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Margaret Fuller

Page 48

by Megan Marshall


  Antiochiana: Robert Lincoln Straker typescript collection of Peabody family papers, Antioch College

  Berg: Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations

  BPL: Rare Books and Manuscripts, Trustees of the Boston Public Library

  FMW: Fuller Manuscripts and Works, Houghton Library, Harvard University

  MHS: Massachusetts Historical Society

  PSR: Swedenborgian House of Studies, Pacific School of Religion

  Smith: Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College

  PROLOGUE

  [>] “what is most”: WHC, “Papers,” BPL, quoted in CFII, p. 508.

  [>] “Nothing personal”: MF, “1849 Journal” bMS Am 1086 [4] FMW.

  [>] “first acquaintance”: Ibid., p. 3.

  [>] “The people”: Leona Rostenberg, ed., “Margaret Fuller’s Roman Diary,” Journal of Modern History, vol. 12, no. 2, June 1940, p. 213.

  [>] “Monstrous are the treacheries”: Ibid., p. 215.

  [>] “Rome is barricaded”: Ibid., p. 220.

  [>] “will not take off”: MF, “The Great Lawsuit. Man versus Men. Woman versus Women,” Dial, vol. 4, no. 1, July 1843, p. 30.

  [>] a “fore-sayer”: FLIII, p. 106.

  [>] “the great radical dualism”: “The Great Lawsuit,” p. 43.

  [>] “There is no wholly”: Ibid.

  [>] “a woman whose”: Ibid., p. 29.

  [>] “fulness of being”: Ibid., p. 35.

  [>] “history of feeling”: FLVI, p. 76.

  [>] “represent the female”: WNC, p. 161.

  [>] “takes rank in society”: FLIV, p. 256.

  [>] “mind that insisted”: FLV, p. 301.

  [>] “life rushes”: MF, Essays on American Life and Letters, Joel Myerson, ed. (Albany, N.Y.: NCUP, 1978), p. 379.

  [>] “expansive fellowship”: ELIII, p. 394.

  [>] Nathaniel Hawthorne: For an in-depth treatment of the friendship of MF and Nathaniel Hawthorne, see Thomas R. Mitchell, Hawthorne’s Fuller Mystery (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998).

  [>] “When a writer”: Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, in Collected Novels (New York: Library of America, 1983), p. 351.

  [>] “we propose”: “The Great Lawsuit,” p. 10.

  [>] young “lovers”: ELII, p. 332.

  [>] “ardent and onward-looking”: FLIII, p. 156.

  [>] “genius” would be: FLII, p. 172.

  [>] “From a very”: FLVI, p. 134.

  [>] fifty thousand readers: “half a hundred thousand readers,” FLIV, p. 56.

  [>] “Another century”: Dispatches, p. 245.

  [>] “The scrolls”: FLII, p. 249.

  [>] “a little space”: FLII, p. 249.

  [>] “empowering me”: FLII, p. 187.

  1. THREE LETTERS

  [>] “dear Father”: FLI, p. 79, original document fMS Am 1086 [9:1] FMW.

  [>] “severe though kind”: Quoted in MMM, p. 12.

  [>] “original,” worthy: Quoted in CFI, p. 38.

  [>] “I have learned”: FLI, p. 81, original document fMS Am 1086 [9:3] FMW.

  [>] of her “stile”: Quoted in CFI, p. 50.

  [>] “as near perfection”: Quoted in MMM, p. 21.

  [>] “high scholar”: OMI, p. 14.

  [>] “on the stretch”: OMI, p. 15.

  [>] “absolutely no patience”: OMI, p. 17.

  [>] “I do not”: FLI, p. 81.

  [>] “To excel”: Quoted in MMM, p. 17.

  [>] “speaks of”: FLI, p. 81.

  [>] “soft, graceful”: OMI, p. 14.

  [>] “severe sweetness”: OMI, p. 13.

  [>] “My first experience”: OMI, p. 14.

  [>] “She who would”: OMI, p. 14.

  [>] “delicate” in health: OMI, p. 17.

  [>] “with loud cries”: OMI, p. 13.

  [>] “I assure”: FLI, p. 91.

  [>] difficult, “opinionative”: Quoted in CFI, p. 67.

  [>] The Deserted Village: FLI, p. 91.

  [>] “profoundly into”: Quoted in MMM, p. 21.

  [>] “my mother’s hand”: OMI, p. 23.

  [>] “flower-like nature”: OMI, p. 12.

  [>] “Do not let”: FLI, p. 91.

  [>] “power to disengage”: Quoted in MMM, p. 36. Murray’s discussion of MF’s early reading has been formative to my work, and I refer readers to her chapter “The World of Books,” MMM, pp. 33–44.

  [>] “a new tale”: FLI, p. 94.

  [>] “P S I do not like”: FLI, p. 95.

  2. ELLEN KILSHAW

  [>] signed “Margaret”: FLI, p. 89.

  [>] “first friend”: OMI, p. 32.

  [>] “an English lady”: OMI, p. 33.

  [>] “Elegant and captivating”: OMI, p. 33.

  [>] “comfortable” yet “very ugly”: OMI, p. 23.

  [>] “unsavory” soap factory: MF’s brother Richard F. Fuller, Recollections of Richard F. Fuller (Boston: privately printed, 1936), p. 8.

  [>] “child of masculine energy”: Martha L. Berg and Alice de V. Perry, eds., “‘The Impulses of Human Nature’: Margaret Fuller’s Journal from June Through October 1844,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. 102, 1990, p. 115.

  [>] “violent bodily exercise”: OMI, p. 41.

  [>] “a habit and a passion”: OMI, p. 22.

  [>] “the girls supposed”: OMI, p. 41.

  [>] “given up”: OMI, p. 41.

  [>] presenting a “mesquin”: OMI, p. 23.

  [>] “a new apparition”: OMI, p. 33.

  [>] “the river”: FLIII, p. 81.

  [>] “atmosphere of”: OMI, p. 41.

  [>] “I saw”: OMI, p. 39.

  [>] “face most fair” . . . “graceful pliancy”: OMI, p. 33.

  [>] “my first real”: OMI, p. 34.

  [>] “growing beneath”: OMI, p. 33.

  [>] “heralds of”: OMI, p. 34.

  [>] “from a distance”: OMI, p. 35.

  [>] “reserve” . . . “self-possession” . . . “timidity”: OMI, p. 33.

  [>] “All accomplishments”: Quoted in VM, p. 20.

  [>] “the heir of all”: OMI, p. 14.

  [>] “no woman dares”: Quoted in MMM, p. 9.

  [>] “so well pleased”: Quoted in VM, p. 19.

  [>] “delicious hour[s]”: Quoted in CFI, p. 14.

  [>] “the man looks”: WNC, p. 59.

  [>] “piece of good fortune”: Quoted in CFI, p. 16.

  [>] “throbs of ambition”: Quoted in CFI, p. 17.

  [>] “hasty temper”: Quoted in MMM, p. 11.

  [>] “a tyrant”: OMI, p. 28.

  [>] “such an overflowing”: Quoted in CFI, p. 18.

  [>] “more romantically”: Quoted in MMM, p. 18.

  [>] “your absent Lord”: Quoted in MMM, p. 24.

  [>] “disobedient spouse”: Quoted in MMM, p. 24.

  [>] “wayward” behavior: Quoted in MMM, pp. 19–20.

  [>] “you in my eye”: Quoted in MMM, p. 19.

  [>] “highly cultivated”: OMI, p. 33.

  [>] “so surprising”: Quoted in CFI, p. 41.

  [>] “better than my life”: FLI, p. 94.

  [>] “the lonely child”: OMI, p. 39.

  [>] “the voice”: OMI, p. 38.

  [>] “a region”: OMI, p. 39.

  [>] “shallow and delicate”: OMI, p. 39.

  [>] “melancholy”: OMI, p. 40.

  [>] “would not be pacified”: OMI, p. 40.

  [>] “All joy”: OMI, p. 40.

  [>] “In the more”: OMI, p. 12.

  [>] “my pair of Ms”: Quoted in MMM, p. 13.

  [>] “effeminate”: Quoted in CFI, p. 29.

  [>] “I am rather”: Quoted in VM, p. 22.

  [>] “she could never”: Quoted in CFI, p. 54.

  [>] “Sarah Margarett”: Quoted in MMM, p. 18.

  [>] “a very feasible”: FLI, p. 115.
r />   [>] “impertinent”: Quoted in VM, p. 21.

  [>] “I see in Sarah M.”: Quoted in VM, p. 20.

  [>] “I have long thought” . . . “I intend”: Quoted in VM, p. 22.

  [>] “to make”: Quoted in MMM, p. 32.

  [>] “Whenever I find”: Quoted in CFI, p. 38.

  [>] “how deep”: FLII, p. 176.

  [>] “‘Madeira’ seemed”: OMI, p. 36.

  3. THEME: “POSSUNT QUIA POSSE VIDENTUR”

  [>] “They can conquer”: I have used Dryden’s 1697 translation of line 231 from book five of Virgil’s Aeneid, the translation MF would have known.

  [>] “Theme corrected”: bMS Am 1086A, FMW.

  [>] “man of business”: OMI, p. 14.

  [>] “demanded accuracy”: OMI, p. 17.

  [>] “had no conception”: OMI, pp. 16–18.

  [>] “I thought”: OMI, p. 22.

  [>] “Beauties of Nature”: fMS Am 1086 [9] FMW.

  [>] “too much strength”: OMI, p. 18.

  [>] “loved to conquer”: OMI, p. 22.

  [>] “a victim”: OMI, pp. 15–16.

  [>] “came with”: Oliver Wendell Holmes, quoted in CFI, p. 46.

  [>] “a revelation” and further Holmes commentary: Quoted in CFI, p. 46; VM, p. 18.

  [>] “Miss Mary”: FLI, p. 96.

  [>] her “deficiencies”: Quoted in MMM, p. 48.

  [>] “very corpulent”: Quoted in MMM, p. 48.

  [>] a “robust” girl: Frederic Henry Hedge, quoted in CFI, p. 65.

  [>] “polite forms”: Quoted in CFI, p. 56.

  [>] “grown up gentlemen”: FLI, p. 118.

  [>] “display” her “attainments”: TF, quoted in CFI, p. 63.

  [>] “eye of Intelligence”: FLI, p. 114.

  [>] “prodigy of talent”: WHC, quoted in CFI, p. 60.

  [>] “wonderful child”: Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, quoted in MMM, p. 47.

  [>] “had not religion”: Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, quoted in CFI, p. 60.

  [>] “I get the card”: FLI, p. 98.

  [>] “defies the god”: Quoted in MMM, pp. 41–42.

  [>] “the dashing misses”: Frederic Henry Hedge, quoted in CFI, p. 61.

  [>] “a sad feeling”: WHC, quoted in CFI, p. 60.

  [>] “with indiscriminate”: Frederic Henry Hedge, quoted in CFI, p. 61.

  [>] “rhapsodical intimations”: Quoted in CFI, p. 58.

  [>] “this hopeful”: MCF, quoted in CFI, p. 65.

  [>] “manners and disposition”: Quoted in CFI, p. 69.

  [>] “address” . . . “that he never”: FLI, p. 121.

  [>] “he had never”: Quoted in CFI, p. 62.

  [>] “exceedingly agreeable”: FLI, p. 127.

  [>] “well over”: Quoted in CFI, p. 64.

  [>] “notoriously unpopular”: Quoted in CFI, p. 65.

  [>] “nobility of blood”: FLI, p. 89.

  [>] “my natural”: FLI, p. 332.

  4. MARIANA

  [>] red “flush”: MF journal c. March 1834 FMW, quoted in CFI, p. 65.

  [>] “eruption” on Margaret’s face: Quoted in CFI, p. 65.

  [>] “mortified to see”: MF journal c. March 1834 FMW, quoted in CFI, p. 65.

  [>] need for “instruction”: Quoted in CFI, p. 73.

  [>] “an odd and unpleasing”: FLVI, p. 59.

  [>] “much taller”: FLIV, p. 137.

  [>] “too independent”: MCF, quoted in CFI, p. 66.

  [>] “wounded” vanity: MF journal c. March 1834 FMW, quoted in CFI, p. 65.

  [>] “for I should grieve”: Quoted in CFI, p. 71.

  [>] having been “disappointed”: Quoted in CFI, p. 64.

  [>] “cheapen her value”: Quoted in CFI, p. 66.

  [>] “She certainly”: Quoted in CFI, p. 65.

  [>] “I hope you will”: FLI, p. 132.

  [>] “not see you”: FLI, p. 135.

  [>] “judicious country”: Quoted in CFI, p. 74.

  [>] “a fair opportunity”: Quoted in CFI, p. 75.

  [>] “Orthography, Reading”: Reprinted in Samuel Abbott Green, Groton Historical Series, vol. 3, no. 9 (Groton, Mass.: 1893), p. 405; quoted in CFI, p. 71.

  [>] “I feel myself”: FLI, p. 139.

  [>] “I did not intend”: FLI, p. 139.

  [>] “those who had”: OMI, p. 52.

  [>] “been unfortunately”: The story of Mariana, SOL, pp. 51–58. Margaret may have borrowed the name and some personality traits from Goethe’s headstrong and histrionic Mariana of Wilhelm Meister, a character who, as Margaret once wrote in her journal, liked to “range the orchards as a freebooter, & sit in the boughs of the withered apple tree like Charles 2d in the royal oak.” Martha L. Berg and Alice de V. Perry, eds., “‘The Impulses of Human Nature’: Margaret Fuller’s Journal from June Through October 1844,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. 102, 1990, p. 61.

  [>] “those sad experiences”: FLI, p. 160.

  [>] “I feel the power”: FLI, p. 151.

  [>] “I am determined”: FLI, p. 152.

  [>] “a gladiatorial”: FLI, p. 155.

  5. THE YOUNG LADY’S FRIENDS

  [>] “I expect”: FLI, p. 150.

  [>] “translate[d]” through her reading: FLI, p. 153.

  [>] “so slow”: FLIII, p. 105.

  [>] “one of the most”: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1884), p. 27.

  [>] “a young girl”: Ibid., p. 29.

  [>] “feudal hall”: FLI, p. 153.

  [>] “There is a constant”: Elizabeth Palmer Peabody to Maria Chase, May 1821, Peabody Family Papers, Smith.

  [>] “born leader”: Anna Parsons, quoted in CFI, p. 94.

  [>] “How did she glorify”: OMI, p. 78.

  [>] “sarcastic, supercilious”: Kate Sanborn, quoted in Joel Myerson, Fuller in Her Own Time (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2008), p. xxiii.

  [>] disdain for “mediocrity”: OMI, p. 64.

  [>] “know as much”: Margaret Fuller Ossoli, p. 25.

  [>] “Each was”: OMI, pp. 103–4.

  [>] “never rested”: OMI, p. 104.

  [>] “be capable”: OMI, p. 78.

  [>] “should not”: OMI, p. 64.

  [>] “marked the very dawn”: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, quoted in Deborah Pickman Clifford, Crusader for Freedom: A Life of Lydia Maria Child (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), p. 41.

  [>] “restless insatiable”: Ibid., p. 50.

  [>] “harmless arrow”: Ibid., p. 53.

  [>] “possessed a large”: Ibid., p. 57.

  [>] “honest independence”: Ibid., p. 50.

  [>] “a natural person”: FLI, p. 154.

  [>] “accidental advantages”: Quoted in CFI, p. 95.

  [>] “brilliant” de Staël: FLI, p. 154.

  [>] “like a butterfly”: Crusader for Freedom, p. 54.

  [>] “a poor isolated”: Ibid., p. 53.

  [>] “was the beginning”: George Curtis, quoted in Crusader for Freedom, p. 70.

  [>] less “careful”: Mrs. John [Eliza Rotch] Farrar, Recollections of Seventy Years (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1866), p. 171.

  [>] “an American freedom”: Charles Eliot Norton, “Reminiscences of Old Cambridge,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Historical Society, vol. 1, 1905, p. 17. See also Elizabeth Bancroft Schlesinger, “Two Early Harvard Wives: Eliza Farrar and Eliza Follen,” New England Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 2, June 1965, pp. 147–67.

  [>] “elected” mother: Quoted in CFI, p. 97.

  [>] “mould her”: Margaret Fuller Ossoli, p. 36.

  [>] “the most intolerable”: Harriet Martineau, quoted in Fuller in Her Own Time, p. xxiii.

  [>] become a “gentlewoman”: [Eliza Ware Rotch Farrar], The Young Lady’s Friend (Boston: American Stationers’ Company, John B. Russell, 1837), p. 318.

  [>] “In no country”: Ibid., p. 319.

  [>] “dragged round”: Ibid., pp. 112–14.

  [>] �
�who attend”: Ibid., p. 318.

  [>] “run, jump”: Ibid., p. 325.

  [>] “one of the highest”: Ibid., pp. 385–86.

  [>] “the precious”: Ibid., pp. 2–3.

  6. ELECTIVE AFFINITIES

  [>] the “brutal” Constantine: FLI, p. 152.

  [>] “My whole being”: FLI, p. 164.

  [>] “anxious suspense”: FLI, p. 153.

  [>] “powerful eye” . . . “imposing maniere”: FLII, p. 154.

  [>] “inclined to idealize”: FLIII, p. 156.

  [>] “truly myself”: FLVI, p. 234.

  [>] “like a plaything”: John Wesley Thomas, ed., The Letters of James Freeman Clarke to Margaret Fuller (Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter, 1957), p. 97.

  [>] “Her mind”: WNC, p. 29.

  [>] “intellectual abandon”: JFC, quoted in CFI, p. 102.

  [>] “pull people”: Sarah Clarke, quoted in CFI, p. 103.

  [>] “gladiatorial disposition”: FLI, p. 155.

  [>] “contempt for”: OMI, p. 104.

  [>] “aching wish”: FLI, p. 155.

  [>] “communicate more”: FLVI, p. 272.

  [>] “so open” . . . “intimacy”: FLVI, p. 234.

  [>] souls to be “conjugal”: FLVI, p. 134.

  [>] “brilliant vivacity”: FLVI, pp. 160, 159.

  [>] “I have determined”: FLI, pp. 158–59.

  [>] “When disappointed”: FLI, p. 159.

  [>] whose “pride”: FLI, p. 158.

  [>] declared himself “satisfied”: FLVI, pp. 161–62.

  [>] “Ah weakness”: SOL, pp. 59, 58.

  [>] “insincerity and heartlessness”: FLVI, p. 102.

  [>] “Thoughts he had”: SOL, pp. 59–60.

  [>] If “separation” was possible: FLI, p. 347.

  [>] “given” to her: FLIII, p. 197.

  [>] “my child”: FLII, p. 187.

  [>] “while night”: FLII, p. 187.

  [>] “thirty-seven degrees”: FLI, p. 161.

  [>] “answering store”: FLI, pp. 162–63.

  [>] “pleasure . . . of finding”: FLVI, p. 134.

  [>] “It seems”: FLI, p. 177.

  [>] “extraordinary, generous”: OMI, pp. 59, 64.

  [>] Elective Affinities: FLI, p. 174.

  [>] “E.” should “suffice”: FLVI, p. 166.

  [>] “loved and loving”: Letters of James Freeman Clarke to Margaret Fuller, p. 17.

 

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