn back the current when digressing into personalities or common-places, so that what is valuable in the experience of each might be brought to bear upon all, I should think the object not unworthy of the effort.
‘But my ambition goes much further. It is to pass in review the departments of thought and knowledge, and endeavor to place them in one relation to one another in our minds. To systematize thought, and give a precision and clearness in which our sex are so deficient, chiefly, I think, because they have so few inducements to test and classify what they receive. To ascertain what pursuits are best suited to us, in our time and state of society, and how we may make best use of our means for building up the life of thought upon the life of action.
‘Could a circle be assembled in earnest, desirous to answer the questions,—What were we born to do and how shall we do it 1-which so few ever propose to themselves till their best years are gone by, I should think the undertaking a noble one, and, if my resources should prove sufficient to make me its moving spring, I should be willing to give to it a large portion of those coming years, which will, as I hope, be my best. I look upon it with no blind enthusiasm, nor unlimited faith, but with a confidence that I have attained a distinct perception of means, which, if there are persons competent to direct them, can supply a great want, and promote really high objects. So far as I have tried them yet, they have met with success so much beyond my hopes, that my faith will not easily be shaken, nor my earnestness chilled. Should I, however, be disappointed in Boston, I could hardly hope that such a plan could be brought to bear on general society, in any other city of the United States. But I do not fear, if a good beginning can be made. I am confident that twenty persons cannot be brought together from better motives than vanity or pedantry, to talk upon such subjects as we propose, without finding in themselves great deficiencies, which they will be very desirous to supply.
‘Should the enterprise fail, it will be either from incompetence in me, or that sort of vanity in them which wears the garb of modesty. On the first of these points, I need not speak. I cannot be supposed to have felt so much the wants of others, without feeling my own still more deeply. And, from the depth of this feeling, and the earnestness it gave, such power as I have yet exerted has come. Of course, those who are inclined to meet me, feel a confidence in me, and should they be disappointed, I shall regret it not solely or most on my own account. I have not given my gauge without measuring my capacity to sustain defeat. For the other, I know it is very hard to lay aside the shelter of vague generalities, the art of coterie criticism, and the “delicate disdains” of good society, and fearlessly meet the light, even though it flow from the sun of truth. Yet, as, without such generous courage, nothing of value can be learned or done, I hope to see many capable of it; willing that others should think their sayings crude, shallow, or tasteless, if, by such unpleasant means, they may attain real health and vigor, which need no aid from rouge or candlelight, to brave the light of the world.
‘Since I saw you, I have been told of persons who are desirous to join the class, “if only they need not “talk.” I am so sure that the success of the whole depends on conversation being general, that I do not wish any one to come, who does not intend, if possible, to take an active part. No one will be forced, but those who do not talk will not derive the same advantages with those who openly state their impressions, and can consent to have it known that they learn by blundering, as is the destiny of man here below. And general silence, or side talks, would paralyze me. I should feel coarse and misplaced, were I to harangue over-much. In former instances, I have been able to make it easy and even pleasant, to twenty-five out of thirty, to bear their part, to question, to define, to state, and examine opinions. If I could not do as much now, I should consider myself as unsuccessful, and should withdraw. But I shall expect communication to be affected by degrees, and to do a great deal myself at the first meetings. My method has been to open a subject,—for instance, Poetry, as expressed in—
External Nature;
The life of man;
Literature;
The fine arts;
or, The history of a nation to be studied in—
Its religious and civil institutions
Its literature and arts;
The characters of its great men;
and, after as good a general statement as I know how to make, select a branch of the subject, and lead others to give their thoughts upon it. When they have not been successful in verbal utterance of their thoughts, I have asked them to attempt it in writing. At the next meeting, I would read these “starts of pen and ink” aloud, and canvass their adequacy, without mentioning the names of the writers.—I found this less necessary, as I proceeded, and my companions attained greater command both of thought and language; hut for a time it was useful, and may be now. Great advantage in point of discipline may be derived from even this limited use of the pen.
‘I do not wish, at present, to pledge myself to any course of subjects. Generally, I may say, they will be such as literature and the arts present in endless profusion. Should a class be brought together, I should wish, first, to ascertain our common ground, and, in the course of a few meetings, should see whether it be practicable to follow out the design in my mind, which, as yet, would look too grand on paper.
‘Let us see whether there will be any organ, before noting down the music to which it may give breath.’
Accordingly, a class of ladies assembled at Miss Peabody’s rooms, in West Street, on the 6th November, 1839. Twenty-five were present, and the circle comprised some of the most agreeable and intelligent women to be found in Boston and its neighborhood. The following brief report of this first day’s meeting remains:—
“Miss Fuller enlarged, in her introductory conversation, on the topics which she touched in her letter to Mrs. Ripley.
‘Women are now taught, at school, all that men are; they run over, superficially, even more studies, without being really taught anything. When they come to the business of life, they find themselves inferior, and all their studies have not given them that practical good sense, and mother wisdom, and wit, which grew up with our grandmothers at the spinning-wheel. But, with this difference; men are called on, from a very early period, to reproduce all that they learn. Their college exercises, their political duties, their professional studies, the first actions of life in any direction, call on them to put to use what they have learned. But women learn without any attempt to reproduce. Their only reproduction is for purposes of display.
‘It is to supply this defect,’ Miss Fuller said, ‘that these conversations have been planned. She was not here to teach; but she had had some experience in the management of such a conversation as was now proposed; she meant to give her view on each subject, and provoke the thoughts of others.
‘It would be best to take subjects on which we know words, and have vague impressions, and compel ourselves to define those words. We should have, probably, mortifications to suffer; but we should be encouraged by the rapid gain that comes from making a simple and earrnist effort for expression.’
Miss Fuller had proposed the Grecian Mythology as the subject of the first conversations, and now gave her reasons for the choice. It is quite separated from all exciting local subjects. It is serious, without being solemn, and without excluding any mode of intellectual action; it is playful, as well as deep. It is sufficiently wide, for it is a complete expression of the cultivation of a nation. It is objective and tangible. It is, also generally known, and associated with all our ideas of the arts.
‘It originated in the eye of the Greek. He lived out of doors: his climate was genial, his senses were adapted to it. He was vivacious and intellectual, and personified all he beheld. He saw the oreads, naiads, nereids. Their forms, as poets and painters give them, are the very lines of nature humanized, as the child’s eye sees faces in the embers or in the clouds.
Other forms of the mythology, as Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, are great instincts, or ideas, or facts of the internal constitution, separated and personified.’
After exhibiting their enviable mental health, and rebutting the cavils of some of the speakers,—who could not bear, in Christian times, by Christian ladies, that heathen Greeks should be envied,—Miss Fuller declared, that she had no desire to go back, and believed we have the elements of a deeper civilization; yet, the Christian was in its infancy; the Greek in its maturity; nor could she look on the expression of a great nation’s intellect, as insignificant. These fables of the Gods were the result of the universal sentiments of religion, aspiration, intellectual action, of a people, whose political and aesthetic life had become immortal; and we must leave off despising, if we would begin to learn.’”
The reporter closes her account by saying:—“Miss Fuller’s thoughts were much illustrated, and all was said with the most captivating address and grace, and with beautiful modesty. The position in which she placed herself with respect to the rest, was entirely lady-like, and companionable. She told what she intended, the earnest purpose with which she came, and, with great tact, indicated the indiscretions that might spoil the meeting.”
Here is Margaret’s own account of the first days.
‘25th Nov., 1839.—My class is prosperous. I was so fortunate as to rouse, at once, the tone of simple earnestness, which can scarcely, when once awakened, cease to vibrate. All seem in a glow, and quite as receptive as I wish. They question and examine, yet follow leadings; and thoughts, not opinions, have ruled the hour every time. There are about twenty-five members, and every one, I believe, full of interest. The first time, ten took part in the conversation; the last, still more. Mrs —— came out in a way that surprised me. She seems to have shaken off a wonderful number of films. She showed pure vision, sweet sincerity, and much talent. Mrs.—— keeps us in good order, and takes care that Christianity and morality are not forgotten. The first day’s topic was, the genealogy of heaven and earth; then the Will, (Jupiter); the Understanding, (Mercury): the second day’s, the celestial inspiration of genius, perception and transmission of divine law, (Apollo); the terrene inspiration, the impassioned abandonment of genius, (Bacchus). Of the thunderbolt, the caduceus, the ray, and the grape, having disposed as well as might be, we came to the wave, and the sea-shell it moulds to Beauty, and Love her parent and her child.
‘I assure you, there is more Greek than Bostonian spoken at the meetings; and we may have pure honey of Hymettus to give you yet.’
To another friend she wrote: —
‘The circle I meet interests me. So even devoutly thoughtful seems their spirit, that, from the very first, I took my proper place, and never had the feeling I dreaded, of display, of a paid Corinne. I feel as I would, truly a teacher and a guide. All are intelligent; five or six have talent. But I am never driven home for ammunition; never put to any expense; never truly called out. What I have is always enough; though I feel how superficially I am treating my subject.’
Here is an extract from the letter of a lady, who joined the class, for the first time, at the eighth meeting, to her friend in New Haven:—
“Christmas made a holiday for Miss Fuller’s class, but it met on Saturday, at noon. As I sat there, my heart overflowed with joy at the sight of the bright circle, and I longed to have you by my side, for I know not where to look for so much character, culture, and so much love of truth and beauty, in any other circle of women and girls. The names and faces would not mean so much to you as to me, who have seen more of the lives, of which they are the sign. Margaret, beautifully dressed, (don’t despise that, for it made a fine picture,) presided with more dignity and grace than I had thought possible. The subject was Beauty. Each had written her definition, and Margaret began with reading her own. This called forth questions, comments, and illustrations, on all sides. The style and manner, of course, in this age, are different, but the question, the high point from which it was considered, and the earnestness and simplicity of the discussion, as well as the gifts and graces of the speakers, gave it the charm of a Platonic dialogue. There was no pretension or pedantry in a word that was said. The tone of remark and question was simple as that of children in a school class; and, I believe, every one was gratified.”
The conversations thus opened proceeded with spirit and success. Under the mythological forms, room was found for opening all the great questions, on which Margaret and her friends wished to converse. Prometheus was made the type of Pure Reason; Jupiter, of Will; Juno, the passive side of the same, or Obstinacy; Minerva, Intellectual Power, Practical Reason; Mercury, Executive Power, Understanding; Apollo was Genius, the Sun; Bacchus was Geniality, the Earth’s answer. “Apollo and Bacchus were contrasted,” says the reporter. “Margaret unfolded her idea of Bacchus. His whole life was triumph. Born from fire; a divine frenzy; the answer of the earth to the sun,—of the warmth of joy to the light of genius. He is beautiful, also; not severe in youthful beauty, like Apollo; but exuberant,—liable to excess. She spoke of the fables of his destroying Pentheus, &c., and suggested the interpretations. This Bacchus was found in Scripture. The Indian Bacchus is glowing; he is the genial apprehensive power; the glow of existence; mere joy.”
Venus was Grecian womanhood, instinctive; Diana, chastity; Mars, Grecian manhood, instinctive. Venus made the name for a conversation on Beauty, which was extended through four meetings, as it brought in irresistibly the related topics of poetry, genius, and taste. Neptune was Circumstance; Pluto, the Abyss, the Undeveloped; Pan, the glow and sportiveness and music of Nature; Ceres, the productive power of Nature; Proserpine, the Phenomenon.
Under the head of Venus, in the fifth conversation, the story of Cupid and Psyche was told with fitting beauty, by Margaret; and many fine conjectural interpretations suggested from all parts of the room. The ninth conversation turned on the distinctive qualities of poetry, discriminating it from the other fine arts. Rhythm and Imagery, it was agreed, were distinctive. An episode to dancing, which the conversation took, led Miss Fuller to give the thought that lies at the bottom of different dances. Of her lively description the following record is preserved:—
‘Gavottes, shawl dances, and all of that kind, are intended merely to exhibit the figure in as many attitudes as possible. They have no character, and say nothing, except, Look! how graceful I am! The minuet is conjugal; but the wedlock is chivalric. Even so would Amadis wind slow, stately, calm, through the mazes of life, with Oriana, when he had made obeisances enough to win her for a partner.
English, German, Swiss, French, and Spanish dances all express the same things, though in very different ways. Love and its life are still the theme.
In the English country dance, the pair who have chosen one another, submit decorously to the restraints of courtship and frequent separations, cross hands, four go round, down outside, in the most earnest, lively, complacent fashion. If they join hands to go down the middle, and exhibit their union to all spectators, they part almost as soon as meet, and disdain not to give hands right and left to the most indifferent persons; like marriage in its daily routine.
‘In the Swiss, the man pursues, stamping with energy, marking the time by exulting flings, ·or snapping of the fingers, in delighted confidence of succeeding at last; but the maiden coyly, demurely, foots it round, yet never gets out of the way, intending to be won.
‘The German asks his madchen if she will, with him, for an hour forget the cares and common-places of life in a tumult of rapturous sympathy, and she smiles with Saxon modesty her Ja. He sustains her in his arms; the music begins. At first, in willing mazes they calmly imitate the planetary orbs, but the melodies flow quicker, their accordant hearts beat higher, and they whirl at last into giddy raptures, and dizzy evolutions, which steal from life its free-will and self-collection, till nothing is left but mere sensation.
‘The French couple are somewhat engaged with one another, but almost equally so with the world around them. They think it well to vary existence with plenty of coquetry and display. First, the graceful reverence to one another, then to their neighbors. Exhibit your grace in the chassé,—made apparently solely for the purpose of déchasséing,—then civil intimacy between the ladies, in la chaine, then a decorous promenade of partners, then right and left with all the world, and balance, &c. The quadrille also offers opportunity for talk. Looks and sympathetic motions are not enough for our Parisian friends, unless eked out by words.
‘The impassioned bolero and fandango are the dantea for me. They are not merely loving, but living; they express the sweet Southern ecstasy at the mere gift of existence. These persons are together, they live, they are beautiful; how can they say this in sufficiently plain terms—I love, I live, I am beautiful!—I put on my festal dress to do honor to my happiness; I shake my castanets, that my hands, too, may be busy; I felice,—felicissima!’
This first series of conversations extended to thirteen, the class meeting once a week at noon, and remaining together for two hours. The class were happy, and the interest increased. A new series of thirteen more weeks followed, and the general subject of the new course was “the Fine Arts.” A few fragmentary notes only of these hours have been shown me, but all those who bore any part in them testify to their entire success. A very competent witness has given me some interesting particulars:—
“Margaret used to come to the conversations very well dressed, and, altogether, looked sumptuously. She began them with an exordium, in which she gave her leading views; and those exordiums were excellent, from the elevation of the tone, the ease and flow of discourse, and from the tact with which they were kept aloof from any excess, and from the gracefulness with which they wert brought down, at last, to a possible level for others to follow. She made a pause, and invited the others to come in. Of course, it was not easy for every one to venture her remark, after an eloquent discourse, and in the presence of twenty superior women, who were all inspired. But whatever was said, Margaret knew how to seize the good meaning of it with hospitality, and to make the speaker feel glad, and not sorry, that she had spoken. She showed herself thereby fit to preside at such meetings, and imparted to the susceptible a wonderful reliance on her genius.”
In her writing she was prone to spin her sentences without a sure guidance, and beyond the sympathy of her reader. But in discourse, she was quick, conscious of power, in perfect tune with her company, and would pause and turn the stream with grace and adroitness, and with so much spirit, that her face beamed, and the young people came away delighted, among other things, with “her beautiful looks.” When she was intellectually excited, or in high animal spirits, as often happened, all deformity of features was dissolved in the power of the expression. So I interpret this repeated story of sumptuousness of dress, that this appearance, like her reported beauty, was simply an effect of a general impression of magnificence made by her genius, and mistakenly attributed to some external elegance; for I have been told by her most intimate friend, who knew every particular of her conduct at that time, that there was nothing of special expense or splendor in her toilette.
The effect of the winter’s work was happiest. Margaret was made intimately known to many excellent persons.* In this company of matrons and maids, many tender spirits had been set in ferment. A new day has dawned for them; new thoughts had opened; the secret of life was shown, or, at least, that life had a secret. They could not forget what they had heard, and what they had been surprised into saying. A true refinement had begun to work in many who had been slaves to trifles. They went home thoughtful and happy, since the steady elevation of Margaret’s aim had infused a certain unexpected greatness of tone into the conversation. It was, I believe, only an expression of the feeling of the class, the remark made, perhaps at the next year’s course, by a lady of eminent powers, previously by no means partial to Margaret, and who expressed her frank admiration on leaving the house:—“I never heard, read of, or imagined a conversation at all equal to this we have now heard.”
The strongest wishes were expressed, on all sides, that the conversations should be renewed at the beginning of the following winter. Margaret willingly consented; but, as I have already intimated, in the summer and autumn of 1840, she had retreated to some interior shrine, and believed that she came into life and society with some advantage from this devotion.
Of this feeling the new discussion bore evident traces.
Most of the last year’s class returned, and new members gave in their names. The first meeting was held on the twenty-second of November, 1840. By all accounts it was the best of all her days. I have again the notes, taken at the time, of the excellent lady at whose house it was held, to furnish the following sketch of the first and the following meetings. I preface these notes by an extract from a letter of Margaret.
‘Sunday, Nov. 8th, 1840.—On Wednesday I opened with my class. It was a noble meeting. I told them the great changes in my mind, and that I could not be sure they would be satisfied with me now, as they were when I was in deliberate possession of myself. I tried to convey the truth, and though I did not arrive at any full expression of it, they all, with glistening eyes, seemed melted into one love. Our relation is now perfectly true, and I do not think they will ever interrupt me. —— sat beside me, all glowing; and the moment I had finished, she began to speak. She told me afterwards, she was all kindled, and none there could be strangers to her more. I was really delighted by the enthusiasm of Mrs. ——. I did not expect it. All her best self seemed called up, and she feels that these meetings will be her highest pleasure.——, too, was most beautiful. I went home with Mrs. F., and had a long attack of nervous headache. She attended anxiously on me and asked if it would be so all winter. I said, if it were I did not care; and truly I feel just: now such a separation from pain and illness,—such a consciousness of true life, while suffering most:—‘that pain has no effect but to steal some of my time.’
———————
* A friend has furnished me with the names of so many of the ladies as she recollects to have met, at one or another time, at these classes. Some of them were perhaps only occasional members. The list recalls how much talent, beauty, and worth were at that time constellated here:—
Mrs. George Bancroft, Mrs. Barlow, Miss Burley, Mrs. L. M. Child, Miss Mary Channing, Miss Sarah Clarke, Mrs. E. P. Clark, Miss Dorr, Mrs. Edwards, Mrs. R. W. Emerson, Mrs. Farrar, Miss S. J. Gardiner, Mrs. R. W. Hooper, Mrs. S. Hooper, Miss Haliburton, Miss Howes, Miss E. Hoar, Miss ,Marianne Jackson, Mrs. T. Lee, Miss Littlehale, Mrs. E. G. Loring, Mrs. Mack, Mrs. Horace Mann, Mrs. Newcomb, Mrs. Theodore Parker, Miss E. P. Peabody, Miss S. Peabody, Mrs. S. Putnam, Mrs. Phillips: Mrs. Josiah Quincy, Miss B. Randall, Mrs. Samuel Ripley, Mrs. George Ripley, Mrs. George Russell, Miss Ida Russell, Mrs. Frank Shaw, Miss Anna B. Shaw, Miss Caroline Sturgis, Miss Tuckerman, Miss Maria White, Mrs. S. G. Ward, Miss Mary Ward, Mrs. W. Whiting.
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