Margaret Fuller Rev. Rod Richards Unitarian Universalist Church of Southeastern Arizona 05/23/10 Opening Words (Margaret Fuller, Responsive Reading #575) A new manifestation is at hand, a new hour is come. When Man and Woman may regard one another as brother and sister, able both to appreciate and to prophecy to one another. A new manifestation is at hand, a new hour is come. What Woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intelligence to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded, to unfold such powers as were given her. A new manifestation is at hand, a new hour is come. Man does not have his fair share either; his energies are repressed and distorted by the interposition of artificial obstacles. A new manifestation is at hand, a new hour is come. We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have every path laid open to Woman as freely as to Man. Were this done, we believe a divine energy would pervade nature to a degree unknown in the history of former ages. A new manifestation is at hand, a new hour is come. Lighting the Chalice Margaret Fuller (1810 – 1850), describing an experience she had at the age of 21: I went on and on till I came to where the trees were thick about a little pool, dark and silent. I sat down there. I did not think; all was dark, and cold, and still. Suddenly the sun shone out with that transparent sweetness, like the last smile of a dying lover, which it will use when it has been unkind all a cold autumn day. And, even then, passed into my thought a beam from its true sun, from its native sphere, which has never since departed from me. I remembered how, a little child, I had stopped myself one day on the stairs and asked, how did I come to be here? What does it mean? What shall I do about it? I remembered all the times and ways in which the same thought had returned. I saw how long it must be before the soul can learn to act under these limitations of time and space, and human nature; but I saw, also, that it must do it,--that it must make all this false true,--and sow new and immortal plants in the garden of God. Reading Margaret Fuller (1810 – 1850), inspired great admiration from some, like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Bronson Alcott and Henry David Thoreau…but quite the opposite from others of her time. Here are the words of a few of Fuller’s critics: From Orestes Brownson in Brownson’s Quarterly Review, April 1845, review of Woman in the Nineteenth Century: As we read along in the book, we keep constantly asking, What is the lady driving at? What does she want? But no answer comes. She does not know, herself, what she wants. Seriously, Miss Fuller does not know what she wants, any more than does many a fine lady, whom silks, laces, shawls, dogs, Margaret Fuller UUCSEA 05/23/10 Richards / 2 of 6 parrots, balls, routs, jams, watering-places, and despair of lover or husband and friends have ceased to satisfy. She even confesses her inability to formulate her complaint. We have yet to be convinced that woman’s lot, compared with that of man’s, is one of particular hardship. She is not always the victim, and examples of suffering virtue may be found amongst men as well as amongst women. No doubt there are evils enough to redress, but we do not think the insane clamor for “woman’s rights,” for “woman’s equality,” “woman’s liberation,” and all this, will do much to redress them. Woman is no more deprived of her rights than man is of his, and no more enslaved… She says man is not the head of woman. We, on the authority of the Holy Ghost, say he is. The dominion was not given to woman, nor to man and woman conjointly, but to the man. Therefore, the inspired apostle, while he commands husbands to love and cherish their wives, commands wives to love and obey their husbands; and even setting aside all considerations of divine inspiration St. Paul’s authority is, to say the least, equal to that of Ms. Fuller. The influential editor, Rufus Wilmot Griswold who believed Fuller went against his notion of feminine modesty, referred to ''Woman in the Nineteenth Century'' as "an eloquent expression of her discontent at having been created female.” New York writer, Charles Frederick Briggs said that she was "wasting the time of her readers,” especially because she was an unmarried woman and therefore could not "truly represent the female character.” Sophia Hawthorne, wife of writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, who had previously been a supporter of Fuller, was critical of her after ''Woman of the Nineteenth Century'' was published: “The impression it left was disagreeable. I did not like the tone of it—& did not agree with her at all about the change in woman's outward circumstances...Neither do I believe in such a character of man as she gives. It is altogether too ignoble... I think Margaret speaks of many things that should not be spoken of.” Years later, Hawthorne's son, Julian wrote, "The majority of readers will, I think, not be inconsolable that poor Margaret Fuller has at last taken her place with the numberless other dismal frauds who fill the limbo of human pretension and failure." Sermon “Margaret Fuller has at last taken her place with the numberless other dismal frauds who fill the limbo of human pretension and failure.” No pulled punches there! Julian Hawthorne, among the many other people that Molly just read from, did not much like Margaret Fuller…and these folks spent no small amount of energy and skill in expressing their dislike. But what was it that inspired such extreme elaborations of displeasure? If Julian Hawthorne was predicting that Margaret Fuller would, after her death, be swept under the oceans of obscurity along with all the “other dismal frauds who fill the limbo of human pretensions and failure”…well, he got it wrong. Not only are we still talking about Margaret Fuller, but she may well be experiencing something of a revival on this, the 200th anniversary of her birth. The legacy of Margaret Fuller has managed to survive and lives on to inspire, to frustrate, to puzzle, to challenge, to irritate, to delight, to intrigue…Whatever we end up thinking of her or about her work, the fact is that she is still thought about. Margaret Fuller UUCSEA 05/23/10 Richards / 3 of 6 Why is that? And why is it that, on the one hand, we still talk about her and on the other hand don’t really quite know what to say? Why can’t we seem to find a specific place where we can place her bust in the Hall of Famous Unitarians, or Famous Feminists, or Famous Transcendentalists, or Famous Journalists, or Famous Revolutionaries. “One reason she’s a little confusing to people is that she can’t really be pegged,” says Megan Marshall, who is now at work on a book called The Passion of Margaret Fuller. “She had so many activities; it’s hard to say what she was. You can say Emerson was a philosopher. Thoreau was a naturalist. Fuller really was the first female public intellectual.” She lived from 1810 – 1850 and was indeed friends with Emerson and Thoreau. Some scholars see these three (Emerson, Thoreau, and Fuller) as the major figures of the Transcendentalist movement, which has so informed and influenced present-day Unitarian Universalism, expressed in our sources when we say our tradition draws from “direct experience of [a] transcending mystery and wonder” and expressed by Fuller when she said that a beam from the true sun entered her thoughts and she realized that the soul … must sow new and immortal plants in the garden of God. Many scholars see her as central to the movement. Emerson himself writes in his journal, “Margaret with her radiant genius and fiery heart was perhaps the real center that drew so many and so various individuals into a seeming union.” But if she was the real center, she was also a moving center and history likes people who stay put. If she was one of the Transcendental Trinity, she may have been its Holy Ghost, ambiguously defined and least talked about. “She had so many activities, it’s hard to say what she was,” writes biographer, Megan Marshall, and indeed the list of activities is impressive and unique for her time. As editor of the Dial, she was the first woman editor of an important intellectual magazine. She was the first woman to write a book about the West and such experiences as sleeping in a barroom, shooting rapids in an Indian canoe, and witnessing mistreatment of Native Americans. She was the first woman to break the taboo against women in the Harvard College Library. Her book, Woman in the Nineteenth Century--which became a bestseller; it sold out its first edition of 1,000 copies in one week--was the first uncompromising plea by an American woman for equal rights. As columnist for Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune, she was the first American woman journalist and also became the first American woman foreign correspondent when Greeley encouraged her to go to Europe. While covering the bloody Roman Revolution of 1849, she became the first American woman underground revolutionary.