Chapter 10

'I have hesitated much whether to tell you what you ask about my religion. You are mistaken! I have not formed an opinion. I have determined not to form settled opinions at present. Loving or feeble natures need a positive religion, a visible refuge, a protection, as much in the passionate season of youth as in those stages nearer to the grave. But mine is not such. My pride is superior to any feelings I have yet experienced: my affection is strong admiration, not the necessity of giving or receiving assistance or sympathy. When disappointed, I do not ask or wish consolation,--I wish to know and feel my pain, to investigate its nature and its source; I will not have my thoughts diverted, or my feelings soothed; 'tis therefore that my young life is so singularly barren of illusions. I know, I feel the time must come when this proud and impatient heart shall be stilled, and turn from the ardors of Search and Action, to lean on something above. But--shall I say it?--the thought of that calmer era is to me a thought of deepest sadness; so remote from my present being is that future existence, which still the mind may conceive. I believe in Eternal Progression. I believe in a God, a Beauty and Perfection to which I am to strive all my life for assimilation. From these two articles of belief, I draw the rules by which I strive to regulate my life. But, though I reverence all religions as necessary to the happiness of man, I am yet ignorant of the religion of Revelation. Tangible promises! well defined hopes! are things of which I do not _now_ feel the need. At present, my soul is intent on this life, and I think of religion as its rule; and, in my opinion, this is the natural and proper course from youth to age. What I have written is not hastily concocted, it has a meaning. I have given you, in this little space, the substance of many thoughts, the clues to many cherished opinions. 'Tis a subject on which I rarely speak. I never said so much but once before. I have here given you all I know, or think, on the most important of subjects--could you but read understandingly!'

* * * * *

I find, in her journals for 1833, the following passages, expressing the religious purity of her aspirations at that time:--

'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. Remember thy child, such as thou madest her, and let her understand her little troubles, when possible, oh, beautiful Deity!'

* * * * *

'_Sunday morning_.--Mr.--preached on the nature of our duties, social and personal. The sweet dew of truth penetrated my heart like balm. He pointed out the various means of improvement, whereby the humblest of us may be beneficent at last. How just, how nobly true,--how modestly, yet firmly uttered,--his opinions of man,--of time,--of God!

'My heart swelled with prayer. I began to feel hope that time and toil might strengthen me to despise the "vulgar parts of felicity," and live as becomes an immortal creature. I am sure, quite sure, that I am getting into the right road. Oh, lead me, my Father! root out false pride and selfishness from my heart; inspire me with virtuous energy, and enable me to improve every talent for the eternal good of myself and others.'

A friend of Margaret, some years older than herself, gives me the following narrative:--

"I was," says she, in substance, "suffering keenly from a severe trial, and had secluded myself from all my friends, when Margaret, a girl of twenty, forced her way to me. She sat with me, and gave me her sympathy, and, with most affectionate interest, sought to draw me away from my gloom. As far as she was able, she gave me comfort. But as my thoughts were then much led to religious subjects, she sought to learn my religious experience, and listened to it with great interest. I told her how I had sat in darkness for two long years, waiting for the light, and in full faith that it would come; how I had kept my soul patient and quiet,--had surrendered self-will to God's will,--had watched and waited till at last His great mercy came in an infinite peace to my soul. Margaret was never weary of asking me concerning this state, and said, 'I would gladly give all my talents and knowledge for such an experience as this.'

"Several years after," continues this friend, "I was travelling with her, and we sat, one lovely night, looking at the river, as it rolled beneath the yellow moonlight. We spoke again of God's light in the soul, and I said--'Margaret! has that light dawned on _your_ soul?' She answered, 'I think it has. But, oh! it is so glorious that I fear it will not be permanent, and so precious that I dare not speak of it, lest it should be gone.'

"That was the whole of our conversation, and I did not speak to her again concerning it."

* * * * *

Before this time, however, during her residence at Cambridge, she seemed to reach the period of her existence in which she descended lowest into the depths of gloom. She felt keenly, at this time, the want of a home for her heart. Full of a profound tendency toward life, capable of an ardent love, her affections were thrown back on her heart, to become stagnant, and for a while to grow bitter there; Then it was that she felt how empty and worthless were all the attainments and triumphs of the mere intellect; then it was that "she went about to cause her heart to despair of all the labor she had taken under the sun." Had she not emerged from this valley of the shadow of death, and come on to a higher plane of conviction and hope, her life would have been a most painful tragedy. But, when we know how she passed on and up, ever higher and higher, to the mountain-top, leaving one by one these dark ravines and mist-shrouded valleys, and ascending to where a perpetual sunshine lay, above the region of clouds, and was able to overlook with eagle glance the widest panorama,--we can read, with sympathy indeed, but without pain, the following extracts from a journal:--

'It was Thanksgiving day, (Nov., 1831,) and I was obliged to go to church, or exceedingly displease my father. I almost always suffered much in church from a feeling of disunion with the hearers and dissent from the preacher; but to-day, more than ever before, the services jarred upon me from their grateful and joyful tone. I was wearied out with mental conflicts, and in a mood of most childish, child-like sadness. I felt within myself great power, and generosity, and tenderness; but it seemed to me as if they were all unrecognized, and as if it was impossible that they should be used in life. I was only one-and-twenty; the past was worthless, the future hopeless; yet I could not remember ever voluntarily to have done a wrong thing, and my aspiration seemed very high. I looked round the church, and envied all the little children; for I supposed they had parents who protected them, so that they could never know this strange anguish, this dread uncertainty. I knew not, then, that none could have any father but God. I knew not, that I was not the only lonely one, that I was not the selected Oedipus, the special victim of an iron law. I was in haste for all to be over, that I might get into the free air. * *

'I walked away over the fields as fast as I could walk. This was my custom at that time, when I could no longer bear the weight of my feelings, and fix my attention on any pursuit; for I do believe I never voluntarily gave way to these thoughts one moment. The force I exerted I think, even now, greater than I ever knew in any other character. But when I could bear myself no longer, I walked many hours, till the anguish was wearied out, and I returned in a state of prayer. To-day all seemed to have reached its height. It seemed as if I could never return to a world in which I had no place,--to the mockery of humanities. I could not act a part, nor seem to live any longer. It was a sad and sallow day of the late autumn. Slow processions of sad clouds were passing over a cold blue sky; the hues of earth were dull, and gray, and brown, with sickly struggles of late green here and there; sometimes a moaning gust of wind drove late, reluctant leaves across the path;--there was no life else. In the sweetness of my present peace, such days seem to me made to tell man the worst of his lot; but still that November wind can bring a chill of memory.

'I paused beside a little stream, which I had envied in the merry fulness of its spring life. It was shrunken, voiceless, choked with withered leaves. I marvelled that it did not quite lose itself in the earth. There was no stay for me, and I went on and on, till I came to where the trees were thick about a little pool, dark and silent. I sat down there. I did not think; all was dark, and cold, and still. Suddenly the sun shone out with that transparent sweetness, like the last smile of a dying lover, which it will use when it has been unkind all a cold autumn day. And, even then, passed into my thought a beam from its true sun, from its native sphere, which has never since departed from me. I remembered how, a little child. I had stopped myself one day on the stairs, and asked, how came I here? How is it that I seem to be this Margaret Fuller? What does it mean? What shall I do about it? I remembered all the times and ways in which the same thought had returned. I saw how long it must be before the soul can learn to act under these limitations of time and space, and human nature; but I saw, also, that it MUST do it,--that it must make all this false true,--and sow new and immortal plants in the garden of God, before it could return again. I saw there was no self; that selfishness was all folly, and the result of circumstance; that it was only because I thought self real that I suffered; that I had only to live in the idea of the ALL, and all was mine. This truth came to me, and I received it unhesitatingly; so that I was for that hour taken up into God. In that true ray most of the relations of earth seemed mere films, phenomena. * *

'My earthly pain at not being recognized never went deep after this hour. I had passed the extreme of passionate sorrow; and all check, all failure, all ignorance, have seemed temporary ever since. When I consider that this will be nine years ago next November, I am astonished that I have not gone on faster since; that I am not yet sufficiently purified to be taken back to God. Still, I did but touch then on the only haven of Insight. You know what I would say. I was dwelling in the ineffable, the unutterable. But the sun of earth set, and it grew dark around; the moment came for me to go. I had never been accustomed to walk alone at night, for my father was very strict on that subject, but now I had not one fear. When I came back, the moon was riding clear above the houses. I went into the churchyard, and there offered a prayer as holy, if not as deeply true, as any I know now; a prayer, which perhaps took form as the guardian angel of my life. If that word in the Bible, Selah, means what gray-headed old men think it does, when they read aloud, it should be written here,--Selah!

'Since that day, I have never more been completely engaged in self; but the statue has been emerging, though slowly, from the block. Others may not see the promise even of its pure symmetry, but I do, and am learning to be patient. I shall be all human yet; and then the hour will come to leave humanity, and live always in the pure ray.

'This first day I was taken up; but the second time the Holy Ghost descended like a dove. I went out again for a day, but this time it was spring. I walked in the fields of Groton. But I will not describe that day; its music still sounds too sweetly near. Suffice it to say, I gave it all into our Father's hands, and was no stern-weaving Fate more, but one elected to obey, and love, and at last know. Since then I have suffered, as I must suffer again, till all the complex be made simple, but I have never been in discord with the grand harmony.'

GROTON AND PROVIDENCE.

LETTERS AND JOURNALS.

* * * * *

"What hath not man sought out and found, But his dear God? Who yet his glorious love Embosoms in us, mellowing the ground With showers, and frosts, with love and awe."

HERBERT.

"No one need pride himself upon Genius, for it is the free-gift of God; but of honest Industry and true devotion to his destiny any man may well be proud; indeed, this thorough, integrity of purpose is itself the Divine Idea in its most common form, and no really honest mind is without communion with God"

FICHTE.

"God did anoint thee with his odorous oil, To wrestle, not to reign; and he assigns All thy tears over, like pure crystallines, For younger fellow-workers of the soil To wear for amulets. So others shall Take patience, labor, to their hearts and hands, From thy hands, and thy heart, and thy brave cheer, And God's grace fructify through thee to all."

ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

"While I was restless, nothing satisfied, Distrustful, most perplexed--yet felt somehow A mighty power was brooding, taking shape Within me; and this lasted till one night When, as I sat revolving it and more, A still voice from without said,--'Seest thou not, Desponding child, whence came defeat and loss? Even from thy strength.'"

BROWNING.

III.

GROTON AND PROVIDENCE.

* * * * *

'Heaven's discipline has been invariable to me. The seemingly most pure and noble hopes have been blighted; the seemingly most promising connections broken. The lesson has been endlessly repeated: "Be humble, patient, self-sustaining; hope only for occasional aids; love others, but not engrossingly, for by being much alone your appointed task can best be done!" What a weary work is before me, ere that lesson shall be fully learned! Who shall wonder at the stiff-necked, and rebellious folly of young Israel, bowing down to a brute image, though the prophet was bringing messages from the holy mountain, while one's own youth is so obstinately idolatrous! Yet will I try to keep the heart with diligence, nor ever fear that the sun is gone out because I shiver in the cold and dark!'

Such was the tone of resignation in which Margaret wrote from Groton, Massachusetts, whither, much to her regret, her father removed in the spring of 1833. Extracts from letters and journals will show how stern was her schooling there, and yet how constant was her faith, that

"God keeps a niche In heaven to hold our idols! And albeit He breaks them to our faces, and denies That our close kisses should impair their white, I know we shall behold them raised, complete, The dust shook from their beauty,--glorified, New Memnons singing in the great God-light."

SAD WELCOME HOME.

'_Groton, April_ 25, 1833.--I came hither, summoned by the intelligence, that our poor--had met with a terrible accident. I found the dear child,--who had left me so full of joy and eagerness, that I thought with a sigh, not of envy, how happy he, at least, would be here,--burning with fever. He had expected me impatiently, and was very faint lest it should not be "Margaret" who had driven up. I confess I greeted our new home with a flood of bitter tears. He behaves with great patience, sweetness, and care for the comfort of others. This has been a severe trial for mother, fatigued, too, as she was, and full of care; but her conduct is angelic. I try to find consolation in all kinds of arguments, and to distract my thoughts till the precise amount of injury is surely known. I am not idle a moment. When not-with--, in whose room I sit, sewing, and waiting upon him, or reading aloud a great part of the day, I solace my soul with Goethe, and follow his guidance into realms of the "Wahren, Guten, and Schönen."'

OCCUPATIONS.

'_May_, 1833.--As to German, I have done less than I hoped, so much had the time been necessarily broken up. I have with me the works of Goethe which I have not yet read, and am now engaged upon "Kunst and Alterthum," and "Campagne in Frankreich." I still prefer Goethe to any one, and, as I proceed, find more and more to learn, and am made to feel that my general notion of his mind is most imperfect, and needs testing and sifting.

'I brought your beloved Jean Paul with me, too. I cannot yet judge well, but think we shall not be intimate. His infinitely variegated, and certainly most exquisitely colored, web fatigues attention. I prefer, too, wit to humor, and daring imagination to the richest fancy. Besides, his philosophy and religion seem to be of the sighing sort, and, having some tendency that way myself, I want opposing force in a favorite author. Perhaps I have spoken unadvisedly; if so, I shall recant on further knowledge.'

And thus recant she did, when familiar acquaintance with the genial and sagacious humorist had won for him her reverent love.

RICHTER.

'Poet of Nature! Gentlest of the wise, Most airy of the fanciful, most keen Of satirists!--thy thoughts, like butterflies, Still near the sweetest scented flowers have been With Titian's colors thou canst sunset paint, With Raphael's dignity, celestial love; With Hogarth's pencil, each deceit and feint Of meanness and hypocrisy reprove;

Canst to devotion's highest flight sublime Exalt the mind, by tenderest pathos' art, Dissolve, in purifying tears, the heart, Or bid it, shuddering, recoil at crime; The fond illusions of the youth and maid, At which so many world-formed sages sneer, When by thy altar-lighted torch displayed, Our natural religion must appear. All things in thee tend to one polar star, Magnetic all thy influences are!'

'Some murmur at the "want of system" in Richter's writings.

'A labyrinth! a flowery wilderness! Some in thy "slip-boxes" and "honey-moons" Complain of--_want of order_, I confess, But not of _system_ in its highest sense. Who asks a guiding clue through this wide mind, In love of Nature such will surely find. In tropic climes, live like the tropic bird, Whene'er a spice-fraught grove may tempt thy stay; Nor be by cares of colder climes disturbed-- No frost the summer's bloom shall drive away; Nature's wide temple and the azure dome Have plan enough, for the free spirit's home!'

'Your Schiller has already given me great pleasure. I have been reading the "Revolt in the Netherlands" with intense interest, and have reflected much upon it. The volumes are numbered in my little book-case, and as the eye runs over them, I thank the friendly heart that put all this genius and passion within my power.

'I am glad, too, that you thought of lending me "Bigelow's Elements." I have studied the Architecture attentively, till I feel quite mistress of it all. But I want more engravings, Vitruvius, Magna Græcia, the Ionian Antiquities, &c. Meanwhile, I have got out all our tours in Italy. Forsyth, a book I always loved much, I have re-read with increased pleasure, by this new light. Goethe, too, studied architecture while in Italy; so his books are full of interesting information; and Madame De Stael, though not deep, is tasteful.'

* * * * *

'American History! Seriously, my mind is regenerating as to my country, for I am beginning to appreciate the United States and its great men. The violent antipathies,--the result of an exaggerated love for, shall I call it by so big a name as the "poetry of being?"--and the natural distrust arising from being forced to hear the conversation of half-bred men, all whose petty feelings were roused to awkward life by the paltry game of local politics,--are yielding to reason and calmer knowledge. Had I but been educated in the knowledge of such men as Jefferson, Franklin, Rush! I have learned now to know them partially. And I rejoice, if only because my father and I can have so much in common on this topic. All my other pursuits have led me away from him; here he has much information and ripe judgment. But, better still, I hope to feel no more that sometimes despairing, sometimes insolently contemptuous, feeling of incongeniality with my time and place. Who knows but some proper and attainable object of pursuit may present itself to the cleared eye? At any rate, wisdom is good, if it brings neither bliss nor glory.'

* * * * *

_March_, 1834.--Four pupils are a serious and fatiguing charge for one of my somewhat ardent and impatient disposition. Five days in the week I have given daily lessons in three languages, in Geography and History, besides many other exercises on alternate days. This has consumed often eight, always five hours of my day. There has been, also, a great deal of needle-work to do, which is now nearly finished, so that I shall not be obliged to pass my time about it when everything looks beautiful, as I did last summer. We have had very poor servants, and, for some time past, only one. My mother has been often ill. My grandmother, who passed the winter with us, has been ill. Thus, you may imagine, as I am the only grown-up daughter, that my time has been considerably taxed.

'But as, sad or merry, I must always be learning, I laid down a course of study at the beginning of winter, comprising certain subjects, about which I had always felt deficient. These were the History and Geography of modern Europe, beginning the former in the fourteenth century; the Elements of Architecture; the works of Alfieri, with his opinions on them; the historical and critical works of Goethe and Schiller, and the outlines of history of our own country.

'I chose this time as one when I should have nothing to distract or dissipate my mind. I have nearly completed this course, in the style I proposed,--not minute or thorough. I confess,--though I have had only three evenings in the week, and chance hours in the day, for it. I am very glad I have undertaken it, and feel the good effects already. Occasionally, I try my hand at composition, but have not completed anything to my own satisfaction. I have sketched a number of plans, but if ever accomplished, it must be in a season of more joyful energy, when my mind has been renovated, and refreshed by change of scene or circumstance. My translation of Tasso cannot be published at present, if 'it ever is.'

* * * * *