This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. https://books.google.com HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY FROM THE BEQUEST OF JOHN AMORY LOWELL CLASS OF 1815 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY FROM THE BEQUEST OF JOHN AMORY LOWELL CLASS OF 1815 .- 0 Jfamous (Eaiomen. MARGARET FULLER. I The next volumes in the Famous Women Series will be: . Maria Edgeworth. By Miss Zimmern. Sarah and Angelina Grimke. By Mrs. Birney. Anne Bradstreet. By Helen Campbell. Already published: George Eliot. By Miss Blind. Emily Bronte. By Miss Robinson. George Sand. By Miss Thomas. Mary Lamb. By Mrs. Gilchrist. Margaret Fuller. By Julia Ward Howe. MARGARET FULLER (MARCHESA OSSOLI). BY JULIA WARD HOWE. C. BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1883. » •'•'.-v. Copyright, 1SSS, By Roberts Brothers. University Press: John Wilson anb Son, Cambridge. Si PREFATORY NOTE. The present volume bears the name of Margaret Fuller simply, because it is by this name that its subject is most widely known and best remembered. Another name, indeed, became hers by marriage ; but this later style and title were borne by our friend for a short period only, and in a country remote from her own. It was as Margaret Fuller that she took her place among the lead ing spirits of her time, and made her brave crusade against its unworthier fea tures. The record of her brief days of wifehood and of motherhood is tenderly cherished by her friends, but the story of her life-work is best inscribed with the • V y-.w * vi PREFATORY NOTE. name which was hers by birth and bap tism, the name which, in her keeping, acquired a significance not to be lost nor altered. CONTENTS. — * — PACK CHAPTER I. Childhood and Early Youth. — School-days I CHAPTER II. Life in Cambridge. — Friendship of Dr. Hedge and James Free man Clarke 19 CHAPTER III. Religious Beliefs. — Margaret's Early Critics. — First Acquain tance with Mr. Emerson 32 CHAPTER IV. Art Studies. — Removal to Groton. — Meeting with Harriet Mar- tineau. — Death of Mr. Fuller. — Devotion to her Family . 44 CHAPTER V. Winter in Boston. — A Season of Severe Labor. — Connection with Green-Street School, Providence, R. I. — Editorship of the " Dial." — Margaret's estimate of Allston's pictures . 61 CHAPTER VI. William Henry Channing's portrait of Margaret. — Transcenden tal Days. — Brook Farm. — Margaret's visits there ... 84 viii CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. Margaret's love of children. — Visit to Concord after the death of Waldo Emerson. — Conversations in Boston. — Summer on the Lakes 1oo 1 CHAPTER VIII. Farewell to Boston. — Engagement to write for the " New York Tribune." — Margaret in her new surroundings. — Mr. Gree ley's opinion of Margaret's work. — Her estimate of George Sand 128 CHAPTER IX. Margaret's residence at the Greeley mansion. — Appearance in New York society. — Visits to women imprisoned at Sing Sing and on Blackwcll's Island. — Letters to her brothers. — " Woman in the Nineteenth Century." — Essay on American Literature. — View of contemporary Authors 140 CHAPTER X. Ocean voyage. — Arrival at Liverpool. — The Lake Country. — Wordsworth. — Miss Martineau. — Edinburgh. — De Quin- cey. — Mary, Queen of Scots. — Night on Ben Lomond. — James Martineau. — William J. Fox. — London. — Joanna Baillie. — Mazzini. — Thomas Carlyle. — Margaret's impres sions of him. — His estimate of her 170 CHAPTER XI. Paris. — Margaret's reception there. — George Sand. — Chopin. — Rachel. — Lamennais. — Be ranger. — Chamber of Deputies. — Berryer. — Ball at the Tuileries. — Italian Opera. — Alex andre Vattem.re. — Schools and Reformatories. — Journey to Marseilles. — Genoa. — Leghorn. — Naples. — Rome. 189 CHAPTER XII. Margaret's first days in Rome. — Antiquities. — Visits to Studios and Galleries. — Her opinions concerning the Old Masters. — CONTENTS. >* Her sympathy with the Feople. — Pope Pius. — Celebration of the Birthday of Rome. — Perugia. — Bologna. — Raven na. — Venice. — A State Ball on the Grand Canal. — Milan. — Manzoni. — The Italian Lakes. — Parma. — Second visit to Florence. — Grand Festival 205 CHAPTER XIII. Period of agitation in Rome. — Margaret's zeal for Italian Free dom. — Her return to Home. — Review of the Civic Guard. — Church Fasts and Feasts. — Pope Pius. — The Rainy Sea son. — Promise of Representative Government in Rome. — Celebration of this event. — Mazzini's Letter to the Pope. — Beauty of the Spring. — Italy in Revolution. — Popular ex citements in Rome. — Pope Pius deserts the-Cause of Free dom. — Margaret leaves Rome for Aquila 219 CHAPTER XIV. Margaret's marriage. — Character of the Marchese Ossoli. — Mar garet's first meeting with him. — Reasons for not divulging the marriage. — Aquila. — Rieti. — Birth of Angelo Eugene Ossoli. — Margaret's return to Rome. — Her anxiety about her child. — Flight of Pope Pius. — The Constitutional As sembly.— The Roman Republic. — Attitude of France.— The Siege of Rome. — Mazzini. — Princess Belgiojoso. — Margaret's care of the Hospitals 232 CHAPTER XV. Siege of Rome. — Margaret's care of the sick and wounded. — Anxiety about her husband and child. — Battle between the French and Italian troops. — The Surrender. — Garibaldi's departure. — Margaret joins her husband at his post. — An- gelo's illness. — Letters from friends in America. — Perugia. Winter in Florence. — Margaret's domestic life. — Aspect of her future. — Her courage and industry. — Ossoli's affection for her. — William Henry Hurlbut's reminiscences of them both. — Last days in Florence. — Farewell visit to the Duo- mo. — Margaret's evenings at home. — Horace Sumner. — Margaret as a friend of the people 245 x CONTENTS. TAC.S f CHAPTER XVI. Margaret turns her face homeward. — Last letter to her mother. — The barque " Elizabeth." — Presages and omens. — Death of the captain. — Angelo's illness. — The wreck. — The long struggle. — The end 265 CHAPTER XVII. Margaret Fuller's Literary Remains . 280 INDEX 293 1 i MARGARET FULLER. CHAPTER I. CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH. SCHOOLDAYS. The subject of the following sketch, Sarah Margaret Fuller, has already been most for tunate in her biographers. Cut off herself in the prime of life, she left behind her devoted friends who were still in their full vigor of thought and sentiment. Three of these, James Freeman Clarke, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and William Henry Channing, set their hand, some thirty or more years ago, to the happy task of preserving for posterity their strong personal impressions of her character and influence. With these pre cious reminiscences were interwoven such ex- tracts from her correspondence and diary as were deemed fittest to supply the outline of her own life and experience. What, it may be asked, can such biographers have left for others to do ? To surpass their work is not to be thought of. But, in the turn 2 , MARGARET FULLER. ing and perseverance of this planet, present soon becomes past, and that which has been best said asks to be said again. This biography, so rich in its suggestions and so valuable in its details, is already set in a past light by the pro gress of men and of things. Its theme has lost none of its interest. Nay, it is through the growing interest felt in Margaret and her work that a demand seems to have arisen for a later word about her, which cannot hope to be better or wiser than the words already made public, but which may borrow from them the inspiration for a new study and presentment. According to the authorities already estab lished, Sarah Margaret Fuller, the child of Tim othy Fuller and Margaret Crane, was born at Cambridgeport, near Boston, on the 23d of May, 1 8 10. She has herself given some account of her early life in an autobiographical sketch which forms the prelude to the work already published. Her father, she says, "was a law yer and a politician," the son of a country clergyman, Harvard-bred both as to his college and his professional studies. She remembers him chiefly as absorbed in the business and in terest of his profession, intent upon compassing the support of his family, and achieving such distinction as might prove compatible with that object. Her mother she describes as " one of CHILDHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH. 3 those fair, flower-like natures, which sometimes spring up even beside the most dusty high ways of life, — bound by one law with the blue sky, the dew, and the frolic birds." And in the arduous labor of her father's life, his love for this sweet mother " was the green spot on which he stood apart from the commonplaces of a mere bread-winning, bread-bestowing existence." The case between Margaret and her father is the first to be disposed of in our consideration of her life and character. In the document just quoted from she does not paint him en bean. Here and elsewhere she seems to have been inclined to charge upon him the excessive study which exaggerated her natural precocity of tem perament, and the Puritan austerity which brought her ungratified imagination into early conflict with the circumstances and surround ings of her start in life. In a brief preface to the memoir already published, a surviving brother of Margaret characterizes this view of the father as inadequate and unjust. Margaret herself called her sketch an auto biographical romance, and evidently wrote it at a period of her life in which her personal expe rience had thrown little light upon the difficul ties which parents encounter in the training of their children, and especially in that of their eldest-born. 4 MARGARET FULLER. From the sketch itself we gather that the Fuller household, although not corresponding to the dreams of its wonder-child, had yet in it elements which were most precious for her right growth and development.