Julia Ward Howe

“ It was upon this best and wisest womanhood that Margaret relied for the standard which should redeem the sex 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. ”

“ Channing hall known Margaret through her intellect only. This conversation of many hours revealed her to him in a new light. It unfolded to him her manifola, gifts and her deep experience, her great capacity for joy, and the suffering through which she had passed. She should have been an acknowledged queen among the magnates of European culture: she was hedged about by the narrow intolerance of provincial New England.
In a more generous soil her genius would have borne fruit of the highest order. ”

“ To those of us who remember these things in the vividness of their living presence, it is most satisfactory to be assured of the excellence of Margaret's judgment. The great Frenchwoman, at the period of which we write, appeared to many the incarnation of all the era which her sex could represent. To those of opposite mind she appeared the inspired prophetess of a new era of thought and of sentiment. To Margaret she was neither the one nor the other. Much as she loved genius, that of George Sand could not blind her to the faults and falsities that marred her work. ”

“ In the autumn of 1836 Margaret left Groton not without acknowledgment of "many precious lessons given there in faith, fortitude, self-command, and unselfish love.
"There, too, in solitude, the mind acquired more power of concentration, and discerned the beauty of strict method; there, too, more than all, the heart was awaked to sympathize with the ignorant, to pity the vulgar, to hope for the seemingly worthless, and to commune with the Divine Spirit of Creation." ”

“ 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." ”

“ She had given up her gay freaks and amusing inventions, and devoted herself assiduously to her studies. But the offence which she had received rankled in her breast. As not one of her fellow-pupils had stood by her in her hour of need, she regarded them as all alike perfidious and ungrateful, and, "born for love, now hated all the world."
This morbid condition of mind led to a result still more unhappy. Masking her real resentment beneath a calm exterior, Margaret received the confidences of her school-fellows, and used their unguarded speech to promote discord among them. ”

“ I am only a woman," was a remark often heard in that day, as in this, from women to whom that "only" was not to be permitted! Only the guardian of the beginning of life, only the sharer in all its duties and inspirations? Culture and Christianity recognised as much as this, but the doctrine still remained an abstract one, and equal rights were scarcely thought of as a corollary to equal duties. Margaret never saw, though she foresaw, the awakening and recognition of the new womanhood which is already changing the aspect of civilised society. ”

“ In the later Papal Rome she discerns, through the confusion of rite and legend, a sense which to her marks the growth of the human spirit struggling to develop its life.” And the Rome of that day was dear to her in spite of its manifold corruptions; dear for the splendour of the race, surviving every enslaving and deforming influence; dear for the new-born hope of freedom which she considered safe in the nursing of Pope Pius.
Most of the occasions chronicled by Margaret in her letters of this period are of the sort familiarly known to travellers, and even to readers of books of travel. ”

“ Youth, beauty, sex, all imperial in their day, are discrowned by the dusty kind of Time, and ranged in the gallery of the things that were. George Sand's volumes still glow and sparkle on the hook-shelf; but George Sand's personality and her passions are dim visions of the past, and touch us no longer. When Margaret wrote of her, the woman was at the zenith of her power, and the intoxication of her influence was so great that a calm judgment concerning it was difficult. ”

“ Carlyle, on his side, writes of her to Emerson:—
"Margaret is an excellent soul: in real regard with both of us here. Since she went, I have been reading some of her papers in a new Book we have got: greatly superior to all I knew before: in fact, the undeniable utterances (now first undeniable to me) of a truly heroic mind; altogether unique, so far as I know, among the writing women of this generation; rare enough, too, God knows, among the writing men. She is very narrow, sometimes, but she is truly high. Honour to Margaret, and more and more good speed to her." ”

“ The circle of the Transcendentalists was, for the moment, a new church, with the joy and pain of a new evangel in its midst. In the very heart of New England Pupitanism, at that day hard, dry, and thorny, had sprung up a new growth, like the blossoming of a century-plant, beautiful and inconvenient. Boundaries had to be enlarged for it; for if society would not give it room, it was determined to go outside of society, and to assert, at all hazards, the freedom of inspiration. ”

“ Even at this self-sacrificing period of her life Margaret's journals were full of prayer and aspiration. Here are some of the utterances of this soul, which she herself calls a proud one: “Blessed Father, nip every foolish Wish in blossom. Lead me any way to truth and goodness, but if it might be, I would not pass from idol to idol. Let no mean sculpture deform a mind disorderly, perhaps ill-furnished, but spacious and life-warm. ”

“ This soon became clear to her, and she determined, in spite of the entreatics of her family, to remain with her care-worn móther, and not to risk the possibility of encroaching upon the fund necessary for the education of her brothers and sister.
Of all the crownings of Margaret's life, shall we not most envy her that of this act of sacrifice? So near to the feast of the gods, she prefers the fast of duty, and recognizes the claims of family affection as more imperative than the gratification of any personal taste or ambition. ”

“ This exaggerated sense of power is perhaps nothing more than the intensification of consciousness which certain exigencies will awaken in those who meet them with a special work to do and a special gift to do it with. It must be remembered that Margaret's self-esteem did not really involve any disesteem of others. She honoured in all their best traits, and her only ground of quarrel with humanity at large was its derogation from its own dignity, its neglect of its own best interests. ”

“ To follow Margaret through all the fluctuations and excitements consequent upon these events would be no easy task. She was obviously in close relations with leading Italian liberals, and probably trusted their statements and shared their hopes, fears, and resentments. Constant always in her faith in human nature, and in her zeal for the emancipation of Italy, the dissolving view before her could leave her no other fixed belief. Her favourites, her beloved Italian people, even her adored Rome, appeared to her at different times in very various lights. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Add the eighteen years of her imprisonment, and the fact that this foolish, prodigal world, when there was in it one woman fitted by her grace and loveliness to charm all eyes and enliven all fancies, suffered her to be shut up to water with her tears her dull embroidery during the full rose-blossom of her life, and you will hardly get, beyond this story for a tragedy, not noble, but pallid and forlorn. ”

“ Of these, Margaret deeply knows the value. But, in her view, these duties will never be noble, these graces sincere, until women stand as firmly as men do upon the ground of individual freedom and legal justice.
“If principles could be established, particulars would adjust themselves aright. Ascertain the true destiny of woman; give her legitimate hopes, and it standard within herself. . . . What woman needs is not as a woman to act or .mula but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded. ”

“ 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 unbiassed 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. ”

“ The world of the last decade and of the present is too deeply wedded to the hard worship of money to be touched by the pathos of women who perish, or of men who starve. The grievances of the poor against the rich find to-day no one to give car to them, and few even to utter them; since those who escape starvation are too busy with beggary and plunder to waste time in such useless musings. Of the three here cited, Balzac alone remains a king among novelists; and Margaret's study of him imports as much to us today as it did to the world of her time. ”

“ Beyond and unguessed lay the mysteries of fate, from whose depths she was never to emerge in her earthly form. Margaret already possessed the spirit of all that is most valuable in European culture. She knew the writers of the Old World by study, its brave souls by sympathy, its works of art, more imperfectly, through copies and engravings. ”

“ Two ideal sketches, "The Rich Man" and "The Poor Man," are also preserved in this volume, and are noticeable as treating of differences and difficulties which have rather become aggravated than diminished since Margaret's time. The "Rich Man" is a merchant, who "sees in commerce a representation of most important interests, a grand school that may teach the heart and soul of the civilised world to a willing, thinking mind. He plays his part in the game, but not for himself alone. He sees the interests of all mankind engaged with his, and remembers them while he furthers his own." ”

“ He dreaded the encounter of a personality so imperious and uncompromising in its demands, and was content to observe her at a safe and respectful distance. Soon, however, through the "shining fog" of brilliant wit and sentiment the real nobility of her nature made itself seen and felt. He found her sagacious in her judgments. Her conversation showed breadth of culture and depth of thought. Above all, he was made to feel her great sincerity of purpose. ”

“ Her exuberant fancy demanded outlets which the restraints of boarding-school life would not allow. The unwonted excitement produced by contact with other young people vented itself in fantastic acts and freaks, amusing but tormenting. The art of living with one's kind had not formed a part of Margaret's home education. Her nervous system had already, no doubt, been seriously disturbed by overwork.
Some plays were devised for the amusement of the pupils, and in these Margaret found herself entirely at home. ”