The Project Gutenberg EBook of Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I by Margaret Fuller Ossoli

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Title: Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I

Author: Margaret Fuller Ossoli

Release Date: August 3, 2004 [EBook #13105]

Language: English

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MEMOIRS

OF

MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI

VOL. I.

* * * * *

  Only a learned and a manly soul
    I purposed her, that should with even powers
  The rock, the spindle, and the shears control
    Of Destiny, and spin her own free hours.

BEN JONSON.

  Però che ogni diletto nostro e doglia
  Sta in si e nò saper, voler, potere;
  Adunque quel sol può, che col dovere
  Ne trae la ragion fuor di sua soglia.

  Adunque tu, lettor di queste note,
  S' a te vuoi esser buono, e agli altri caro,
  Vogli sempre poter quel che tu debbi.

LEONARDO DA VINCI

BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY. MDCCCLVII.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851,

BY R.F. FULLER,

    In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District
    of Massachusetts.

    Stereotyped by HOBART & ROBBINS;
    NEW ENGLAND TYPE AND STEREOTYPE
    FOUNDRY BOSTON.

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR VOLUME FIRST.

I. YOUTH. AUTOBIOGRAPHY PARENTS DEATH IN THE HOUSE OVERWORK THE WORLD OF BOOKS FIRST FRIEND SCHOOL-LIFE SELF-CULTURE

II. CAMBRIDGE, By J.F. Clarke
  FRIENDSHIP
  CONVERSATION.—SOCIAL INTERCOURSE
  STUDIES
  CHARACTER.—AIMS AND IDEAS OF LIFE

III. GROTON AND PROVIDENCE. LETTERS AND JOURNALS SAD WELCOME HOME OCCUPATIONS MISS MARTINEAU ILLNESS DEATH OF HER FATHER TRIAL BIRTH-DAY DEATH IN LIFE LITERATURE FAREWELL TO GROTON WINTER IN BOSTON PROVIDENCE SCHOOL EXPERIENCES PERSONS ART FANNY KEMBLE MAGNANIMITY SPIRITUAL LIFE FAREWELL TO SUMMER

IV. CONCORD, By R.W. Emerson
  ARCANA
  DÆMONOLOGY
  TEMPERAMENT
  SELF-ESTEEM
  BOOKS
  CRITICISM
  NATURE
  ART
  LETTERS
  FRIENDSHIP
  PROBLEMS OF LIFE
  WOMAN, OR ARTIST?
  HEROISM
  TRUTH
  ECSTASY
  CONVERSATION

V. BOSTON, By R.W. Emerson
  CONVERSATIONS ON THE FINE ARTS

YOUTH.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

* * * * *

  "Aus Morgenduft gewebt und Sonnenklarheit
  Der Dichtung Schleir aus der Hand der Wahrheit."

GOETHE.

            "The million stars which tremble
  O'er the deep mind of dauntless infancy."

TENNYSON.

  "Wie leicht ward er dahin gefragen,
     Was war dem Glücklichen zu schwer!
  Wie tanzte vor des Lebens Wagen
     Die luftige Begleitung her!
  Die Liebe mit dem süssen Lohne,
     Das Glück mit seinem gold'nen Kranz,
  Der Ruhm mit seiner Sternenkrone,
     Die Wahrheit in der Sonne Glanz."

SCHILLER

  What wert thou then? A child most infantine,
  Yet wandering far beyond that innocent age,
  In all but its sweet looks and mien divine;
  Even then, methought, with the world's tyrant rage
  A patient warfare thy young heart did wage,
  When those soft eyes of scarcely conscious thought
  Some tale, or thine own fancies, would engage
  To overflow with tears, or converse fraught
  With passion o'er their depths its fleeting light had wrought.'

SHELLE

  "And I smiled, as one never smiles but once;
  Then first discovering my own aim's extent,
  Which sought to comprehend the works of God.
  And God himself, and all God's intercourse
  With the human mind."

BROWNING.

I.

YOUTH.

* * * * *

'Tieck, who has embodied so many Runic secrets, explained to me what I have often felt toward myself, when he tells of the poor changeling, who, turned from the door of her adopted home, sat down on a stone and so pitied herself that she wept. Yet me also, the wonderful bird, singing in the wild forest, has tempted on, and not in vain.'

Thus wrote Margaret in the noon of life, when looking back through
youth to the "dewy dawn of memory." She was the eldest child of
Timothy Fuller and Margaret Crane, and was born in Cambridge-Port,
Massachusetts, on the 23d of May, 1810.

Among her papers fortunately remains this unfinished sketch of youth, prepared by her own hand, in 1840, as the introductory chapter to an autobiographical romance.

PARENTS.

'My father was a lawyer and a politician. He was a man largely endowed with that sagacious energy, which the state of New England society, for the last half century, has been so well fitted to develop. His father was a clergyman, settled as pastor in Princeton, Massachusetts, within the bounds of whose parish-farm was Wachuset. His means were small, and the great object of his ambition was to send his sons to college. As a boy, my father was taught to think only of preparing himself for Harvard University, and when there of preparing himself for the profession of Law. As a Lawyer, again, the ends constantly presented were to work for distinction in the community, and for the means of supporting a family. To be an honored citizen, and to have a home on earth, were made the great aims of existence. To open the deeper fountains of the soul, to regard life here as the prophetic entrance to immortality, to develop his spirit to perfection,—motives like these had never been suggested to him, either by fellow-beings or by outward circumstances. The result was a character, in its social aspect, of quite the common sort. A good son and brother, a kind neighbor, an active man of business—in all these outward relations he was but one of a class, which surrounding conditions have made the majority among us. In the more delicate and individual