The transcendental paradox: Margaret Fuller and the cold atmosphere of genius

“ Amidst materialists, zealots, and sceptics, the Transcendentalist believed in perpetual inspiration, the miraculous power of will, and a birthright to universal good. He sought to hold communion face to face with the unnameable Spirit of his spirit, and gave himself up to the embrace of nature's beautiful joy, as a babe seeks the breast of a mother. ”

“ In summing up his account of this part of Margaret's life, Mr. Clarke characterises self-culture as the object in which she was content to lose sight of all others. Her devotion to this great end was, he says, "wholly religious, and almost Christian." She was religious in her recognition of the divine element in human experience, and Christian in her elevation above the sordid interests of life, and in her devotion to the highest standards of duty and of destiny. ”

“ But how much better to pursue with devotion, like that of Margaret, an imperfect aim, than to worship with lip-service, as most persons do, even though it be in a loftier temple, and before a holier shrine! With Margaret, the doctrine of self-culture was a devotion to which she sacrificed all earthly hopes and joys,—everything but manifest duty. And so her course was "onward, ever onward," like that of Schiller, to her last hour of life. ”

“ I am obliged to an ingenious correspondent for the substance of the following account of this idiosyncrasy:—
Margaret was one of the few persons who looked upon life as an art, and every person not merely as an artist, but as a work of art. She looked upon herself as a living statue, which should always stand on a polished pedestal, with right accessories, and under the most fitting lights. She would have been glad to have everybody so live and act. ”

“ But how much better to pursue with devotion, like that of Margaret, an imperfect aim, than to worship with lip-service, as most persons do, even though it be in a loftier temple, and before a holier shrine! With Margaret, the doctrine of self-culture was a devotion to which she sacrificed all earthly hopes and joys, — everything but manifest duty. And so her course was “onward, ever onward,” like that of Schiller, to her last hour of life.
Burned in her cheek with ever deepening fire
The spirit’s YOUTH, which never passes by ”

“ Here, as elsewhere, the gain of creation consists always in the growth of individual minds, which live and aspire, as flowers bloom and birds sing, in the midst of morasses; and in the continual development of that thought, the thought of human destiny, which is given to eternity adequately to express, and which ages of failure only seemingly impede. Only seemingly, and whatever seems to the contrary, this country is as surely destined to elucidate a great moral law, as Europe was to promote the mental culture of man. ”

“ By purity and freedom let me teach them justice.’ And yet again: — ‘There comes a consciousness that I have no real hold on life, — no real, permanent connection with any soul. I seem a wandering Intelligence, driven from spot to spot, that I may learn all secrets, and fulfil a circle of knowledge. This thought envelopes me as a cold atmosphere. I do not see how I shall go through this destiny. I can, if it is mine; but I do not feel that I can.’
Casual observers mistook Margaret’s lofty idealism for personal pride ”

“ There is an implication of a fundamental falsehood in every bit of Transcendentalism, including Emerson. That falsehood consists in the theory of the self-sufficiency of each individual, men and women alike. Margaret Fuller is a good example of the effect of this philosophy, because her history afterward showed that she was constituted like other human beings, was dependent upon human relationship, and was not only a very noble, but also a very womanly creature. ”

“ Again: ‘With the intellect I always have, always shall, overcome; but that is not the half of the work. The life, the life! O, my God! shall the life never be sweet?’
I have inquired diligently of those who saw her often, and in different companies, concerning her habitual tone, and something like this is the report: — In conversation, Margaret seldom, except as a special grace, admitted others upon an equal ground with herself. ”

“ No old one suits me. If I could invent one, it seems to me the pleasure of creation would make it possible for me to write. What shall I do, dear friend? I want force to be either a genius or a character. One should be either private or public. I love best to be a woman; but womanhood is at present too straitly-bounded to give me scope. At hours, I live truly as a woman; at others, I should stifle; as, on the other hand, I should palsy, when I would play the artist.’
HEROISM.
These practical problems Margaret had to entertain and to solve the best way she could. ”

“ The status of New England, social and political, was founded upon liberal traditions. Yet these friends placed themselves in opposition to the whole existing order of things. The Unitarian discipline had delivered them from the yoke of doctrines impossible to an age of critical culture. They reproached it with having taken away the mystical ideas which, in imaginative minds, had made the poetry of the old faith. Margaret writing of these things in 1840. well says: “Since the Revolution there has been little in the circumstances of this country to call out the higher sentiments. ”

“ The infrequency of acquaintance with any of the great fathers of English lore marks this state of things.
‘New England is now old enough, — some there have leisure enough, — to look at all this; and the consequence is a violent reäction, in a small minority, against a mode of culture that rears such fruits. They see that political freedom does not necessarily produce liberality of mind, nor freedom im church institutions — vital religion; and, seeing that these changes cannot be wrought from without inwards, they are trying to quicken the soul, that they may work from within outwards. ”

“ From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all. A man is the façade of a temple, wherein all wisdom and all good abide."
We stand now at the centre of Emerson's philosophy. His thoughts are few and pregnant; capable of infinite expansion, [Pg 238] illustration and application. They crop out on almost every page of his characteristic writings; are iterated and reiterated in every form of speech; and put into gems of expression that may be worn on any part of the person. His prose and his poetry are aglow with them. ”

“ Amidst these meetings of the Transcendentalists it was, that, after years of separation, I again found Margaret. Of this body she was member by grace of nature. Her romantic freshness of heart, her craving for the truth, her self-trust, had prepared her from childhood to be a pioneer in prairie-land; and her discipline in German schools had given definite form and tendency to her idealism. Her critical yet aspiring intellect filled her with longing for germs of positive affirmation in place of the chaff of thrice-sifted negation ”

“ Genius will live and thrive without training, but it does not the less reward the watering-pot and pruning-knife. Let the mind take its own course, and it is apt to fix too exclusively on a pursuit or set of pursuits to which it will devote itself till there is not strength for others, till the mind stands in the relation to a well-balanced mind, that the body of the blacksmith does to that of the gladiator. ”

“ But the mind of Wordsworth, like that of the man of science, finds enough of beauty in the real present world. He delights in penetrating the designs of God, rather than in sketching designs of his own. Generally speaking, minds in which the faculty of observation is so prominent, have little enthusiasm, little dignity of sentiment. That is, indeed, an intellect of the first order, which can see the great in the little, and dignify the petty operations of Nature, by tracing through them her most sublime principles. ”

“ Yet it is not the highest aim, for in all its forms, whether as personal improvement, the salvation of the soul, or ascetic religion, it has at its core a profound selfishness. Margaret's soul was too generous for any low form of selfishness. Too noble to become an Epicurean, too large-minded to become a modern ascetic, the defective nature of her rule of life, showed itself in her case, only in a certain supercilious tone toward “the vulgar herd,” in the absence (at this period) of a tender humanity, and in an idolatrous hero-worship of genius and power. ”

“ Those to whom she never was a living presence may naturally ask of those who profess to have known her, whether this injustice did not originate with herself, whether she did not do herself injustice by habitually presenting herself in an attitude which was calculated to heighten the idea, already conceived, of her arrogance and overweening self-esteem. ”

“ They cut open the bellows of life to see where the wind comes from. Margaret Fuller analyzes Emerson, and Emerson Margaret Fuller. It is not a wholesome ebullition of vitality. It is a nightmare, in which the emotions, the terror, the agony, the rapture, are all unreal, and have no vital content, no consequence in the world outside. It is positively wonderful that so much excitement and so much suffering should have left behind nothing in the field of art which is valuable. All that intelligence could do toward solving problems for his friends Emerson did. ”

“ When we consider Margaret's love of literature, and her power of making its treasures her own, we must think of this passion of hers for availing intercourse with other minds as indeed a providential gift which no doubt lavished in passing speech much that would have been eloquent on paper, but which evidently had on society the immediate and intensified effect which distinguishes the living word above the dead letter. ”

“ When I knew Margaret, I was so young, and perhaps too much disposed to meet people on my own ground, that I may not be able to do justice to her. Her nature was so large and receptive, so sympathetic with youth and genius, so aspiring, and withal so womanly in her understanding, that she made her companion think more of himself, and of a common life, than of herself. She was a companion as few others, if indeed any one, have been. Her heart was underneath her intellectualness, her mind was reverent, her spirit devout; a thinker without dryness; a scholar without pedantry. ”

“ So tender was her affection, that, like a guardian genius, she made her friends’ souls her own, and identified herself with their fortunes; and yet, so pure and high withal was her justice, that, in her recognition of their past success and present claims, there came a summons for fresh endeavor after the perfect. The very thought of her roused manliness to emulate the vigorous freedom, with which one was assured, that wherever placed she was that instant acting; and the mere mention of her name was an inspiration of magnanimity, and faithfulness, and truth. ”

“ The friend whom we now quote is so much impressed by Margaret's power as to say: "I cannot conceive of any species of vanity living in, her presence. She distances all who talk with her." Even Emerson served only to display her powers, his uncompromising idealism seeming narrow and hard when contrasted with her glowing realism. “She proceeds in her search after the unity of things, the divine harmony, not by exclusion, as Emerson does, but by comprehension, and so no poorest, saddest spirit but she will lead to hope and faith." ”

“ William Henry Channing, whose reminiscences of Margaret stand fast in order in the memoirs 'already published, was more nearly allied to her in character than either of his coadjutors. If Emerson's bane was a want of fusion, the ruling characteristic of Mr. Channing was a heart that melted almost too easily at the touch of human sympathy, and whose heat and glow of feeling may sometimes have overswept the calmer power of judgment. He had heard of Margaret in her school-girl days as a prodigy of talent and attainment. ”

“ Only the little men of mere talent deserve a place at Le Sage’s supper of the authors. Genius cannot be forever on the wing; it craves a home, a holy land; it carries reliquaries in the bosom; it craves cordial draughts from the goblets of other pilgrims. It is always pious, always chivalric; the artist, like the Preux, throws down his shield to embrace the antagonist, who has been able to pierce it; and the greater the genius, the more do we glow with delight at his power of feeling,—need of feeling reverence not only for the creative soul, but for its manifestation through fellow men. ”

“ Ossoli will be a good father. He has very little of what is called intellectual development, but has unspoiled instincts, affections pure and constant, and a quiet sense of duty which, to me who have seen much of the great faults in characters of enthusiasm and genius, seems of highest value. ”

“ One other point of tacit antagonism between us may as well be noted. Margaret was always a most earnest, devoted champion of the Emancipation of Women, from their past and present condition of inferiority, to an independence on Men. She demanded for them the fullest recognition of Social and Political Equality with the rougher sex; the freest access to all stations, professions, employments, which are open to any. To this demand I heartily acceded. It seemed to me, however, that her clear perceptions of abstract right were often overborne, in practice, by the influence of education and habit ”

“ The intellect, no more than the sense of hearing, is to be cultivated merely that she may be a more valuable companion to man, but because the Power who gave a power, by its mere existence, signifies that it must be brought out towards perfection.
In this regard of self-dependence, and a greater simplicity and fulness of being, we must hail as a preliminary the increase of the class contemptuously designated as old maids.
We cannot wonder at the aversion with which old bachelors and old maids have been regarded. Marriage is the natural means of forming a sphere, of taking root on the earth ”

“ A profound thinker has said, "No married woman can represent the female world, for she belongs to her husband. The idea of Woman must be represented by a virgin."
But that is the very fault of marriage, and of the present relation between the sexes, that the woman does belong to the man, instead of forming a whole with him. Were it otherwise, there would be no such limitation to the thought.
Woman, self-centred, would never be absorbed by any relation; it would be only an experience to her as to man. It is a vulgar error that love, a love, to Woman is her whole existence ”

“ The especial genius of Woman I believe to be electrical in movement, intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency. She excels not so easily in classification, or recreation, as in an instinctive seizure of causes, and a simple breathing out of what she receives, that has the singleness of life, rather than the selecting and energizing of art.
More native is it to her to be the living model of the artist than to set apart from herself any one form in objective reality; more native to inspire and receive the poem, than to create it. ”

“ For the poet, contemplating the world of things, selects various birds as the symbols of his most gracious and ethereal thoughts, just as he calls upon his genius, as muse, rather than as God. But the intellect, cold, is ever more masculine than feminine; warmed by emotion, it rushes towards mother earth, and puts on the forms of beauty.
The electrical, the magnetic element in woman has not been fairly brought out at any period. Every thing might be expected from it; she has far more of it than man. ”

“ Here, as elsewhere, the gain of creation consists always in the growth of individual minds, which live and aspire, as flowers bloom and birds sing, in the midst of morasses; and in the continual development of that thought, the thought of human destiny, which is given to eternity adequately to express, and which ages of failure only seemingly impede. Only seemingly; and whatever seems to the contrary, this country is as surely destined to elucidate a great moral law, as Europe was to promote the mental culture of Man. ”

“ But if we are disposed to rank a fragmentary greatness above a narrow perfection, to value loftiness of aim more than the complete attainment of an inferior object, we must set Margaret Fuller, despite all errors of judgment, all faults of style, very high among the “Writing Women” of America. It is time that, ceasing to discuss her personal traits, we dwelt only upon the permanent and essential, in her whose mind was fixed upon the permanent, the essential. Her place in our literature is her own ”

“ That of Angelo was buried at Fire Island, with much mourning on the part of the surviving sailors, whose pet and play-mate he had been. It was afterwards removed to the cemetery at Mount Auburn, where, beneath a marble monument which commemorates the life and death of his parents, and his own, he alone lies buried, the only one of Margaret's treasures that ever reached the country of her birth.
Death gives an unexpected completeness to the view of individual character. The secret of a noble life is only fully unfolded when its outward envelope has met the fate of all things perishable. ”