Margaret Fuller (Marchesa Ossoli) Part 10

Pure love, poetic genius, and true religion have done much to vindicate and to restore the normal harmony.

The time has now come when a clearer vision and better action are possible,--when man and woman may stand as pillars of one temple, priests of one worship.

This hope should attain its amplest fruition in our own country, and will do so if the principles from which sprang our national life are adhered to.

Women should now be the best helpers of women. Of men, we need only ask the removal of arbitrary barriers.

The question naturally suggests itself, What use will woman make of her liberty after so many ages of restraint?

Margaret says, in answer, that this freedom will not be immediately given. But, even if it were to come suddenly, she finds in her own s.e.x "a reverence for decorums and limits inherited and enhanced from generation to generation, which years of other life could not efface."

She believes, also, that woman as woman is characterized by a native love of proportion,--a Greek moderation,--which would immediately create a restraining party, and would gradually establish such rules as are needed to guard life without impeding it.

This opinion of Margaret's is in direct contradiction to one very generally held to-day, namely, that women tend more to extremes than men do, and are often seen to exaggerate to irrational frenzy the feelings which agitate the male portion of the community. The reason for this, if honestly sought, can easily be found. Women in whom the power of individual judgment has been either left without training or forcibly suppressed will naturally be led by impulse and enthusiasm, and will be almost certain to inflame still further the kindled pa.s.sions of the men to whom they stand related. Margaret knew this well enough; but she had also known women of a very different type, who had trained and disciplined themselves by the help of that nice sense of measure which belongs to any normal human intelligence, and which, in women, is easily reached and rendered active. It was upon this best and wisest womanhood that Margaret relied for the standard which should redeem the s.e.x from violence and headlong excitement. Here, as elsewhere, she shows her faith in the good elements of human nature, and sees them, in her prophetic vision, as already crowned with an enduring victory.

"I stand in the sunny noon of life. Objects no longer glitter in the dews of morning, neither are yet softened by the shadows of evening.

Every spot is seen, every chasm revealed. Climbing the dusty hill, some fair effigies that once stood for human destiny have been broken. Yet enough is left to point distinctly to the glories of that destiny."

Margaret gives us, as the end of the whole matter, this sentence:--

"Always the soul says to us all, Cherish your best hopes as a faith, and abide by them in action.... Such shall be the effectual fervent means to their fulfilment."

In this sunny noon of life things new and strange were awaiting Margaret. Her days among kindred and country-people were nearly ended.

The last volume given by her to the American public was ent.i.tled "Papers on Art and Literature." Of these, a number had already appeared in print. In her preface she mentions the essay on "American Literature" as one now published for the first time, and also as "a very imperfect sketch," which she hopes to complete by some later utterance. She commends it to us, however, as "written with sincere and earnest feelings, and from a mind that cares for nothing but what is permanent and essential." She thinks it should, therefore, have "some merit, if only in the power of suggestion." It has for us the great interest of making known Margaret's opinion of her compeers in literature, and with her appreciation of these, not always just or adequate, her views of the n.o.ble national life to which American literature, in its maturer growth, should give expression.

Margaret says, at the outset, that "some thinkers" may accuse her of writing about a thing that does not exist. "For," says she, "it does not follow, because many books are written by persons born in America, that there exists an American literature. Books which imitate or represent the thoughts and life of Europe do not const.i.tute an American literature. Before such can exist, an original idea must animate this nation, and fresh currents of life must call into life fresh thoughts along its sh.o.r.es."

In reviewing these first sentences, we are led to say that they partly commend themselves to our judgment, and partly do not. Here, as in much that Margaret has written, a solid truth is found side by side with an illusion. The statement that an American idea should lie at the foundation of our national life and its expression is a truth too often lost sight of by those to whom it most imports. On the other hand, the great body of the world's literature is like an ocean in whose waves and tides there is a continuity which sets at naught the imposition of definite limits. Literature is first of all human; and American books, which express human thought, feeling, and experience, are American literature, even if they show no distinctive national feature.

In what follows, Margaret confesses that her own studies have been largely of the cla.s.sics of foreign countries. She has found, she says, a model "in the simple masculine minds of the great Latin authors." She has observed, too, the features of kindred between the character of the ancient Roman and that of the Briton of to-day.

She remarks upon the reaction which was felt in her time against the revolutionary opposition to the mother country. This reaction, she feels, may be carried too far.

"What suits Great Britain, with her insular position and consequent need to concentrate and intensify her life, her limited monarchy and spirit of trade, does not suit a mixed race, continually enriched (?) with new blood from other stocks the most unlike that of our first descent, with ample field and verge enough to range in and leave every impulse free, and abundant opportunity to develop a genius wide and full as our rivers, luxuriant and impa.s.sioned as our vast prairies, rooted in strength as the rocks on which the Puritan fathers landed."

Margaret antic.i.p.ates for this Western hemisphere the rise and development of such a genius, but says that this cannot come until the fusion of races shall be more advanced, nor "until this nation shall attain sufficient moral and intellectual dignity to prize moral and intellectual no less highly than political freedom."

She finds the earnest of this greater time in the movements already leading to social reforms, and in the "stern sincerity" of elect individuals, but thinks that the influences at work "must go deeper before we can have poets."

At the time of her writing (1844-45) she considers literature as in a "dim and struggling state," with "pecuniary results exceedingly pitiful.

The state of things gets worse and worse, as less and less is offered for works demanding great devotion of time and labor, and the publisher, obliged to regard the transaction as a matter of business, demands of the author only what will find an immediate market, for he cannot afford to take anything else."

Margaret thinks that matters were better in this respect during the first half-century of our republican existence. The country was not then "so deluged with the dingy page reprinted from Europe." Nor did Americans fail to answer sharply the question, "Who reads an American book?" But the books of that period, to which she accords much merit, seem to her so reflected from England in their thought and inspiration, that she inclines to call them English rather than American.

Having expressed these general views, Margaret proceeds to pa.s.s in review the prominent American writers of the time, beginning with the department of history. In this she accords to Prescott industry, the choice of valuable material, and the power of clear and elegant arrangement. She finds his books, however, "wonderfully tame," and characterized by "the absence of thought." In Mr. Bancroft she recognizes a writer of a higher order, possessed of "leading thoughts, by whose aid he groups his facts." Yet, by her own account, she has read him less diligently than his brother historian.

In ethics and philosophy she mentions, as "likely to live and be blessed and honored in the later time," the names of Channing and Emerson. Of the first she says: "His leading idea of the dignity of human nature is one of vast results, and the peculiar form in which he advocated it had a great work to do in this new world.... On great questions he took middle ground, and sought a panoramic view.... He was not well acquainted with man on the impulsive and pa.s.sionate side of his nature, so that his view of character was sometimes narrow, but always n.o.ble."

Margaret turns from the great divine to her Concord friend as one turns from shade to sunshine. "The two men are alike," she says, "in dignity of purpose, disinterest, and purity." But of the two she recognizes Mr.

Emerson as the profound thinker and man of ideas, dealing "with causes rather than with effects." His influence appears to her deep, not wide, but constantly extending its circles. He is to her "a harbinger of the better day."

Irving, Cooper, Miss Sedgwick, and Mrs. Child are briefly mentioned, but with characteristic appreciation. "The style of story current in the magazines" is p.r.o.nounced by her "flimsy beyond any texture that was ever spun or dreamed of by the mind of man."

Our friend now devotes herself to the poets of America, at whose head she places "Mr. Bryant, alone." Genuineness appears to be his chief merit, in her eyes, for she does not find his genius either fertile or comprehensive. "But his poetry is purely the language of his inmost nature, and the simple, lovely garb in which his thoughts are arrayed, a direct gift from the Muse."

Halleck, Willis, and Dana receive each their meed of praise at her hands. Pa.s.sing over what is said, and well said, of them, we come to a criticism on Mr. Longfellow, which is much at variance with his popular reputation, and which, though acute and well hit, will hardly commend itself to-day to the judgment either of the learned or unlearned. For, even if Mr. Longfellow's inspiration be allowed to be a reflected rather than an original one, the mirror of his imagination is so pure and broad, and the images it reflects are so beautiful, that the world of our time confesses itself greatly his debtor. The spirit of his life, too, has put the seal of a rare earnestness and sincerity upon his legacy to the world of letters. But let us hear Margaret's estimate of him:--

"Longfellow is artificial and imitative. He borrows incessantly, and mixes what he borrows, so that it does not appear to the best advantage.... The ethical part of his writing has a hollow, second-hand sound. He has, however, elegance, a love of the beautiful, and a fancy for what is large and manly, if not a full sympathy with it. His verse breathes at times much sweetness. Though imitative, he is not mechanical."

In an article of some length, printed in connection with this, but first published in the "New York Tribune," Margaret's dispraise of this poet is in even larger proportion to her scant commendation of him. This review was called forth by the appearance of an ill.u.s.trated edition of Mr. Longfellow's poems, most of which had already appeared in smaller volumes, and in the Annuals, which once figured so largely in the show-aesthetics of society. Mr. Greeley, in some published reminiscences, tells us that Margaret undertook this task with great reluctance. He, on the other hand, was too much overwhelmed with business to give the volume proper notice, and so persuaded Margaret to deal with it as she could.

After formulating a definition of poetry which she considers "large enough to include all excellence," she laments the dearth of true poetry, and a.s.serts that "never was a time when satirists were more needed to scourge from Parna.s.sus the magpies who are devouring the food scattered there for the singing birds." This scourge she somewhat exercises upon writers who "did not write because they felt obliged to relieve themselves of the swelling thought within, but as an elegant exercise which may win them rank and reputation above the crowd. Their lamp is not lit by the sacred and inevitable lightning from above, but carefully fed by their own will to be seen of men."

These metaphors no longer express the most accepted view of poetical composition. It has been found that those who write chiefly to relieve themselves are very apt to do so at the expense of the reading public.

The "inevitable lightning," with which some are stricken, does not lead to such good work as does the "lamp carefully fed" by a steadfast will, whose tenor need not be summarily judged.

These strictures are intended to apply to versifiers in England as well as in America.

"Yet," she says, "there is a middle cla.s.s, composed of men of little original poetic power, but of much poetic taste and sensibility, whom we would not wish to have silenced. They do no harm, but much good (if only their minds are not confounded with those of a higher cla.s.s), by educating in others the faculties dominant in themselves." In this cla.s.s she places Mr. Longfellow, towards whom she confesses "a coolness, in consequence of the exaggerated praises that have been bestowed upon him." Perhaps the best thing she says about him is that "nature with him, whether human or external, is always seen through the windows of literature."

Mr. Longfellow did, indeed, dwell in the beautiful house of culture, but with a heart deeply sensitive to the touch of the humanity that lay encamped around it. In the "Psalm of Life," his banner, blood-red with sympathy, was hung upon the outer wall. And all his further parley with the world was through the silver trumpet of peace.

According much praise to William Ellery Channing, and not a little to Cornelius Matthews, a now almost forgotten writer, Margaret declares Mr.

Lowell to be "absolutely wanting in the true spirit and tone of poesy."

She says further:--

"His interest in the moral questions of the day has supplied the want of vitality in himself. His great facility at versification has enabled him to fill the ear with a copious stream of pleasant sound. But his verse is stereotyped, his thought sounds no depth, and posterity will not remember him."

The "Biglow Papers" were not yet written, nor the "Vision of Sir Launfal." Still less was foreseen the period of the struggle whose victorious close drew from Mr. Lowell a "Commemoration Ode" worthy to stand beside Mr. Emerson's "Boston Hymn."

In presenting a study of Margaret's thoughts and life, it seemed to us impossible to omit some consideration of her p.r.o.nounced opinions concerning the most widely known of her American compeers in literature.

Having brought these before the reader, we find it difficult to say the right word concerning them.

In accepting or rejecting a criticism, we should consider, first, its intention; secondly, its method; and, in the third place, its standard.

If the first be honorable, the second legitimate, and the third substantial, we shall adopt the conclusion arrived at as a just result of a.n.a.lytic art.

In the judgments just quoted, we must believe the intention to have been a sincere one. But neither the method nor the standard satisfies us. The one is arbitrary, the other unreal. Our friend's appreciation of her contemporaries was influenced, at the time of her writing, by idiosyncrasies of her own which could not give the law to the general public. These were shown in her great dislike of the smooth and stereotyped in manner, and her impatience of the common level of thought and sentiment. The unusual had for her a great attraction. It promised originality, which to her seemed a condition of truth itself. She has said in this very paper: "No man can be absolutely true to himself, eschewing cant, compromise, servile imitation, and complaisance, without becoming original."

Here we seem to find a confusion between two conceptions of the word "original." Originality in one acceptation is vital and universal. We originate from the start, and do not _become original_. But the power to develop forms of thought which shall deserve to be called original is a rare gift, and one which even conscience cannot command at will.

The sentences here quoted and commented on show us that Margaret, almost without her own knowledge, was sometimes a partisan of the intellectual reaction of the day, which attacked, in the name of freedom, the fine, insensible tyranny of form and precedent. In its place were temporarily enthroned the spontaneous and pa.s.sionate. Miracles were expected to follow this change of base, oracles from children, availing philosophies from people who were rebels against all philosophy. Margaret's pa.s.sionate hopefulness at times carried her within this sphere, where, however, her fine perceptions and love of thorough culture did not allow her to remain.

CHAPTER X.

OCEAN VOYAGE.--ARRIVAL AT LIVERPOOL.--THE LAKE COUNTRY.--WORDSWORTH.--MISS MARTINEAU.--EDINBURGH.--DE QUINCEY.--MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.--NIGHT ON BEN LOMOND.--JAMES MARTINEAU.--WILLIAM J.

FOX.--LONDON.--JOANNA BAILLIE.--MAZZINI.--THOMAS CARLYLE.--MARGARET'S IMPRESSIONS OF HIM.--HIS ESTIMATE OF HER.