Margaret Fuller (Marchesa Ossoli) Part 6

CHAPTER VII.

MARGARET'S LOVE OF CHILDREN.--VISIT TO CONCORD AFTER THE DEATH OF WALDO EMERSON.--CONVERSATIONS IN BOSTON.--SUMMER ON THE LAKES.

Among Margaret's life-long characteristics was a genuine love of little children, which sprang from a deep sense of the beauty and sacredness of childhood. When she visited the homes of her friends, the little ones of their households were taken into the circle of her loving attention.

Three of these became so especially dear to her that she called them her children. These were Waldo Emerson, Pickie Greeley, and Herman Clarke.

For each of them the span of earthly life was short, no one of them living to pa.s.s out of childhood.

Waldo was the eldest son of Mr. Emerson, the child deeply mourned and commemorated by him in the well-known threnody:--

"The hyacinthine boy for whom Morn well might break and April bloom.

The gracious boy who did adorn The world whereinto he was born, And by his countenance repay The favor of the loving Day, Has disappeared from the Day's eye."

This death occurred in 1841. Margaret visited Concord soon afterward, and has left in her journals a brief record of this visit, in which she made the grief of her friends her own. We gather from its first phrase that Mr. Emerson, whom she now speaks of as "Waldo," had wished her to commit to writing some of her reminiscences of the dear one lately departed:--

"Waldo brought me at once the inkhorn and pen. I told him if he kept me so strictly to my promise I might lose my ardor; however, I began at once to write for him, but not with much success. Lidian came in to see me before dinner. She wept for the lost child, and I was tempted to do the same, which relieved much from the oppression I have felt since I came. Waldo showed me all he and others had written about the child; there is very little from Waldo's own observation, though he was with him so much. He has not much eye for the little signs in children that have such great leadings. The little there is, is good.

"'Mamma, may I have this little bell which I have been making, to stand by the side of my bed?'

"'Yes, it may stand there.'

"'But, mamma, I am afraid it will alarm you. It may sound in the middle of the night, and it will be heard over the whole town. It will sound like some great gla.s.s thing which will fall down and break all to pieces; it will be louder than a thousand hawks; it will be heard across the water and in all the countries, it will be heard all over the world.'

"I like this, because it was exactly so he talked, spinning away without end and with large, beautiful, earnest eyes. But most of the stories are of short sayings.

"This is good in M. Russell's journal of him. She had been telling him a story that excited him, and then he told her this: 'How his horse went out into a long, long wood, and how he looked through a squirrel's eyes and saw a great giant, and the giant was himself.'

"Went to see the Hawthornes; it was very pleasant, the poplars whisper so suddenly their pleasant tale, and everywhere the view is so peaceful.

The house within I like, all their things are so expressive of themselves and mix in so gracefully with the old furniture. H. walked home with me; we stopped some time to look at the moon. She was struggling with clouds. He said he should be much more willing to die than two months ago, for he had had some real possession in life; but still he never wished to leave this earth, it was beautiful enough. He expressed, as he always does, many fine perceptions. I like to hear the lightest thing he says.

"Waldo and I have good meetings, though we stop at all our old places.

But my expectations are moderate now; it is his beautiful presence that I prize far more than our intercourse. He has been reading me his new poems, and the other day at the end he asked me how I liked the 'little subjective twinkle all through.'

"_Sat.u.r.day._ Dear Richard has been here a day or two, and his common sense and homely affection are grateful after these fine people with whom I live at sword's points, though for the present turned downwards.

It is well to 'thee' and 'thou' it after talking with angels and geniuses. Richard and I spent the afternoon at Walden and got a great bunch of flowers. A fine thunder-shower gloomed gradually up and turned the lake inky black, but no rain came till sunset.

"_Sunday._ A heavy rain. I must stay at home. I feel sad. Mrs. Ripley was here, but I only saw her a while in the afternoon and spent the day in my room. Sunday I do not give to my duty writing, no indeed. I finished yesterday, after a rest, the article on ballads. Though a patchwork thing, it has craved time to do it."

We come now to the period of the famous conversations in which, more fully than in aught else, Margaret may be said to have delivered her message to the women of her time. The novelty of such a departure in the Boston of forty years ago may be imagined, and also the division of opinion concerning it in those social circles which consider themselves as charged with the guardianship of the taste of the community.

Margaret's att.i.tude in view of this undertaking appears to have been a modest and sensible one. She found herself, in the first place, under the necessity of earning money for her own support and in aid of her family. Her greatest gift, as she well knew, was in conversation. Her rare eloquence did not much avail her at her desk, and though all that she wrote had the value of thought and of study, it was in living speech alone that her genius made itself entirely felt and appreciated. What more natural than that she should have proposed to make this rare gift available for herself and others? The reasons which she herself gives for undertaking the experiment are so solid and sufficient as to make us blush retrospectively for the merriment in which the thoughtless world sometimes indulged concerning her. Her wish was "to pa.s.s in review the departments of thought and knowledge, and endeavor to place them in due relation to one another in our minds; to systematize thought, and give a precision and clearness in which our s.e.x are so deficient, chiefly, I think, because they have so few inducements to test and cla.s.sify what they receive." In fine, she hoped to be able to throw some light upon the momentous questions, "What were we born to do, and how shall we do it?"

In looking forward to this effort, she saw one possible obstacle in "that sort of vanity which wears the garb of modesty," and which, she thinks, may make some women fear "to lay aside the shelter of vague generalities, the art of coterie criticism," and the "delicate disdains of _good society_," even to obtain a nearer view of truth itself. "Yet,"

she says, "as without such generous courage nothing of value can be learned or done, I hope to see many capable of it."

The twofold impression which Margaret made is to be remarked in this matter of the conversations, as elsewhere. Without the fold of her admirers stood carping, unkind critics; within were enthusiastic and grateful friends.

The first meeting of Margaret's Conversation Cla.s.s was held at Miss Peabody's rooms, in West Street, Boston, on the 6th of November, 1839.

Twenty-five ladies were present, who showed themselves to be of the elect by their own election of a n.o.ble aim. These were all ladies of superior position, gathered by a common interest from very various belongings of creed and persuasion. At this, their first coming together, Margaret prefaced her programme by some remarks on the deficiencies in the education given to women, defects which she thought that later study, aided by the stimulus of mutual endeavor and interchange of thought, might do much to remedy. Her opening remarks are as instructive to-day as they were when she uttered them:--

"Women are now taught, at school, all that men are. They run over, superficially, even _more_ studies, without being really taught anything. 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 that these conversations have been planned."

Margaret had chosen the Greek Mythology for the subject of her first conversations. Her reasons for this selection are worth remembering:--

"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 also generally known, and a.s.sociated with all our ideas of the arts."

In considering this statement it is not difficult for us at this day to read, as people say, between the lines. The religious world of Margaret's youth was agitated by oppositions which rent asunder the heart of Christendom. Margaret wished to lead her pupils beyond all discord, into the high and happy unity. Her own nature was both fervent and religious, but she could not accept intolerance either in belief or in disbelief. To study with her friends the ethics of an ancient faith, too remote to become the occasion of personal excitement, seemed to her a step in the direction of freer thought and a more unbia.s.sed criticism.

The Greek mythology, instinct with the genius of a wonderful people, afforded her the desired theme. With its help she would introduce her pupils to a sphere of serenest contemplation, in which Religion and Beauty had become wedded through immortal types.

Margaret was not able to do this without awakening some orthodox suspicion. This she knew how to allay; for when one of the cla.s.s demurred at the supposition that a Christian nation could have anything to envy in the religion of a heathen one, Margaret said 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 G.o.ds were the result of the universal sentiments of religion, aspiration, intellectual action, of a people whose political and aesthetic life had become immortal.

Margaret's good hopes were justified by the success of her undertaking.

The value of what she had to impart was felt by her cla.s.s from the first. It was not received in a pa.s.sive and compliant manner, but with the earnest questioning which she had wished to awaken, and which she was so well able both to promote and to satisfy.

In the first of her conversations ten of the twenty-five persons present took part, and this number continued to increase in later meetings. Some of these ladies had been bred in the ways of liberal thought, some held fast to the formal limits of the old theology. The extremes of bigotry and scepticism were probably not unrepresented among them. From these differences and dissidences Margaret was able to combine the elements of a wider agreement. A common ground of interest was found in the range of topics presented by her, and in her manner of presenting them. The enlargement of a new sympathy was made to modify the intense and narrow interests in which women, as a cla.s.s, are apt to abide.

Margaret's journal and letters to friends give some accounts of the first meetings. She finds her circle, from the start, devoutly thoughtful, and feels herself, not "a paid Corinne," but a teacher and a guide. The bright minds respond to her appeal, as half-kindled coals glow beneath a strong and sudden breath. The present, always arid if exclusively dwelt in, is enriched by the treasures of the past and animated by the great hopes of the future.

Reports from some of Margaret's hearers show us how she appeared to them:--

"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."

Another writer finds in the _seance_ "the charm of a Platonic dialogue,"

without pretension or pedantry. Margaret, in her chair of leadership, appeared positively beautiful in her intelligent enthusiasm. Even her dress was glorified by this influence, and is spoken of as sumptuous, although it is known to have been characterized by no display or attempted effect.

In Margaret's plan the personages of the Greek Olympus were considered as types of various aspects of human character. Prometheus became the embodiment of pure reason. Jupiter stood for active, Juno for pa.s.sive will, the one representing insistence, the other resistance. Minerva pictured the practical power of the intellect. Apollo became the symbol of genius, Bacchus that of geniality. Venus was instinctive womanhood, and also a type of the Beautiful, to the consideration of which four conversations were devoted. In a fifth, Margaret related the story of Cupid and Psyche in a manner which indelibly impressed itself upon the minds of her hearers. Other conversations presented Neptune as circ.u.mstance, Pluto as the abyss of the undeveloped, Pan as the glow and play of nature, etc. Thus in picturesque guise the great questions of life and of character were pa.s.sed in review. A fresh and fearless a.n.a.lysis of human conditions showed, as a discovery, the grandeur and beauty of man's spiritual inheritance. All were cheered and uplifted by this new outlook, sharing for the time and perhaps thenceforth what Mr.

Emerson calls "the steady elevation of Margaret's aim."

These occasions, so highly prized and enjoyed, sometimes brought to Margaret their penalty in the shape of severe nervous headache. During one of these attacks a friend expressed anxiety lest she should continue to suffer in this way. Margaret replied: "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."

In accordance with the urgent desire of the cla.s.s the conversations were renewed at the beginning of the following winter, Margaret having in the mean time profited by a season of especial retirement which was not without influence upon her plan of thought and of life. From this interval of religious contemplation she returned to her labors with the feeling of a new power. In opening the first meeting of this second series, on November 22, 1840, Margaret spoke of great changes which had taken place in her way of thinking. These were of so deep and sacred a character that she could only give them a partial expression, which, however, sufficed to touch her hearers deeply. "They all, with glistening eyes, seemed melted into one love." Hearts were kindled by her utterance to one enthusiasm of sympathy which set out of sight the possibility of future estrangement.

In the conversations of this winter (1840-41) the fine arts held a prominent place.

Margaret stated, at the beginning, that the poetry of life would be found in the advance "from objects to law, from the circ.u.mference of being, where we found ourselves at our birth, to the centre." This poetry was "the only path of the true soul," life's prose being the deviation from this ideal way. The fine arts she considered a compensation for this prose, which appeared to her inevitable. The beauties which life could not embody might be expressed in stone, upon canvas, or in music and verse. She did not permit the search for the beautiful to transcend the limits of our social and personal duties. The pursuit of aesthetic pleasure might lead us to fail in attaining the higher beauty. A poetic life was not the life of a _dilettante_.

Of sculpture and music she had much to say, placing them above all other arts. Painting appeared to her inferior to sculpture, because it represented a greater variety of objects, and thus involved more prose.

Several conversations were, nevertheless, devoted to Painting, and the conclusion was reached that color was consecrate to pa.s.sion and sculpture to thought; while yet in some sculptures, like the Niobe, for example, feeling was recognized, but on a grand, universal scale.

The question, "What is life?" occupied one meeting, and brought out many differences of view, which Margaret at last took up into a higher ground, beginning with G.o.d as the eternally loving and creating life, and recognizing in human nature a kindred power of love and of creation, through the exercise of which we also add constantly to the total sum of existence, and, leaving behind us ignorance and sin, become G.o.dlike in the ability to give, as well as to receive, happiness.