(1810-1850)
"I have always said it: Nature meant to make woman its masterpiece."
—Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Margaret Fuller was born in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, May 23, 1810. Her parents were people of great culture and refinement, and devotedly attached to each other. Margaret wrote years after her father's death:
"His love for my mother was the green spot on which he stood apart from the commonplaces of a mere bread-winning existence. She was one of those fair, flowerlike natures, which sometimes spring up even beside the most dusty highways of life. Of all persons whom I have known, she had in her most of the angelic."
It was not surprising therefore that Margaret should have inherited a beautiful nature and a fine mind. She became the idol of her father, who was fifty years in advance of his neighbors in his ideas of bringing up girls. Mr. Fuller believed that his daughter should have as good an education as his boys! But since there were no girls' colleges, and the boys' colleges were closed to them, he was obliged to teach Margaret himself.
At six years of age this clever child began to read Latin. Once, when she was eight, her father found her so absorbed in Romeo and Juliet that she did not hear him when he spoke to her. It is probable that much of Margaret's later ill-health was the result of the severe mental work demanded of her in childhood by her father.
Mr. Fuller was certainly very ambitious that Margaret should excel in her studies. Often she remained up until late at night reciting to him, not knowing that she was working beyond her strength.
She describes her life at the age of fifteen in the following manner:
"I rise a little before five, walk an hour, and then practice on the piano until seven, when we breakfast. Next, I read French till eight; then two or three lectures in Brown's Philosophy. About half past nine, I go to Mr. Perkins's School and study Greek till twelve, when, the school being dismissed, I recite, go home, and practice again till dinner at two. Then when I can, I read two hours in Italian."